What to upgrade in order ?

[Kragtik]

Hey guys, I've been wondering about this for a while.

Here are my specs:

Mobo: P55a-Ud4p rev1.0
CPU: i5-750 paired with CNPS10X EXTREME from zalman
PSU: antec 650W modular
GPU: Radeon 5850, reference model, paired with VF3000A from zalman
RAM: GSkill Ripjaws DDR3 1600mHz 2x2GB
HDD: 7200.12 500gb seagate barracuda 2x
Case: CM 590 advanced II
Monitor: Viewsonic 1080p FullHD Led 24"

The budget for an upgrade is let's say 400$ for now and more in time.
I'd like to be able to fraps more effectively at full resolution, run more things and basically just have an up-to-date computer.
Mine was built in March of last year

Edit: Also would like to know what to replace the parts with

[Uggorthaholy]

first thing I would suggest is GPU
GTX570 2GB

After that, add 2 more identical ram sticks to make 8GB
upgrade to an i52500k

my 2 cents on the matter at least

[Kragtik]

first thing I would suggest is GPU
GTX570 2GB

After that, add 2 more identical ram sticks to make 8GB
upgrade to an i52500k

my 2 cents on the matter at least

Sorry i forgot to mention, with the CNPS10X in place, there is no way to put 2 more ram sticks, 1 would be possible, but not 2.

[BicycleMafioso]

I'd get either 2x2048 MiB of RAM, or 2x4096MiB of RAM. (EDIT - in addition to what you have. 2x2 and 2x4 is still dual channel)

Since you express a wish for FRAPSing, the best thing you could do is add a third HDD. Have your FRAPS, OS and WoW (and other programs and games), and do RAID0 on the other two. That's the biggest upgrade for Frapsing you can get.

Other than that, overclock that CPU. Else you don't need to change anything, really.

Sorry i forgot to mention, with the CNPS10X in place, there is no way to put 2 more ram sticks, 1 would be possible, but not 2.

Buy a syringe (or whatever they're called in Eng :P) of thermal compound and reseat the heatsink afterwards, then.

[Uggorthaholy]

Sorry i forgot to mention, with the CNPS10X in place, there is no way to put 2 more ram sticks, 1 would be possible, but not 2.

never add just one stick. Dual channel memory with an odd number of stick would put you in single channel mode and eliminate benefits and cause harm.

Go to 2X4GB - RipJaws 2X4GB

[Deleted]

Well imo your PC is still quite good and far from outdated.

If you want to improve frapsing, getting a second HDD or SSD is your best call. In fact I'd recommend you get a 80GB SSD as a system + Games drive for your PC and then save most of your footage on your HDD.

Replacing your Radeon 5850 would be the next best thing, performance wise. With a limited budget I'd go for a Radeon 6950 if you don't want to repalce your drivers or a Geforce 560 Ti if you're going to format anyway. Both are pretty close performance and price wise so it's not a big difference either way.

Other than that, you're pretty solid. Sure, you could get 8 GB RAM but that won't really do much right now. It's more of an investment into the future.

Yes, you could upgrade your already pretty decent CPU but that might require a new mainboard (not sure). It also wouldn't be that effective.



So Tl;DR upgrade: SSD> GPU > CPU > RAM

[BicycleMafioso]

Well imo your PC is still quite good and far from outdated.

If you want to improve frapsing, getting a second HDD or SSD is your best call. In fact I'd recommend you get a 80GB SSD as a system + Games drive for your PC and then save most of your footage on your HDD.

Replacing your Radeon 5850 would be the next best thing, performance wise. With a limited budget I'd go for a Radeon 6950 if you don't want to repalce your drivers or a Geforce 560 Ti if you're going to format anyway. Both are pretty close performance and price wise so it's not a big difference either way.

His 5850 caps out performance in WoW already. There's no justification to upgrade from that GPU to "just" a 560Ti, imo. It's a small upgrade at best.

SSDs aren't good suggestions to anyone with a budget that small, imo.

And more RAM is always useful. I'm more often above 4GiB used than not. Even while not gaming, but I have a feeling that I multitask more heavily than everyone else. :P

But I agree about the CPU being a waste to upgrade.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I just rechecked the benchmarks. The 6950 is only about 20-30% faster than the 5850 and both are based on the same architecture.

