A few PC upgrades

[Nysir]

I'm looking for some opinions about a few things I'm looking to upgrade. I'll start with what I currently have.

AMD Radeon 5770
Thermaltake 430W PSU
Intel Core i3-3220 3.3 ghz (or 3.2, can't remember precisely)
4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC 10600 RAM
MSI Z77A-G41 ATX Motherboard


What I'm thinking of buying:

Nvidia GTX 660 'Superclocked'

Corsair CX600 600W PSU

Adding another 4GB RAM, same exact make already in the PC


That's all I've got the money for. I think I've done pretty well here, but I'm always paranoid about getting new parts. I'm also not a fan of the word 'superclocked' on that GPU. Sounds like that'll make it run hotter, louder and have a shorter life.

Sooo many reports of DOA parts coming in scare me off even when the majority of the reviews are good. I'm welcoming any insight/opinions here!

 

[lehtv]

Are you purely looking for better gaming performance? What games?

'Superclocked' just means there's a small factory overclock. It doesn't have noticeable effect on noise, heat or lifetime. It's better than not having it if you don't have to pay much extra. And different brands have different names for it (e.g. for Asus and MSI it's just "OC").

 

[Nysir]

Thanks for the explanation on that, I'm not as worried now.

I am primarily looking for better game performance, yes. My current set up runs most games surprisingly well. For example, Battlefield 4 on high-ish settings is usually smooth, but I know it can be better. Total War: Rome II, Assassin's Creed 4, DayZ and a few upcoming titles are some of the games that could also do with a boost.

I'm pretty happy with my picks, but wanted to open it up to you guys in case there's a reason one of them won't work well.

 

[Cerb]

Limits on what you can afford?
Save $10 on the PSU. That 500W will handle any single-CPU upgrade you might make in the next few years, and is a little step up from the 430W.

Factory OCs are very mild, and both AMD and nVidia have been thermally limited for the last few generations, so every sample of every model that isn't top-end has had some safe headroom from the factory, they just needed to make it 65W, or 90W, or 150W, or whatever else, for the sake of spec matching and OEM desires. No big deal.

 

[Nysir]

I've only got about $300 to spend right now, with a little wiggle room where rebates are concerned. I was primarily getting the 600W because it's the same price on Tiger Direct with free shipping if I order it today. I linked the New Egg one simply because it had more reviews. It -seems- like these are the same product, but could I be wrong?

 

[lehtv]

I would not upgrade the RAM, 4GB is OK for most games, and now is a terrible time to buy RAM because the prices are so high. The graphics card is your main concern.

Rosewill Capstone 450W $60. Gold efficiency, 7 year warranty, definitely a better long term pick than a CX unit. Two 8pin PCIe connectors to support any single GPU card.
Asus GTX 760 DC2OC $229 AR AP. GTX 760 improvement over 5770 is about +160% while a GTX 660 would be about +105%.

Gigabyte 270X for $210 is not a bad pick either. It's mostly on par with GTX 760, a little slower in some instances.

Next upgrade, for example: used i5-3570K (currently sells for about $170 on eBay, will drop as time goes by), an optional CPU cooler for overclocking the 3570K, and 2x4GB DDR3-1600 when it hits a low. An SSD would also be nice but a lower priority for gaming than the CPU.

 

[Cerb]

And, by waiting, the 660 deal is gone. A GTX 660, though, will have more fragile performance than cards with wider RAM interfaces. Here is a similar deal on a 7870. Not bad, from a top-tier maker. The 7870 is about equal to the R9-270, and a wee bit slower than a R9-270X.

Lehtv's deals are also good, just not as far down on the cheapometer . But, with so many TWIMTBP games, the GTX 760 really does have an edge over the 270X, IMO, and is probably worth another $20 or so (IE, I think both are pretty fair prices).

 

[lehtv]

Both of those 7870's are unfortunately out of stock. For a sub $200 card I would currently get MSI GTX 660 TF $185 ($165 AR)

 

[Cerb]

NE still shows them with "add to cart" in the search. Ah, well. Guess the OP needs to spend a little more and get something a little faster .

 

[Nysir]

I appreciate the suggestions, guys! I actually quite like the 660 lehtv linked, but I just realized an issue I previously didn't know about. I just got a second monitor so that I could dual-screen. Nothing fancy, so both my monitors require VGA to DVI adapters. Unless I'm not understanding this correctly... those count as analog devices rather than digital?

