Upgrading My Gaming PC

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Here's my build that I did ~3 years ago: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6y6Cbv. A little background on the needs of the build: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2328875

I'm thinking of allocating around $500 ($300 for new video card and $100-200 for anything else). What would be a good video card for that amount that would replace my 760? I'm thinking the other $100-200 to increase the RAM to 16GB. Do I need to do anything else?

 

[nsafreak]

Well, it's not going to be long before the Pascal GPUs are going to be released. Perhaps wait till they're released and just bump the RAM up to 16 GB in the meantime?

 

[DigDog]

8->16Gb will do nothing for gaming; you could look at getting a second 960 and SLI it.

 

[nsafreak]

8->16Gb will do nothing for gaming; you could look at getting a second 960 and SLI it.

That really depends on the game. I will grant you that it's the exception rather than the rule, and it's still in its alpha stage, but Star Citizen does see a noticeable performance increase going to 16GB. It's possible that it is a trend that will continue and it wouldn't hurt if the op does other things that see benefits from more RAM like high res picture editing or video editing.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

8->16Gb will do nothing for gaming; you could look at getting a second 960 and SLI it.

I have a 760, but my motherboard only has one pci-3.0 x16 port. So if I was gonna do that I would have to get a new motherboard too.

I'm just trying to future proof for another 3 years to play the games coming out within the next 3 years at 1920x1200.

 

[DigDog]

so wait.. do you have a 760, or a 960? you said 960 in your first post.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

so wait.. do you have a 760, or a 960? you said 960 in your first post.

Sorry. Changed it to reflect my actual video card. A 760.

 

[lehtv]

No point in doing SLI with 760 nor 960, even if you had a SLI mobo. 2GB of VRAM just doesn't cut it - there are even situations where a single GTX 970's 3.5GB of VRAM is barely enough. Maybe if you had a GTX 960 4GB, SLI could make sense at the right price, but I'd still probably rather upgrade to GTX 970 which is 50% faster than a single GTX 960 and avoids all potential SLI problems.

At current prices, I would pick R9 390 8GB. It's faster than GTX 970, a little cheaper than GTX 970, and has more than double the VRAM. This is a good pick especially if you intend to run a resolution higher than 1080p or if you want FreeSync compatibility. Sapphire Nitro R9 390 8GB $309 AR shipped. GTX 970 prices start at $306 with Zotac dual fan card which is a little sub par. EVGA SSC at $310 is already worth buying, but Nitro is still better bang for buck.

Or... just wait until Pascal and AMD 400 series are out

16GB of RAM is only worth it if your 8GB of RAM is actually filling up too often. Is it?

 

[DigDog]

i submit to the higher knowledge of lehtv. do what he says.