Advice on what to upgrade

[xDanori]

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227437

I bought this computer in the beginning of last year, would like to try and keep it current as I'm playing on it a fair bit.

I mostly play WoW, Diablo3, and GW2 but would like to branch out into the newer games hitting the shelves this year.

May want to mention your budget, resolution n such.

My budget is about 300 Dollars or so. Running at 1980x1080

I'm extremely new to upgrading also. I have no idea what a better graphics card would be or anything D:

[Soisoisoi]

May want to mention your budget, resolution n such.

[Heathy]

ppl are probably going to want to know your budget, but for example if you want to just get a performance increase while spending as little as possible, maybe look into a good PSU & GPU.

considering it says on your link that pc came witha 300w psu, i'd maybe find a decent 500w and maybe a GPU that takes a power connector then you'll get a performance boost without replacing the whole thing.

although your cpu and mobo are AM3+ your max ram speed is 1333mhz, so you couldn't go for faster ram, ie 1600 or 1866, in which case if you looking to the future you probably will want a newer mobo and cpu and ofc ram at some point.

[xDanori]

ppl are probably going to want to know your budget, but for example if you want to just get a performance increase while spending as little as possible, maybe look into a good PSU & GPU.

considering it says on your link that pc came witha 300w psu, i'd maybe find a decent 500w and maybe a GPU that takes a power connector then you'll get a performance boost without replacing the whole thing.

although your cpu and mobo are AM3+ your max ram speed is 1333mhz, so you couldn't go for faster ram, ie 1600 or 1866, in which case if you looking to the future you probably will want a newer mobo and cpu and ofc ram at some point.

Would it just be easier to start from scratch or work on changing all of the parts in this?

[Soisoisoi]

Would it just be easier to start from scratch or work on changing all of the parts in this?

Well if your budget is $300 you won't be able to start from scratch. Like Heathy said, your PSU is in desperate need of an upgrade - and then probably GPU after that. Just make sure the PSU is from a reputable brand (Corsair, for example), and has at least 80+ Bronze on it.

[Heathy]

yes it probably would be better to get a whole new rig, your current one isn't terrible (because its about on par with mine), it would probably see quite a decent performance increase with a good gpu like a r9 270x or even a 750ti, but you will want a better power supply to go with it, 300w seems quite low to me.

for $300 you could get a PSU & GPU and maybe even a small SSD to decrease your load times, it probably wouldn't be a massive help but it would be something.

[xDanori]

Well if your budget is $300 you won't be able to start from scratch. Like Heathy said, your PSU is in desperate need of an upgrade - and then probably GPU after that. Just make sure the PSU is from a reputable brand (Corsair, for example), and has at least 80+ Bronze on it.

Well the start from scratch was waiting till I had a bit of extra money and then work from there. The 300$ was just what I had on hand. I was curious as to what would be the best band for my buck.

[bbr]

GPU doesn't do "a lot" when it comes to performance in games.
Ram will go a long way for a low price, but generally your GPU will have the most effect when upgraded.
If you're just looking for game loading times - an average size SSD will do wonders, and you can hook it up next to your regular HD.

[Stormspark]

Basically, there's no way to upgrade it. A more powerful video card would just be bottlenecked by the CPU. Basically, you will need to replace motherboard + CPU + video card to get any substantial gains (and possibly power supply).

[Heathy]

unless he wants dual titans i think he'll be hard pressed to find a card that will bottleneck on the cpu, i mean, average gpu's clock at about 1000mhz, most cpus clock over 4ghz, bottleneck chance = minimal.

ram speed on the other hand, a newer am3+ mobo would probably let the op get faster ram, upto maybe 2133mhz, reading recently that for gaming at the very least 1600mhz ram and preferably 1866 is what you should be looking at from a gaming perspective.

its a tough one because like my a8, the single core performance on these chips isn't that bad so a full upgrade isn't entirely worth it yet unless he wants to start playing new games on ultra in that case your looking at dropping over $1000 for an i7 with trimmings. if he just wants to be able to crank the games he plays up a bit, thats entirely possible with a newer gpu and psu.

mainly because all of the games he mentioned are single threaded anyway.

[xDanori]

unless he wants dual titans i think he'll be hard pressed to find a card that will bottleneck on the cpu, i mean, average gpu's clock at about 1000mhz, most cpus clock over 4ghz, bottleneck chance = minimal.

ram speed on the other hand, a newer am3+ mobo would probably let the op get faster ram, upto maybe 2133mhz, reading recently that for gaming at the very least 1600mhz ram and preferably 1866 is what you should be looking at from a gaming perspective.

its a tough one because like my a8, the single core performance on these chips isn't that bad so a full upgrade isn't entirely worth it yet unless he wants to start playing new games on ultra in that case your looking at dropping over $1000 for an i7 with trimmings. if he just wants to be able to crank the games he plays up a bit, thats entirely possible with a newer gpu and psu.

mainly because all of the games he mentioned are single threaded anyway.

