Upgrade advice needed(GPU or CPU+ MOBO or buy new PC?)

[Krasuss]

My setup i've build few years ago:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (unlocked 2 cores so it is : QuadCore AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition B55 3200MHz, running around 40°C idle)
Cooler: CM HyperEVO 212+
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H (supports only AM3 sockets)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3 Transcend 1333MHz
SSD: KINGSTON 64GB (turned out its one of the slowest SSD in the market and capacity is not enough for Win7 and WoW together, cause there was not enough space to DL big patches for some reason but i bought it long ago and the prices of 128Gb were insane)
HDD: Samsung 750GB 7200rpm
PSU: GIGABYTE SUPERB GE-P450P-C2 550W

I am trying to figure out what is bottlenecking my pc and what would be the best upgrade, most of new games are running great on high/ultra setting in 1920*1080, but it is quite old machine and upgrade would be handy(mostly for WOW 25raids which is the only case when FPS drops).

The problem is that best CPU(i guess CPU is to blame for bottlenecking?) which fits in my MOBO is AMD Phenom II X6 1100T and for some reason all e-shops here in Czech stoped selling that and got only AMD FX procesors(Buldozers) in stores which are for AM3+ socket while my MOBO supports only AM3 sockets.

So, the question is should i buy better GPU and start saving for different CPU+MOBO and overclock my Phenom in meantime(i guess the CM EVO212+ can handle to cool it down on 3,6-3,8 GHz?) or the new GPU/OC wont make such a difference and will bring more problems(RAMs not good enough for OC since iam cheap ass and bought shitty Transcend memorys) or should I wait till i have saved enough for new PC or most parts at once?

What GPU would you guys suggest with around 250euro/300USD/6000Kč budget which would be good enough when i am going to upgrade rest of the pc(CPU+MOBO i guess the cooler and maybe even RAMs and PSU will be good enough to keep them?)

I am looking at GIGABYTE HD 7850 Experience OC 2GB or ASUS HD7850-DC2-2GD5 since iam kinda fanboi of AMD/ATI or is Nvidia ASUS ENGTX560 TI DC2/2DI/2GD5 or similar card better invesment for the "future" since there is PhysX support and all that Nvidia stuff? I guess not, cause the 560Ti has older architecture or something right? Or are there better cards within this price? What is the best brand to get ASUS/MSI/GIGABYTE? I kinda like the OC Gigabyte version of the 7850, but isn't the ASUS one better and just OC it by myself ? I've read somewhere that the cooler on the Gigabyte GPU is vibrating in high RPM so ASUS might be better choice ?

If i take the CPU+MOBO path, I believe you will suggest buying Intel Core i5-3570k with Z77 MOBO like ASRock Z77 Pro3 over any AMD CPU which is reasonable since they are kind fail, but would my PSU/RAM be good enough? Also is that reasonable boost compared to my Phenom ? I mean is it worth the money ? Will is last much longer then my Phenom(even OCed) would ?


I am really undecided what would be the best way to upgrade, thats why iam making this post. The path of buying new GPU has one more bright side and that is the fact that i will most likely give the HD5770 to my bro who uses shitty HD3850/70 in his pc, so the money on this wont be completly wasted in case it wont boost my performance so much since the CPU will keep bottlenecking my pc.

I am open for suggestions also keep in mind my funds are limited to 150euro/month max, so if there is something worth saving for in next 6 months or so let me know I am also open for discussion about the Phenom OC some tips and experience might be handy, np if you cba to talk about it there is plenty of info out there, just wanted to have all in 1 place

Thanks in advance.

[vesseblah]

What kind of FPS you're seeing in 25 man raids, and what you'd want it to be? What you can do for free is overclock the processor. 3.6-3.8GHz should be attainable with the CM Hyper 212+ and will speed up raids quite notably.

Buying anything from AMD wont really affect WoW speeds much over what you have already, you'd need to jump over to Intel side and for that i5-3570K + ASRock Z77 for example to get big boost. Your RAM is probably not good for Z77 board as it requires 1.5v or lower operating voltage for the memory, yours are probably 1.65v or even higher (should be able to find out with exact model number).

Also graphics card is on the low end but not gimping you on WoW except for maxing out shadows, multisampling or texture filtering. On other games it's a big problem.

SSD shouldn't really be a problem. You can turn off hibernate on a desktop computer and manually force pagefile to some small amount to free up 10GB easily. 2000 suggested in the pagefile link is fairly reasonable number. You could even put 1000 there to free up another GB. If you ever get out of memory errors, this is the setting to change higher but it's unlikely with 8GB RAM.

[Yohassakura]

I'd say that it'd be a good idea to replace the motherboard, cpu and the gpu to be fair.

This is a comparison of your CPU against i5-2500k (3570k has disappeared from the list for some reason).

This is before either of them are overclocked, and the 3570k / 2500k can easily clock to 4.2-4.5 GHz (with a good after-market CPU cooler)

This is a comparison of 5770 vs 7850

The GPU brands just really have different aftermarket coolers on, and some are overclocked. So the difference really depends on if you're willing to pay a bit extra for better fans, or stuff in the box etc.

