Upgrading my Computer

[Cosei]

Hi there,

im going to upgrade my PC in the next time and need some advice.

Currently im sitting on this Hardware:

Gigabyte GA 790XTA UD4
Phenom II X4 945
4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
and a Crossfire System of 2 HD 5700 Series..

Theres my first problem, i cant tell if i have 2 HD 5750s or 2 HD 5770s
how do i get to know this ?
Any tool like everest and the like only shows the "HD 5700 series".

Well, what im going to upgrade is:

Replace my Crossfire ATI with a GTX 570
Get a 8GB kit of 1333 RAM extra
And i want to build in a SSD, size should be about 120GB

Is the whole Upgrade even worth it or should i buy a whole new PC ?
Does my Mobo even support the speeds of a SSD ?

Any help appreciated
Greetz Cosei

[vesseblah]

It will give some speed boost to non-WoW games, but it wont double the framerates.

For WoW you need to upgrade the processor too.

[Drunkenvalley]

You will want to swap out your motherboard with a Sandy Bridge (any mobo with LGA1155 and P67 or Z68 should do, but check for Crossfire support while you're at it) and get an i5 2500k. That will boost your FPS a lot more for WoW.

[Cosei]

Okay, so upgrading my processor, what about a Phenom II x6 1100t ?


Upgrading my mobo to a Sandy Bridge.. how good is the 2500k ?
Crossifre support isnt needed since im going to have only one graphics card then.

[Drunkenvalley]

I don't know if there is even a need to update your GFX cards to a single GTX570 if you just fix mobo and CPU. The money you're intending to spend on GFX, SSD and RAM should easily cover it, while yielding a better end result.

You'll want a motherboard from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI or AsRock. Any such mobo with P67 or Z68 should do, but you'll want to keep an eye out for Crossfire support in case you keep your GFX cards.

Among processors look at the Intel i5 2500k.

[Arachnan]

Theres my first problem, i cant tell if i have 2 HD 5750s or 2 HD 5770s
how do i get to know this ?

CPUID Hardware Monitor should tell you that.

Everest and GPU-Z indeed only give me the Radeon 5800 series tag, but the CPUID Hardware Monitor tells me it's my 5870.

Okay, so upgrading my processor, what about a Phenom II x6 1100t ?

Hexacores aren't the best thing (yet) for most games, including WoW. Getting a good Sandy Bridge as suggested above will net you better results in games.
More cores doesn't equal better framerates (yet)

[Cosei]

Okay, thanks to cpuid hwmonitor, i got Cossfired HD 5770s.

So well then, im going to look for a new MoBo and the i5 2500k.

Ram, SSD and the GTX 570 is not a good idea ?
SSD should give a nice boost for my Windows.
Isnt the GTX a good upgrade over my 2 HD 5770s ?
Note: I do play other games besides wow quite frequently. (Dirt3, Crysis2, NFS Shift2)

[Drunkenvalley]

It may be, but I'd personally say that the CPU/mobo will be the first steps.

[Cosei]

Okay, so what about the MSI P55 GD80 ?
(Does the i5 2500k fit on this ? as its a 1156socket board?)

Which board would you recommend?
(im not very experienced with intels, only used amd)
Edit: MSI P67A-GD53 seems pretty nice and it got Crossfire support

[Drunkenvalley]

That will not fit. As said, any mobo with Z68 or P67 in the title. It must have an 1155 socket.

[Deleted]

ged rid of the two grafic cards. in fact wow runs faster with just one of the given cards. i had the same grafic cards setup and a single 5770 was faster then the crossfire 5770s. there was also a blizz statemant about that if i remember correctly. i upgradet to a overclocked gtx460 but noch you want to buy a 570 wich should be a very big update, a 560 ti costs about 100 less and should provide enough performance.

about the ssd: if a few seconds really matter that much, its an good upgrade, ram is always a good choise and its cheap at the moment.

if you want to upgrade your cpu use the hexa-core amd or switch to a intel setup like previously said.

[Skelly]

AMD is pretty much dead as far as performance CPUs go right now.. Get an Intel Sandy Bridge.
You'll need a mobo with either p67 or z68 in the name. p67 will probably be cheaper and has everything you need.

[kailtas]

Listen to these people.

P67 Mobo + I5-2500k CPU first.
And dont bother upgrading to 12GB ram. 4GB extra for a total of 8GB is more than enough for gaming and almost unlimited multitasking. And make sure the RAM is identical.
If you dont have allot of cash left, i suggest you choose between an SSD or a GPU for now.

And yes, any Mobo with Sata3 will support the fastest SSD drives. SSDs are made with the speeds of Sata2 and Sata 3 in mind. The mid level SSDs stays under the 300MB/s mark that Sata2 limits. And the faster SSDs stay under the 600MB/s that Sata3 limits.

So the question is wether or not your Mobo got Sata3 if you want over 300MB read/write /s. If you get the newest H67, p67 or Z68 Mobos this wont be a problem. So dont worry about it.

As for your prefered storage. Good choice!

My personal preferences for what to put on SSDs: OS, Most played games (Wow if you will), most used programs and all the programs that start when i start the comp. There should still be some space leftover, but remember that WOW requires almost 10GB of space in order to patch. However, it will not use this space after a patch update. Thus a 60GB SSD will not be enough, and 90GB will give you very little leftover.