Upgrade suggestions

[Grapefruitsnz]

I'm looking to upgrade my gaming rig after 3+ years. Can run most games well enough but I recently picked up Battlefield 1 and had finally found the game that destroys my PC. I get insanely high CPU and Memory usage running it on the low graphics preset so I feel it's a good time to drop some new stuff in.

My current specs:
Graphics card - AMD Radeon HD 7800
CPU - AMD FX-8350 8 core.
Memory - 8GB
Motherboard - Unsure, can take a look inside

Have a two monitor set up, both are 21" ASUS monitors that run 1920-1080.


Budget wise, I have some money to play with (1-2K NZD). Would like to keep the same case which is a Cooler Master CMstorm from a few years ago unless it's unfeasible to with new parts.

I do music production on an old Apple that I use exclusively but wouldn't be against moving it to the PC to streamline it so anything that may help that.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Fascinate]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($341.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212X 82.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($63.24 @ PB Technologies)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($261.90 @ PC Force)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($157.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow UV400 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($106.95 @ PB Technologies)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB Windforce OC Video Card ($354.05 @ PC Force)
Total: $1284.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-10 13:21 NZDT+1300

You would reuse hdd/case/psu with that list. Would be a pretty big upgrade to what you have.

[Fascinate]

I notice people always seem to forget the small detail that the 1060 3gb is also 50 dollars cheaper than the 6gb version, and is much better performance for your dollar. The reason i consistently suggest it over a 4gb 480 is because this is a blizzard forum, and in those games the 1060 literally stomps all over the 480. If you play any blizzard titles regularly AMD should not even be on your shopping list.

[Fascinate]

Freesync/Gsync does not work like that in MMO's, you still feel the spikes. I just dislike when people disregard the 1060 3gb because it has less shaders, they seem to always forget it is only around 5-7% slower than the 6gb model while costing 20% less. For most people playing on a 1080p monitor the 3gb is actually better choice, there are only a few unique use cases where the 6gb model makes sense to recommend.

[Fascinate]

The 1060 3GB was good when you couldn't find 480 4GBs anywhere at a good price. Now that the price on them is coming down and more are available the 1060 3GB is starting to lose it's spot.

Nothing is going to make fps spikes unnoticeable. However FreeSync and Gsync do a way better job than dealing with Vsync or screen tearing.

Sure ill agree it has less appeal when you can find 4gb models of the 480 for MSRP, i was speaking more vs the 6gb 1060. Even still i look at it this way, on a blizzard forum i just assume people play their titles a lot, so i usually stick to suggesting nvidia over amd at the same price point. If you arent aware, nvidia holds 30+% leads in WoW and 20% in overwatch, that can make a real difference especially if someone is using a high hz monitor.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/...X_1060/23.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-...060/page2.html

And if were talking entry level cards, the 1050 has a SIXTY percent lead over AMD's price competitive offering the rx460:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ti,4787-5.html

[Fascinate]

Hardware canucks are not exactly on the likes of the high end review sites. Sure they have great production quality and do good case reviews, but that isnt the site i would choose when looking for properly done benchmarks. I stick to pcper, toms and anand for my benchmark needs.

[Bigvizz]

To OP: you stated that your budget is 1-2k NZD so I'm pushing to the 2k mark. Go big or go home, right. Yea I know you have a 1080p monitor, but a 1070 will have that much longer of a life span. Also you can always upgrade a monitor down the road.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($341.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($98.99 @ PB Technologies)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-AR ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($251.23 @ PC Force)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($144.50 @ DTC Systems)
Storage: Crucial MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($205.85 @ PB Technologies)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($74.74 @ PB Technologies)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Windforce OC Video Card ($670.00 @ PC Force)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($173.63 @ PC Force)
Total: $1959.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-12 05:24 NZDT+1300

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Hardware canucks are not exactly on the likes of the high end review sites. Sure they have great production quality and do good case reviews, but that isnt the site i would choose when looking for properly done benchmarks. I stick to pcper, toms and anand for my benchmark needs.

Agreed, If it isn't Gamers nexus or Hardware Unboxed that isn't the doing card reviews, I don't pay attention to it most of the time. Linus, Crit tv, Bitwit, Hardwarecanucks and the list goes on most of these site don't pay attention to 1% to 0.1% lows and also they limit themselves to a handful of games like 5 or less most of the time. Where GS and HU tend to test a a lot of titles up to 20 or so.

[Bigvizz]

Wasn't disagreeing with you, I was agreeing with the fact a lot of Youtube tech sites are mostly lazy on their testing methodology. In fact I agree with you AMD's cards are growing stronger with each driver update. It's too bad that they didn't release Vega sooner, I'm thinking 3rd and 4th Quarter of 2016 and 1st Quarter 2017 is not going to look to hot for AMD. /shrug

[Alantor]

WD Red > Blue, Noctua NH-D15 > Liquid cooling, just imo

[Life-Binder]

@OP get a GTX 1070 if you can, GTX 1060 6GB if you cant .. those are the top choices .. DX12 is pretty useless right now, works bad in many titles and 1060 DX11 fps is generally >= 480 DX12 fps

and ofc Nvidia always wins by a large margin in Blizzard titles

all new cards get slightly higher fps (up to 5% compared to launch) with post launch drivers, 480 is nothing special in this regard

and for those that think "AMD cards age better"
http://www.eteknix.com/amd-accused-o...on-older-gpus/

Since the release of the Radeon Crimson Software Driver 16.9.2, it seems that AMD may have disabled DirectX 12 Asynchronous Compute technology on graphics cards that run first-generation Graphics CoreNext (GCN) architecture, despite the hardware supposedly being able to Aync Compute.

While AMD has blamed developers for disabling Async Compute on GCN 1.0 architecture – 1.1 and above retains Async Compute utilisation – with titles like Total War: Warhammer and Rise of the Tomb Raider, users of the Beyond3D forum – and this angry redditor – have determined that the problem stems from AMD’s very own drivers, starting with 16.9.2.

Beyond3D forum members put Stardock’s real-time strategy Ashes of the Singularity through its paces on GCN 1.0 hardware, comparing older drivers to version 16.9.2. The tests found that Ashes of the Singularity performed much better using the older drivers, which support Async Compute, to the newer one, which doesn’t.

as for CPU - new ones are coming out soon, so if you can Id wait for those, maybe grab a Zen SR3/5 for good p/p

otherwise right now a 6600K/6700K is the best

[Life-Binder]

The 1060 isn't seeing the same level of increase in performance from drivers

of course it does

480 increases are almost margin of error levels:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...nalysis,5.html

This means from the oldest to the newest driver the performance increases max out at roughly 2 to 3 %

obviously ahead in DX12/Vulkan.

only in Doom Vulkan (really favorable game for GCN), Hitman (AMD Evolved title) and possibly Deus Ex: MD (another Gaming Evovled title)

in all the others (like BF1, FH3 and a few other recent AAA titles) nah, it comes out as: 1060 DX11 fps >= 480 DX12 fps > 1060 DX12 fps

in pure DX11, 1060 > 480

It was already shown that the difference in Overwatch, a Blizzard game, isn't massive at all at this point.

10-15%+