Your RAM is DDR3 so you could take that over to the new machine, although 8GB of 1600MHz RAM is about 40-50EUR

[Krasuss]

Thanks for the tip with the hibernate and pagefile Vasseblah. I've used that b4 i re-installed system, but totally forgot to set it up again ATM I am at 60fps in SW and quite reasonable fps in raids outside of fights, but on fights like Ultraxion FPS can drop to shitty 10-15 or even less not sure now

My RAMs are running on 1,5V, so in worst case i can use them with the new MOBO, but i guess with the prices will be better to buy 1600MHz like Corsair Vengeance Low Profile Black 8GB or some Kingston stuff.

Well i was expecting this kind of answers, the comparison you linked Yohassakura is insane and i will start saving for sure, actually i think i will buy the GPU 1st with the money i have now and OC my Phenom abit. Then i can save for CPU+MOBO+RAMs. Maybe even make my bro to pay part of it since he will be getting my old parts

Does the CM HyperEVO212+ count as "good after-market CPU cooler"? Would be awesome to OC the i5 with this cooler. The references on it were really great so i guess it should be good enough.

Will be mine 550W PSU good enough to carry the CPU+GPU combo ? I guess the Intel CPUs need abit less power iirc, and i am not planning to get more HDDs or DVD writers anytime soon, so that should be no problem i hope.

Another question, will the MOBO fit in my Cooler Master Elite 330black ? Would be crap to be forced to buy basically whole new pc lol

anyways thanks for fast response guys.

[Yohassakura]

The AMD site says:

500W (or greater) power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended

So as long as your PSU has a 6-pin PCI-E connector, you should be okay.

I'd also say that your Hyper Evo 212+ should suffice in cooling your CPU properly, as long as you keep the voltages low enough on your overclock. (Make sure you follow a proper guide!)

The ASRock motherboard is stated to be of ATX standard, sized as: 30.5 cm x 19.3 cm
Whereas the CM Elite 300 case size is MicroATX AND ATX sized as: 42.5cm x 18.9cm

So, you may be able to squeeze it in, or the case be just a bit too short.

[Krasuss]

Checked the size of my current MOBO and the ASRock will fit perfectly in the case, cause the Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H is 30,5cm x 22,9cm. There is also plenty of space for the "longer" GPU so GG some cash saved
If i understand this description http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817233010 correctly the PSU i have should support up to i7 CPUs and it ofc does have 6 pin conector (the HD5770 use that aswell), so that should be fine.

So, iam going to order in 1st upgrade wave since i will be using that in my old setup:

GPU: ASUS HD7850-DC2-2GD5
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Low Profile Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600

288euro(7219Kč)

2nd upgrade wave:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K
MOBO: ASRock Z77 Pro3 - Intel Z77

319euro(7984Kč)

It looks like solid upgrade, or would you guys suggest some better/cheaper parts? I know prices can differ in mine and your countries, so this info is just more to make me jelly in case your is much cheaper Working on getting someone to buy it for me without taxes so i could save around 130euro on all those parts which would be awesome, so wish me luck

[vesseblah]

It looks like solid upgrade, or would you guys suggest some better/cheaper parts?

Sounds reasonable upgrading overall. You probably don't need need the new RAM if you want to save money somewhere, but it doesn't cost that much anyway and will again speed up the Intel board a bit when you get there.

And the CM Hyper 212+ you have now can be used for the new motherboard too, if you still have the socket 1156 Intel installation brackets somewhere.

[Krasuss]

I think I should keep you guys here updated how things went and how my rebuild ended
Ok my setup is finished and I'am done with tweaking.

After some saving I bought :

Intel Core i5-3750k
Asrock Z77 Pro 3 - Intel Z77
Gigabyte HD 7850 Experience OC 2GB
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile Black 8GB

on top of that I kinda forced my bro to buy me new case instead of paying me for my "old" parts, so i have CoolerMaster Storm Enforcer Edition which is totally awesome compared to my old CM Elite lol.

I've decided to go further and overclocked my CPU up to 4,5GHz which is great and fully stable now. Here is screen i made after 1+ hour of Prime95. Temps in idle are around 30°C and in full load won't go over 75°C...love my CM Hyper Evo 212+



As you can see I have quite love Vcore voltage (1,168V) and i see everyone with this CPU overclocked like this with much more (1,3V+), so I'am not sure if I should be happy that mine is that low and stable or if something is not right. (I guess, that I will have to increase it later, haven't done much testing apart from Prime and IntelBurn Test and some issues will rise)

Anyways, BIG thanks to you guys for your tips...really apreciate it. The Asrock mobo is awesome, especially the Instant Boot feature...PC booted up after 5 secs love that <3



ps. If mods could change the thread name and add "Solved" or something to it would be great thanks.

[Onstrider]

WoW pretty much always runs better on NVIDIA GPU.

[vesseblah]

WoW pretty much always runs better on NVIDIA GPU.

No.

Only seed of truth in it is that SLI works better than CFX, but it makes no difference for single card.