Most of these more recent cards appear to come with one DVI plug that allows both analog and digital, and a second that only allows digital. Am I correct in surmising that I'll only be able to use one of my monitors? If that's the case... I may be pretty screwed in the graphics card department.

 

[Cerb]

Yes, most of them only have a single VGA port. Getting a new monitor without DVI, HDMI, or DP, is not a good idea, in general. Very few still have only VGA, these days.

There is, however, a good chance that you can have one non-gaming monitor. Plug one monitor into your onboard, make sure it's on in the BIOS (it may or may not need to be intialized first), and see how it works. If it works fine with the 5770, it will also work fine with any new card.

 

[Nysir]

Great idea, I hadn't thought of that. It looks like I'll need to enable my onboard graphics in the BIOS, but I've heard running onboard graphics side-by-side with a card causing performance issues and instability on the PC. It could be completely false, but it does seem like it would be additional stress on the system.


EDIT: Looks like that's a no-go. I just activated integrated graphics, but the moment it kicked on it began causing performance issues and seemed to override my card. Guess I'll be digging deep for reliable GPU upgrades that have two DVI-I ports. I could go to single display, but I JUST got the ability to dual and the monitor was a gift, cheap as it may be.

 

[Cerb]

An active DVI, DP, or HDMI to VGA adapter would do the trick for $20-30, then (DP and HDMI must be active, DVI can be passive, but won't plug in to a DVI-D port).

P.S. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?se...&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CIP_rpChzbsCFcVQ7AoddhwABQ

 

[Nysir]

Up until a few hours ago, I didn't even know about the different connectors for digital or analog, so please bear with my ignorance here. Does that device really work the way it sounds? Just plug it into the VGA port on my monitor and into the HDMI port on the card, and it will convert digital to analog just like that, no extra fuss? I just want to be sure. When I was looking for adapters, I could only find $150 ones that did that. It almost seems too good to be true! The site also mentions connecting my HD monitor (I only have analog) to a DisplayPort source - I have no idea what that is.

Also, does this do the exact same thing? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812816176
If I can, I'd like to try and consolidate it to the places I'm buying the rest of my stuff, but it's no big deal if Newegg or Tiger Direct don't have the same thing, as long as I can trust Monoprice.

 

[Cerb]

Displayport, but yes. You can find the boxes with dongles for about the same price. Here's one:
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=5135&seq=1&format=2
The cable type is nice, because it's neater. Notice how big the VGA end on the one I linked previously is--that's where the PCB and conversion chip are.

On all the linked cards, the port closest to the top of the card, that has a single rounded corner, is a Displayport.

Displayport can be passively adapted to HDMI or DVI-D, with the exception of some ports on some 3-output Radeons (the 3rd DP needs an active adapter, I believe).
HDMI can be passively adapted to DVI-D.
DVI-D can, on some GPUs, be passively adapted to HDMI, but I don't think it's officially supported by anyone.
So, for auxiliary outputs, DP offers the most flexibility, and today, all GPUs, including Intel and AMD IGPs, support it. Using it instead of HDMI also bypasses any weirdness with TV settings on the PC side. DP can technically output VGA, I believe, but nobody supports doing that, TMK.

HD refers to resolution, not specifically analog or digital. 1280x720 or higher, with a 16:9 ratio, is generally considered HD.

The $100+ converters are probably the other way around, VGA to DVI, to hook up a VGA source to a newfangled DVI-D display.

 

[Nysir]

Phew, okay. Because looking at graphics cards with two DVI-I ports felt like taking a walk on the wrong side of town. There were cards there that had only heatsinks for cooling, and one or more likely would have tried to sell me drugs.

I'll trust that this will work. It pushes the boundaries of my price a bit, but I can manage it. I'm going with this card and the Corsair CX600 simply because it's still cheaper with it's current sale/rebate than the alternatives, and will last me a little longer.

I suppose at this point I just have to wait and hope nothing is DOA out of the box, and that the adapter works for my ancient LCD monitors. To put things into perspective, as recently as 3 months ago I was running on a single CRT monitor.

Anyway, thank you very much for your patience and assistance. If something ends up broken, I know where to go for help.