To be honest, aside from an SSD I'd consider any upgrade to the OPs current PC to be "inefficient".

Sure, you could throw money at it right now but you won't get much in return.

[BicycleMafioso]

Yeah, I just rechecked the benchmarks. The 6950 is only about 20-30% faster than the 5850 and both are based on the same architecture.

To be honest, aside from an SSD I'd consider any upgrade to the OPs current PC to be "inefficient".

Sure, you could throw money at it right now but you won't get much in return.

Except for a HDD. Having Fraps on a separate HDD and frapsing to a raid0-array is the biggest performance boost to frapsing there is (aside from doing it to an SSD :P).

The RAM would help him in handling the Raws with editting and rendering, not to mention having WoW and fraps active at the same time as a million other backgroundprograms.

That's my take on it.

[Kragtik]

I'd get either 2x2048 MiB of RAM, or 2x4096MiB of RAM. (EDIT - in addition to what you have. 2x2 and 2x4 is still dual channel)

Since you express a wish for FRAPSing, the best thing you could do is add a third HDD. Have your FRAPS, OS and WoW (and other programs and games), and do RAID0 on the other two. That's the biggest upgrade for Frapsing you can get.

Other than that, overclock that CPU. Else you don't need to change anything, really.

Buy a syringe (or whatever they're called in Eng :P) of thermal compound and reseat the heatsink afterwards, then.

The Fan OVERLAPS the ram slot. Meaning there is no possible way to put ram in 1 slot, even if I remove the fan and put it back on

Edit: CPU is OC'd at 4ghz

To everyone else: This is really good input from your part, thank you

And dont be shy to keep it comin

Considering getting a SSD/HDD/RAM atm

[BicycleMafioso]

The Fan OVERLAPS the ram slot. Meaning there is no possible way to put ram in 1 slot, even if I remove the fan and put it back on

Edit: CPU is OC'd at 4ghz

Then reposition it? (ie, facing another way, like, south-north rather than east-west) :P I'll look into it, then.

[Kragtik]

Then reposition it? (ie, facing another way, like, south-north rather than east-west) :P I'll look into it, then.

Uhm if I make it take air from the back of my case it will interfere greatly with the air flow, not only that but it will also blow hot air TO my ram sticks

[BicycleMafioso]

No the fan is immense, there is no possible way to do it on that particular motherboard :P

I just looked it up. It looks kind of small, compared to my Noctua NH-D14, in fact. And I have no trouble fitting four DIMMS underneath it. : P Just change its direction.

[kailtas]

You can try to detach the heatsink on the ram. Just to cut off a CM.

[Sykotic13]

The only thing that would really make a worthwhile update would be a newer GPU followed by a SSD.

4GB of Ram is plenty.

QFT! $400 isn't a lot to work with, but get a 128Gb SSD and a GTX 560 Ti video card. This will be the best bang for the buck. The RAM and processor are fine. The SSD will make loading times VERY fast. Install the OS and your games on it. And a better video card will take load off of your CPU.

Something like this Crucial 128Gb SSD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148348) for $230 and this MSI GTX 560 Ti Hawk Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127578).

[BicycleMafioso]

QFT! $400 isn't a lot to work with, but get a 128Gb SSD and a GTX 560 Ti video card. This will be the best bang for the buck. The RAM and processor are fine. The SSD will make loading times VERY fast. Install the OS and your games on it. And a better video card will take load off of your CPU.

Something like this Crucial 128Gb SSD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148348) for $230 and this MSI GTX 560 Ti Hawk Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127578).

I repeat. He won't be getting any gain whatsoever from his GPU, because he's already capping out with his 5850. :P
Wow isn't a GPU-game, and even if it was, the GTX560 Ti isn't much of an upgrade.
So the GPU is actually the worst part to look for an upgrade.

[Sykotic13]

I repeat. He won't be getting any gain whatsoever from his GPU, because he's already capping out with his 5850. :P
Wow isn't a GPU-game, and even if it was, the GTX560 Ti isn't much of an upgrade.
So the GPU is actually the worst part to look for an upgrade.

