PC Upgrades

[Jub]

My current PC was built a couple years ago on a tight budget and some components are starting to show their age. I'm not exactly swimming in expendable income, but I'm still looking to use my tax rebate to make a few upgrades. Without knowing exactly how much I'll have to work with, I'm looking for general upgrade ideas.

My current specs are:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
RAM: Corsair XMS 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill ARMOR-EVO ATX Mid Tower Case
PSU: Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1000W 80+ Platinum

I also have a pair of smaller 500GB HDDs out of my now defunct laptop that I've been using as extra storage for things I might want to pluck out and take with me someplace.

I know that an SSD would give me the single biggest performance boost dollar for dollar so that's item number one on my list. The only debate is what size to get, and that's determined by budget.

From there things open up a bit, I'd like to upgrade to some faster RAM which shouldn't cost a ton but also won't give me a huge boost. I'm considering a super cheap upgrade of a second 7870 card for ~$150 with S&H, but I'm not sure if SLIing two older cards is something worth spending even that small amount of money on. So this is where you guys and your suggestions come in.

My expected budget is between $300 and $500 CAD, so keep that in mind.

[Mr Bean]

Skip the super faster RAM, the difference between top tier ultra high end RAM, and okay ram is 1 FPS.

However get to 16 gigs, heck I just sold 16 gigs of DDR-3 for 20$ to someone (It was a spare set) that will make little game difference lots of quality of life difference.

As far as SSD's go, get a Samsung EVO 250 gig or higher and be happy, everyone loves EVO's for a reason.

As far as video cards... hmm, by your budget after upgrades I've spent 157$ US which is 230 Canadian atm or there about.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FRhNTW

Which leaves 80-280 left over for a video card which is your main upgrade. Anywhere from a second 7870 for SLI to a Geforce 960-970 or a Radeon 380 or 380x.

[Jub]

I didn't know that the performance boost from faster RAM was that low. I knew it wouldn't be much of a boost, but I was expecting better than 1fps and some other little improvements. Still, being able to just grab 8 more gigs of 1600 RAM versus 16 gigs of something faster is a pretty decent chunk of change to save.

Good to have a brand to look at in terms of SSDs and nice to see that SSDs have plummeted in price. I might want to look at a 500GB model, but it's good to know that a 250GB model is that price.

A single card does have some appeal, but as the most price bounded part of the upgrade package I'll probably have to figure this one out in March. Based on the options you've given they all benchmark around the same range, so for those options I would just go with the lowest cost.

[Starglider]

You don't explain what you use your computer for. The recommendation will vary depending on what you are trying to do and your personal priorities. SLI is a good idea if you like playing action games at 1080p or more. A slight bump in memory bandwidth will affect very little, maybe video encoding if you're not already CPU limited.

[Jub]

You don't explain what you use your computer for. The recommendation will vary depending on what you are trying to do and your personal priorities. SLI is a good idea if you like playing action games at 1080p or more. A slight bump in memory bandwidth will affect very little, maybe video encoding if you're not already CPU limited.

I mainly use it for gaming. If I was going to do any serious video editing I'd already have another 8 gigs of ram in my machine.

In terms of where I'm getting limited my GPU and HDD are the bottlenecks for most games.

[Dominus Atheos]

The problem with recommending an upgrade is that your computer really isn't that obsolete. $1000+ computers (probably $1500 in 2016 CAD) don't get obsolete in 3 years. Your video card is still being sold today as the AMD R7 370 for $250 CAD, and is adequate for 1080p gaming.

Any computer will benefit from an SSD upgrade. Definitely get this since it will involve a reinstall of Windows, which after 3 years will have some serious windows rot and is probably at least half the reason your computer feels slow.

[Jub]

The problem with recommending an upgrade is that your computer really isn't that obsolete. $1000+ computers (probably $1500 in 2016 CAD) don't get obsolete in 3 years. Your video card is still being sold today as the AMD R7 370 for $250 CAD, and is adequate for 1080p gaming.

Any computer will benefit from an SSD upgrade. Definitely get this since it will involve a reinstall of Windows, which after 3 years will have some serious windows rot and is probably at least half the reason your computer feels slow.

I know it's not entirely out of date, but there are a few games that I'm struggling to run to the level I want them to. GTA V stutters badly at high speeds unless I turn settings way down, World of Warships can take forever and a day to load, things like that. Nothing serious, but enough to warrent an upgrade.

[TheFeniX]

I have to also put my vote in for an SSD over almost any other upgrade considering your current setup. It's just ridiculous the performance boost of the cheapest SSD over any HDD. Especially for multi-tasking performance.

16GBs of RAM is going to become a standard thing here soon, if not already. Really, 10GBs would probably do the job considering what we have for consoles (8GBs) and giving yourself another 2GBs for the OS and other stuff (like, I keep multiple windows and programs going while gaming). But DDR3 is so cheap right now.

Your 7870 is a bit better than my GTX660 I put in my older i7 rig and that thing has no problems running even the current crop of games, but you do have to make choices with a few of the settings that love cratering FPS: godrays, SSAO/dynamic lighting, etc. Certain games and their implementations of effect are also something you have to look out for. Like Godrays usually aren't a HUGE deal. But in Fallout 4, they just love consuming GPU clocks. All of the clocks.

But, in general, that's not a terrible card even today. I'd consider gaming at a lower detail setting and banking the money until the card just doesn't cut it at all. The current line of 970s, etc aren't dropping in price right now. But that can't last forever.

I know it's not entirely out of date, but there are a few games that I'm struggling to run to the level I want them to. GTA V stutters badly at high speeds unless I turn settings way down, World of Warships can take forever and a day to load, things like that. Nothing serious, but enough to warrent an upgrade.

I'd definitely try the SSD and possibly the RAM upgrade with a clean install route and see how your card does. Benchmark if you have to. Look up some performance guides (GTAV is not well optimized from what I've read) and look to slowly increase your detail settings.

If the card won't cut it, then it won't cut it: upgrade away.

[Jub]

I'd definitely try the SSD and possibly the RAM upgrade with a clean install route and see how your card does. Benchmark if you have to. Look up some performance guides (GTAV is not well optimized from what I've read) and look to slowly increase your detail settings.

If the card won't cut it, then it won't cut it: upgrade away.

Yeah, based on what I'm seeing I'll do the SSD and RAM upgrades first play around with that, and then decide if better graphics options are in the cards. If I don't end up needing a new graphics card that's more cash for other stuff I might want/need anyway.

[Edi]

You can actually migrate from a HDD to a SSD drive without doing a reinstall, using the Minitool PArtition Wizard program. Even the free version has that functionality. Though I would recommend a full reinstall.

But definitely SSD and RAM at this point. I have a similar rig, from about 2013, the processor just being a Core i7 and 16 GB of RAM to begin with. If I need to upgrade, SSD is the first thing on the list.