Upgrade to gaming PC and new laptop suggestions

[Deleted]

First off, hey there MMOC, been a lurker for years here but finally got around to making an account.

I'd also like to preface this by saying I'm really not that great when it comes to anything involving computer hardware, so apologies in advance if I miss out anything important here.

Basically I am looking to upgrade my current gaming PC to improve performance a bit, as well as buy a completely new laptop for very casual use (never owned a laptop before), and am looking for some suggestions on where my money is going to be best spent (direct links very much welcome).

Budget: £1000 each (roughly, got no issues going a bit over this)
Resolution: 1920x1080p
Games / Settings Desired: Primarily WoW/Diablo/Hearthstone, also some modern FPS type games. All ultra (PC pretty much does this for Blizzard games, but struggles on others)
Special Software: Not needed
Country: UK
Re-usable Parts: See existing PC
OS: Windows 7. Not looking to change unless it really is a big improvement (have used 8 and 10 at work and not impressed). Concerned about compatibility issues with some old games designed for XP
Peripherals: Not needed

So my existing PC:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3930k 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X79
Memory: 16GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x8GB)
Storage: Corsair 240GB Force3 SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s (2x)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (2x)
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred
Power Supply: 1200W Corsair AX Professional Series Gold
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

I have literally no idea what would be an upgrade on this, but as above I'm mostly just looking to improve performance for general use and in high-end games, and possibly get more storage space.

As for the laptop, requirements are similar. I'm not likely to be doing anything intensive on it like my PC, if it's able to run Diablo 3 at max settings and play videos in HD then I should be good. I've used a few but never actually owned a laptop in my life, so I'm not really sure how powerful they are these days. My mother bought one not long ago that couldn't even load YouTube without shutting down and resulted in me just buying her an iPad, so I'd like to avoid that if possible. I am quite interested in the Microsoft Surface tablet/laptops as I enjoy the tablet functionality, but again don't know if they can play games at any decent level. To my knowledge these can't run Windows 7, but I might be willing to compromise on this if they are otherwise good. Advice or experience regarding these would be very helpful.

TLDR; Need advice on how to upgrade my PC and what laptop to buy.

Any input and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Sorphius]

Your cpu is dated but still relevant and replacing it would require that you also replace your MoBo, so to get the most bang for your buck I'd say that a good starting point may be to look at replacing your SLI 680s with a single GTX 980. The increased VRAM alone will smooth your performance in newer games, and the processing power is a huge step up to boot. You *could* go all in and get a 980ti, but it's complete overkill for 1080p. I'd bank the rest of the money and hold off on upgrading the CPU until you can afford to step up to Skylake (because lol availability right now).

[Deleted]

Thanks for the reply, had expected to hear something like that. I'll give the GTX 980 a look for sure, though you say just a single one - I've assumed that having 2 is better but I suppose it's a case of just overkill? Just had look on PCPartPicker and NVIDIA's website for this and I see there's a lot of listings of seemingly the same part (not counting the 980ti) with just a different supplier. My understanding is that they ship them to different suppliers who then tune them slightly or something to get better performance, in which case is there anyone particularly good, or am I totally wrong here? Will also consider Skylake as you mentioned, I don't really understand why it is supposedly so good (the terminology is beyond me), but I see it talked about a lot as the next big thing and that it's difficult to get hold of currently. Something to keep an eye on for the future I guess.

As for the laptop, I've given Microsoft Surface more of a look since my first post and it seems that it's not going to do what I want perfectly, but it isn't a gaming laptop so I can't complain about not getting highest settings on the few games I'll use it for. As it stands I'm leaning towards getting a Surface Pro 3 - 256 GB /Intel i7 / 8GB RAM as I think it's mostly going to do what I want, and the dual functionality as a touch screen is really useful to me. Would appreciate some opinions on what people of think of this - Windows 10 reviews seem mixed at best and I don't want to jump the shark on this when I could get a gaming laptop with Windows 7 that just does everything better.

[Sorphius]

SLI support has come a long way, but driver support is still a step or two behind single-card solutions. Some games don't support it at all, others are glitchy, and you're always at risk of microstutter. Coming from someone who's done it in the past, just trust me when I say that it's more of hassle than it's worth unless you're either trying to squeeze a little extra life out of an older card or insist on being at the absolute bleeding edge of technology. A single GTX 980 will run any current-gen AAA title on ultra at 60+fps on a 1080p monitor, and it will remain a very strong option for a few years to come. In terms of branding, it's really a matter of preference. The chips themselves are the same regardless of vendor, so the choice really comes down to aesthetics and performance. If you aren't comfortable overclocking yourself, you can spend a bit more and get a card with a higher base clockspeed and improved cooling for longer futureproofing, but it really comes down to what you like.

As for Skylake, the jury's still out since it's the new kid on the block (literally only been out a couple of weeks and they're selling faster than Intel can supply them), but it's Intel's newest chip and there are early indications that it could be the best since Sandy Bridge (your current cpu's family) in terms of overclockability and all-around longevity. The reason I say to hold off on a cpu upgrade until you can get one is that since you're going to have to replace your MoBo regardless of which processor you upgrade to, there's not really much sense "upgrading" to something that's really not going to be all that much more powerful than what you already have.