Upgrade my system or rebuild

[igloo15]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for?

Gaming, Work(Software development), Media(Photoshop, etc), Movies.
I am currently playing Deus Ex Human Evolution, will be playing Skyrim with alot of mods next. Also have played things like Crysis, Batman, Civ 5, etc.
I work as a software engineer and sometimes deal with have heavy processing programs.
Media only when I absolutely need to.
I watch videos when I work sometimes.

2. What YOUR budget is?

No real budget but I don't want to overpay for a tiny amount of performance increase. For instance I don't want to buy a 1000 dollar cpu for a tiny performance increase over 300 cpu. In general I think 1500 - 1800 is a good max range.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

US

4. IF YOU have a brand preference?

I stick mostly to Intel at the moment and have no graphic preference but I have not had a good experience with my current ATI 5870. I am looking more closely at NVIDIA now but for better performance for the money I might just go ATI. Also I prefer newegg to buy my parts have some gift cards from them that I need to use up.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

I have a pair of 24" monitors, keyboard, mouse, a dvd burner, Windows 7 pro OS that I want to use from my current system.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

I used to overclock in the past but its to much of a pain in the neck to test and get things working just right. So default speeds with turbo mode/built speed stuff turned on.

8. What resolution will you be using?

Dual monitors one at 1920 by 1200 and the other at 1200 by 1920(turned in portrait mode for coding).

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Immediately

10. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

No


My Current System:
i7-860
ATI 5870
8gb ram
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3P
Intel X25-M 80gb SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HD

Basically I started to notice fps drop in some games I was playing and in general my 5870 has been acting up recently with weird artifacts and dual monitor issues. I started to get back into Skyrim and wanted to load it up with some graphic enhancing mods. Before I do that though I want to fix the issues I have been having with my system so that I can game with the best settings at 1920 by 1200.

So I have two choices just upgrade the video card and keep the rest of my system or rebuild the entire system and keep my old system as a test box(different os and random things) which is something I have been interested in doing for awhile.

I pieced together some parts that I thought looked good but I want some feedback.

CPU: Intel i7-2600k
Motherboard: ASUS P8H77-V LGA 1155 Intel H77
Video Card: EVGA GTX 670
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
Hard Drive: 2 x SAMSUNG 830 Series 256GB SSD
Case: COUGAR Evolution Black
PSU: Rosewill Xtreme Series RX850-S-B 850W

Total: 1562.92

My main concern is that I am spending more then I should. Maybe just buying a new vid card for 400 would suffice to fix my problems and allow me to continue with my current system for sometime. I mean does my cpu have room to grow or will it hamper a new vid card?

 

[lehtv]

Skyrim likes performance per core, and so do a lot of other games. Overclocking is quite a bit easier with LGA1155 than LGA1366, you can commonly achieve a stable post-4GHz OC with stock volts and minimal effort. Pushing it further is only a matter of adjusting a couple of voltages and having the necessary cooling; gone are the days of worrying about RAM stability during overclocking and tinkering with FSB versus multiplier. I'd recommend at least having OC as an option at your budget.

What's your current PSU and case? And what sort of things did you plan to do with the test box? I'm just wondering if it might make more sense to reuse some components from your old setup for the new PC, and buy cheaper components for the test box.

It's also definitely not a bad idea to just upgrade the graphics first. The i7-860 is no slouch and if you're happy with the improved performance, you can stop there. You will experience some bottlenecking with GTX 670 and i7-860; I know for a fact that my i7-920 already bottlenecks the 560 Ti in a couple instances. But that just means you'll get another boost in performance when you upgrade to Haswell. On the other hand, if you're unhappy with the performance, continuing to assemble a whole new PC will fix that.

 

[igloo15]

My current PSU is a 750watt CORSAIR. My current case is antec Nine Hundred

For the test box I just wanted to try some different linux distributions. Setup a game server/apache server/teamspeak server. I dunno just test some random things without fear of ruining any actual data.

 

[Ken g6]

From what I'm seeing here, I have a few suggestions:

1. Go ahead and upgrade your GPU. It can't hurt, it should help in many games, and you could always move it to another box later.
2. If you want a test box, have you tried virtualization? VirtualBox can set up multiple virtual machines, with snapshot images that you can roll back to if you mess something up.
3. Depending on the software you run, you might want more memory for virtualization. But it looks like your current board can support at least some 4GB modules. So if you're really short on RAM, I would consider buying more for your current board. As long as it's 1.5V or less, you should be able to use it all the way up through Haswell.

Now, if you decide to upgrade your CPU as well, I wonder, have you tested your "heavy processing programs" to see if your i7's hyper-threading makes a difference? That would help me decide whether to aim you toward a k-series i5, an i7, or possibly a Xeon E3-1230 V2. I've heard, though not confirmed, that the Xeons can be overclocked 4 "bins" (400MHz) above maximum turbo, so that might be a good value if hyper-threading is useful in your work.

 

[igloo15]

I don't think I need to go to Xeon since my current CPU is fine for what I do in work. I hadn't thought of virtualization but that might be a good idea.

I have 2x4GB ram now how would upgrading to 16GB help me though?

My other question is with a game like Skyrim that is very cpu bound won't I run into problems with my current CPU?

Also which brand of graphics card should I go with a 2GB 670 or a 3GB 7970 is it worth the extra 50 dollars?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

What has made you consider buying/building a new PC? first thing that comes to mind is usually the main reason, please list it whether it's 'I just feel like upgrading' or 'gaming' 'work'

Cool

I really like the idea of testing out a new GPU with your current machine. Upgrading to a GTX 670 on my i7 920 gamer rig has given me another year before a build.

 

[lehtv]

My other question is with a game like Skyrim that is very cpu bound won't I run into problems with my current CPU?

Well, you shouldn't run into problems, but it's not optimal either. Most of the time you will get a huge boost with GTX 670, sometimes not so much. Overall if you're willing to tinker with settings a bit you will get near-constant 60 fps. My 560 Ti runs it very smoothly, no complaints in image quality which I have set to high instead of ultra, and then tweaked to my liking. I've determined that it's a good idea to lower object, actor and item distances a bit, stick to medium shadow quality, 4xAA and no FXAA, and instead use post processing (a customized ENBseries/bloom mod) to improve the look. With GTX 670, you can improve a lot of things like shadows and textures well beyond what my 560 Ti is capable of.

 

[mfenn]

The i7 860 will turbo up to 3.46GHz, so it's no slouch. Not that an Ivy Bridge setup wouldn't be faster, I just don't know if it will be $350 faster.

At any rate, I'd just upgrade the GPU at this point. As Ken said, it won't hurt to buy a GTX 670 first and see how you like it. If you do decide to do a bigger upgrade (a total rebuild is not even close to necessary), you'll be able to carry the GTX 670 forward with you.

 

[igloo15]

Alright so for a GPU upgrade should I go GTX 670 or 7970?

 

[lehtv]

GTX 670. Compare: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=508. At stock clocks, GTX 670 is better in some games and 7970 better in others, but GTX 670 costs 10% less and consumes 20% less power.

 

[mfenn]

GTX 670. Compare: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=508. At stock clocks, GTX 670 is better in some games and 7970 better in others, but GTX 670 costs 10% less and consumes 20% less power.

:thumbsup: Agree.