Need Help Gaming PC!!!

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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
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Good evening everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I am hoping the community can help with with a little bit of an issue. I have a decent gaming/virtualization workstation that I built a year and half ago, and it is starting to show it's age quite a bit.

**** I am not just looking to dump money in it, I am weighing the cost and benefit of said upgrades*****

My questions: .....
1. Is it worth upgrading?
2. New system build? (not in the budget for a long long time)
3. If it is worth upgrading what needs to go???

I'm looking for an answer from many people, and something like drop X because.. and get some Y's...

Current Build:
M4A88T-D Evo Asus Mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE @ 3.4
4 x 2 GB of GSkill 1333
Western Dig 500g sata 6.0 7200 RPM
Sapphire 6950 Toxic Edition 2GB Unlocked to 1538 Shaders
800 watt or so Powersupply.

My main problem here is that a year ago this thing ate games up @ 1600x900
Now with my recent foray into DayZ and ARMA, I'm starting to see I lack true powers.

My first thoughts were grabbing a Z77 board and a 3570k.... but is the 350$ worth the benefit?
By the way... MAX BUDGET WOULD BE 350-400.
THANKS!
 
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Smoblikat

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2011
5,184
107
106
Overclock that phenom to 4.0 - 4.2, that should aleviate a lot of problems. You should look into getting a second 6950/6970 to Xfire, your PSU will handle all of that (assuming its a good brand)
 
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SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Honestly you're not going to be able to pull of a CPU and GPU upgrade for $350. I think you could do well with a 7950, but you will be held back by your CPU. Ideally you would get the Ivy CPU and motherboard you said plus a 7950, but that will cost you over $500 in the end.
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
As previously stated my current build is running on a 1600x900 monitor.
And I believe that my mobo only supports one card on x16 lane, unfortunately.
So I feel like personally that the 2nd card for Xfire would be kind of a waste of money, I feel almost like buying a whole new better card would be a better bet.
But part of me almost feels like it's really the CPU that is lacking and not the GPU, correct me if I am wrong folks!
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
Someone actually advised me to get a new monitor and a new video card paired with the overclock that i was planning... Apparently 1920x1080 is less taxing than 1600x900???
 
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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
4,100
215
106
I would agree to overclock you Phenom II a little higher, 4Ghz and 2.6-3.0 NB if you can. I would honestly wait until the new Intel and AMD CPU's come out, that's what I am doing at least. I am upgrading to a 7850 soon because I need 2GB of vram for Skyrim and GTA4, but you already have that with your 6950. I vote overclock and wait it out....
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
So the more and more I've been thinking about it.... I think that for right now....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236052

which gives me a 30 dollar gift card to spend in future...

will put me at 1920... and then when my 212 comes, pop that on the 965 with some arctic silver... jack it up to 4.1 or so, and then see where it goes from there?

Because the way I see it, now that I know that about the cpu vs resolution thing, I see a 1920 monitor being REALLY THE FIRST OF ANY UPGRADES NEEDED.... anyone?
 
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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
4,100
215
106
mango123 said:
So the more and more I've been thinking about it.... I think that for right now....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236052

which gives me a 30 dollar gift card to spend in future...

will put me at 1920... and then when my 212 comes, pop that on the 965 with some arctic silver... jack it up to 4.1 or so, and then see where it goes from there?

Because the way I see it, now that I know that about the cpu vs resolution thing, I see a 1920 monitor being REALLY THE FIRST OF ANY UPGRADES NEEDED.... anyone?
Click to expand...

Good choice! Nice work :)
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
Because remember... I'm looking for playability... seemingly CPU intensive games are slowing down (low fps) and that is what brought me here to the first point.
Ultra settings = High FPS = I'm very happy
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
Okay, so now I'm starting to think I should have stayed at 1600x900 then.... because I just wanna be able to play everything at the best settings with the highest frames...
But I did however just buy that monitor that I referenced.
And now I'm plotting my next move.

I see that the 965 BE's are fetching like 90$ on ebay right.
And I also see people are bidding on 6950s... for 1-200$ (dumb for used cards if u ask me) seeing as a new one is like what 260???

So I'm thinking about buying the mobo and cpu, then selling my mobo and cpu... and then buying a 7950 twin frozr, and selling my Toxic. what do you guys think???
 
Arkaign

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,379
126
I had a 6950 2GB XFX at 1920x1200, and it played everything, even BF3, at very nice speeds with pretty high details, near max but I don't push insane AA and I don't give a crap about turning shadows to max either. Turning AA down a bit and shadows to medium = generally can max all the other typical settings and it looks fantastic.
 
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raghu78

Diamond Member
Aug 23, 2012
4,093
1,475
136
mango123 said:
Okay, so now I'm starting to think I should have stayed at 1600x900 then.... because I just wanna be able to play everything at the best settings with the highest frames...
But I did however just buy that monitor that I referenced.
And now I'm plotting my next move.

I see that the 965 BE's are fetching like 90$ on ebay right.
And I also see people are bidding on 6950s... for 1-200$ (dumb for used cards if u ask me) seeing as a new one is like what 260???

So I'm thinking about buying the mobo and cpu, then selling my mobo and cpu... and then buying a 7950 twin frozr, and selling my Toxic. what do you guys think???
Click to expand...

Yeah but don't go for the MSI HD 7950 twin frozr. too many users have complained of the heatsink not being able to cool efficiently at high overclocks. its just not good enough. Get the sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz or Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X. Both have better coolers than the twin frozr. Also the Phenom II X4 can perform well at 4 Ghz speeds. The latest games like BF3 at the highest settings are GPU limited and not CPU limited. So it would be a wise decision to just get a good air cooler for the Phenom II X4 like coolermaster hyper 212 plus and overclock it to 4 Ghz. You could upgrade your CPU and MB next year with Haswell which looks to be a huge leap.
 
Last edited:
Durvelle27

Durvelle27

Diamond Member
Jun 3, 2012
4,102
0
0
raghu78 said:
Yeah but don't go for the MSI HD 7950 twin frozr. too many users have complained of the heatsink not being able to cool efficiently at high overclocks. its just not good enough. Get the sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz or Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X. Both have better coolers than the twin frozr. Also the Phenom II X4 can perform well at 4 Ghz speeds. The latest games like BF3 at the highest settings are GPU limited and not CPU limited. So it would be a wise decision to just get a good air cooler for the Phenom II X4 like coolermaster hyper 212 plus and overclock it to 4 Ghz. You could upgrade your CPU and MB next year with Haswell which looks to be a huge leap.
Click to expand...

same thing i said XD
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
SO everyone I bit the bullet on the new monitor, and am 150 into budget. that leaves me with 330 ballpark to work with. And I do think that this card should be sufficient in doing what I need it to do still. What to do with the other 330?
 
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mango123

Senior member
Sep 1, 2012
214
0
0
I do plan on at least overclocking the phenom II first and see where I am at with the new monitor, by the way.
 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Arma II 6970 = 55 fps
Arma II 7950 with latest drivers = 78 fps

Here is Arma II Reinforcements, where a 925mhz 7950 even beats a 670 without much trouble. This game loves AMD cards.

I think the next step is selling that 6950 while it still has decent value and getting an HD7950 and overclocking it. Then overclock the CPU and go from there. In 6-7 months, gte a Haswell platform upgrade. I wouldn't buy a 1.5 year old SB/IVB architecture at this point.
 
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