What GPU would you recommend me getting?

[Heathy]

Well the 750ti doesn't require a power connector and is probably the best card you can get for low profile cards, the r7 260x uses more power and requires a connector. it really depends on what your comfortable with, either one really you'll want a better power supply to go with it, then at least if you do upgrade fully you'll have a power supply and a semi decent gpu to put into your new build. all you'd have to save for then is a mobo, cpu ram and the other smaller peripherals like a hdd/dvdrom/kb/mouse etc etc.

you can pick up motherboard, cpu and ram bundles quite easily these days usually priced quite well too. if you plan to upgrade fully there is nothing stopping you doing it slowly, using the parts you can afford now in your current rig, then swap them over when you can afford the rest. shop around though, its quite easy to figure out whats best for your price range (most places are very layman.)

because your doing 1080p you'll probably want a 2gb card, for a powersupply, like treelife said above try aim for one thats 80+ bronze perhaps something like This, either one of those cards and the PSU should bring you to about $200. i think you'll see quite a reasonable performance increase over your 7750. (example 1 )(example 2) the r7 260 is a bit cheaper than the 750ti but, what you save on the card you make up in power consumption. you could also check out the r9 series although they are a bit more expensive bringing you right to your budget cap.

thing to note is that, ddr4 ram is supposedly being released this year, so, if you hold off on upgrading the mobo/cpu/ram until then you should be able to save quite a bit on ddr3 ram. the price should come down on it. which means the bundles will drop in price too.

[xDanori]

Well the 750ti doesn't require a power connector and is probably the best card you can get for low profile cards, the r7 260x uses more power and requires a connector. it really depends on what your comfortable with, either one really you'll want a better power supply to go with it, then at least if you do upgrade fully you'll have a power supply and a semi decent gpu to put into your new build. all you'd have to save for then is a mobo, cpu ram and the other smaller peripherals like a hdd/dvdrom/kb/mouse etc etc

you can pick up motherboard, cpu and ram bundles quite easily these days usually priced quite well too. if you plan to upgrade fully there is nothing stopping you doing it slowly, using the parts you can afford now in your current rig, then swap them over when you can afford the rest. shop around though, its quite easy to figure out whats best for your price range (most places are very layman.)

because your doing 1080p you'll probably want a 2gb card, for a powersupply, like treelife said above try aim for one thats 80+ bronze perhaps something like This, either one of those cards and the PSU should bring you to about $200. i think you'll see quite a reasonable performance increase over your 7750. (example 1 )(example 2) the r7 260 is a bit cheaper than the 750ti but, what you save on the card you make up in power consumption. you could also check out the r9 series although they are a bit more expensive bringing you right to your budget cap.

thing to note is that, ddr4 ram is supposedly being released this year, so, if you hold off on upgrading the mobo/cpu/ram until then you should be able to save quite a bit on ddr3 ram. the price should come down on it. which means the bundles will drop in price too.

Wow! Thanks for all the comparisons and stuff! That helped me out more then you think. I will probably do what you said and wait a bit and try and get bits and pieces here and there.

[Heathy]

any time fella, keep an eye on your thread though, other members might have a better opinion than me on what hardware to go for (I'm quite noob myself when it comes to knowing exactly what is best because there are various elements in the equation), mainly though, i'm in a similar boat, i only recently picked up my a8 6600k which is practically the same performance wise as your fx-4300, I have a r7 250oc, which again is about on par with your 7750, maybe slightly faster. but i want to do the exact thing i've said, my next upgrades are going to be a branded PSU and a GPU that requires extra power through a connector. I've always had low profile cards that get all their power from the pci-e slot and i can game quite happily at 30 fps. but yeah, the next step is a decent GPU so i can get that 30fps average up to 40 or even 50-60. Wow is a hard game to improve fps on mainly because its old and designed to run more off the CPU than the GPU, so if you did go for one of the newer cards, you might not see huge performance gains in wow, but it should be noticeable, and more noticeable in games that do actually utilize GPU's more.

if your unsure about parts though use cpuboss and gpuboss to run comparison and decide if the increases will be worth it for you, plenty of reviews on youtube aswell for all types of hardware to help you make a proper decision.

you could also look at cooling and overclocking your cpu to improve your wow fps, although it can take a bit of effort and it doesn't come without risk. but you may be able to spend less on a decent cooler (instead of buying a whole mobo/cpu combo) and if your lucky your cpu might overclock quite well (they all differ) which would again save you money and potentially make your current rig last longer. (so long as its cooled properly ofc)

[Deleted]

This is the best upgrade close to 300bucks for games like wow that need 1-2cores:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $319.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

You use the ram/psu you got. You overclock that cpu to 4.5GHz and enjoy playing wow