You are ASSUMING that he is playing WoW and not playing something else like Crysis 2 or planning for Skyrim. But yeah, for WoW the video card won't be a huge upgrade. The problem is there isn't a huge amount of stuff left to upgrade on a $400 starting budget. A new processor will mean a new motherboard and probably new RAM. Upgrading RAM to 8Gb is wasteful if he can only use 2 slots (have to remove existing RAM to put in new RAM instead of just doubling the existing RAM). I guess if you are just running WoW and your video card is fine for it then I would suggest an SSD and another 24" monitor. Of course, I may just be biased because I like multiple monitors.

[yurano]

You are ASSUMING that he is playing WoW and not playing something else like Crysis 2 or planning for Skyrim. But yeah, for WoW the video card won't be a huge upgrade. The problem is there isn't a huge amount of stuff left to upgrade on a $400 starting budget. A new processor will mean a new motherboard and probably new RAM. Upgrading RAM to 8Gb is wasteful if he can only use 2 slots (have to remove existing RAM to put in new RAM instead of just doubling the existing RAM). I guess if you are just running WoW and your video card is fine for it then I would suggest an SSD and another 24" monitor. Of course, I may just be biased because I like multiple monitors.

The situation posed by the OP focuses on FRAPs in WoW.

I don't know why people haven't suggested a i5-2500k yet, especially since WoW is CPU capped. Most video editing is also done via CPU. According to Passmark, the 560 Ti is a 18% improvement over the 5850, but the i5-2500k is a 69% increase over the i5-750.

Apparently

Fraps depends (almost?) entirely on processor speed.

FRAPs is a video processing software, most video processing is done on the CPU (go figure).

While improved hard drive capability would be able to write uncompressed data faster, a faster CPU may compress the data fast enough for a slower hard drive. Instead of getting SSD, he can invest in an external hard drive like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136399 .

[BicycleMafioso]

The situation posed by the OP focuses on FRAPs in WoW.

I don't know why people haven't suggested a i5-2500k yet, especially since WoW is CPU capped. Most video editing is also done via CPU. According to Passmark, the 560 Ti is a 18% improvement over the 5850, but the i5-2500k is a 69% increase over the i5-750.

Apparently
FRAPs is a video processing software, most video processing is done on the CPU (go figure).

While improved hard drive capability would be able to write uncompressed data faster, a faster CPU may compress the data fast enough for a slower hard drive. Instead of getting SSD, he can invest in an external hard drive like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136399 .

His i5-750 is overclocked to 4.0

Upgrading from that point to an i5-2500K is a marginal upgrade, as well. Or rather, it's an okay upgrade, although not as big as you present. The problem though, is that a Lynnfield is a very capable CPU, especially when overclocked 50% (the i5-2500K would have to overclock to 4.95GHz to compare), and you are comparing stock.

The external harddrive would make his FRAPS-experience much, much worse.
You are assuming that the harddrives are already bottlenecked by his CPU? No, it's the other way around. His CPU is held back by his harddrives.
Having Fraps/wow/os on one drive and frapsing to a raid0 is the biggest upgrade in frapsing he can make. :x

[Sykotic13]

The situation posed by the OP focuses on FRAPs in WoW.

I don't know why people haven't suggested a i5-2500k yet, especially since WoW is CPU capped. Most video editing is also done via CPU. According to Passmark, the 560 Ti is a 18% improvement over the 5850, but the i5-2500k is a 69% increase over the i5-750.

Apparently
FRAPs is a video processing software, most video processing is done on the CPU (go figure).

Actually the OP has not once mentioned WoW or any specific software package/game in this thread other than FRAPS. The first mention of WoW was by someone responding to the OP. So, until the OP clarifies the software that he is wanting to run we are taking guesses.

As for your suggestion on a new processor, the only issue was one that I outlined already: A new processor will mean a new motherboard and possibly new RAM (actually looking at the RAM he has listed that would work just fine with an i5/P67). This would be $400 for a new processor and motherboard. The SSD is still going to be the biggest performance increase for the money. After that either video or proc/motherboard.