Is it Worth Upgrading?

[Fooz]

now my PC is pretty good as it stands, and i have only had it for 6 months roughly, but i have come into some money, £1500 to be exact

my specs as stands are:

CPU: i5-760 Quad 2.8Ghz

GPU: Radeon 6870 1GB

RAM: 8GB


now im thinking of upgrading my CPU and getting another 6870 (for which i would need a 750 Watt PSU, whereas i have a 650 atm)


is it worth upgrading to a new CPU (maybe an i5 2500k sandy bridge or an i7 2600k sandy bridge and crossfiring another 6870 for all the new releases such as skyrim and Batman etc....

i want to be able to max them all and run at 60FPS with Fraps running for my LP's

any advice is appreciated

(im going bed now, so i cant reply, but im gunna check all your responses in the morning)

 

[Thwarted]

to be honest the only reason your current rig is unable to run things on max at 60fps with fraps is probably your HDD write speed, so upgrading to an SDD or raid 0 (or both ) would give you exactly what you want for alot less money. And tbh, as HD write speed is probably your bottleneck atm anyway, your suggested upgrades would not achieve the desired effect. If you really want to blow your budget then upgrading your CPU to an i7 series processor for hyperthreading would also be a secondary option.

 

[Kapol]

Personally I would say it isn't worth it. The quad core is fine as it is as far as I can tell, though I'm not sure quite how much power the GPU has off-hand. But anyways it seems like it would run fine to me.

 

[Zipa]

There is no reason to , that computer should be handling anything you can throw at it just fine.

 

[willsham45]

What you got sounds pretty good I really don't think it would be worth it. PC games should not make a desktop with that spec chug for quite a while...if you really want to spend that money maybe it would be worth getting a bigger monitor or a new sound system.

Or save it and wait for the hot new releases and then if the system lags a bit then upgrade what you are looking for will be cheaper by then as well.

If I had a system like you are saying I would save that money for something else. Thought of trying a new hobby or something? Maybe save it. Or do something with it like going to some festivals or go on a holiday or something. I don't know what you like you make up your mind on that. You don't have to spend it because you have it, it is nice be not have to worry or have to ask for money when something comes up.

Or you could give that money to me

 

[Thwarted]

I think you guys are possibly missing the point here. the only reason his system dips below 60fps with those specs is likely to be fraps, and as the OP wants to make LPs this is important to him.

 

[Fooz]

to be honest the only reason your current rig is unable to run things on max at 60fps with fraps is probably your HDD write speed, so upgrading to an SDD or raid 0 (or both ) would give you exactly what you want for alot less money. And tbh, as HD write speed is probably your bottleneck atm anyway, your suggested upgrades would not achieve the desired effect. If you really want to blow your budget then upgrading your CPU to an i7 series processor for hyperthreading would also be a secondary option.

could you please explain to me how an SSD works briefly?

like are there specific ones for PC's and for laptops?

how do i use it lol?

 

[Zipa]

to be honest the only reason your current rig is unable to run things on max at 60fps with fraps is probably your HDD write speed, so upgrading to an SDD or raid 0 (or both ) would give you exactly what you want for alot less money. And tbh, as HD write speed is probably your bottleneck atm anyway, your suggested upgrades would not achieve the desired effect. If you really want to blow your budget then upgrading your CPU to an i7 series processor for hyperthreading would also be a secondary option.

could you please explain to me how an SSD works briefly?

like are there specific ones for PC's and for laptops?

how do i use it lol?

SSDs in a nutshell store data to particular blocks of memory on the hard drive instead of on plates like a traditional HD as they are not waiting on a actual moving part. The upside is they are far faster at finding and loading data than a conventional drive but the downside is that they take longer to store new data over previous data as the old data has to be deleted completely instead of just over written like a conventional drive.

SSDs are also currently way more expensive per GB than a normal drive and have smaller capacity but also much faster to read and write data so there is a trade off.

 

[Thwarted]

a SSD is a solid state hard drive, they are far FAR faster, both read and write, than traditional rotating hard drives. They act just like traditional HDDs for installing windows/running programmes etc, but they are rather more expensive and have offer less in the way of capacity. Thinking about it, fraps requires a large amount of storage space tho. So you may wish to look into using a ~100gig SDD as a buffer for a raid 0 made from 2 terrabite drives or similar. this is rather complicated and requires specialist software to get the SDD to work as a buffer rather than a drive, but it would be a grand solution to your problem. im off to bed now but googling will yiled further info.

 

[Fooz]

What you got sounds pretty good I really don't think it would be worth it. PC games should not make a desktop with that spec chug for quite a while...if you really want to spend that money maybe it would be worth getting a bigger monitor or a new sound system.

Or you could give that money to me

i have a 32" 1080p TV as my monitor so that isnt an issue

and about me giving you money, well this should explain how i feel

No, the 7XXX series is here in the final months of the year and should be a pretty large jump ahead of the 6XXX series.

Why not overclock your i5? It overclocks very well and seeing as you want a K series processor it's obvious you want to overclock your CPU eventually.

and i have already overclocked my i5 to 4.0Ghz

 

[Fooz]

I think you guys are possibly missing the point here. the only reason his system dips below 60fps with those specs is likely to be fraps, and as the OP wants to make LPs this is important to him.

Unless he is trying to max out the games with fraps at a high resolution too which would also cause issues.

Tbh if he wants to use fraps why doesn't he just set his res to 1920x720 and he should hit 60 FPS easily with the 6870 unless it's a game like Crysis 2 on DX11.

Not many people care about whether a video is 1080P or 720P on a lets play.

well i was planning on doing a Crysis 2 lets play lol

and i want to max it out on Crysis 2 because its one of the few games with such amazing graphics

i usually do just put out 720p videos, but Crysis 2 deserves 1080p

 

[willsham45]

What you got sounds pretty good I really don't think it would be worth it. PC games should not make a desktop with that spec chug for quite a while...if you really want to spend that money maybe it would be worth getting a bigger monitor or a new sound system.

Or you could give that money to me

i have a 32" 1080p TV as my monitor so that isnt an issue

and about me giving you money, well this should explain how i feel

No, the 7XXX series is here in the final months of the year and should be a pretty large jump ahead of the 6XXX series.

Why not overclock your i5? It overclocks very well and seeing as you want a K series processor it's obvious you want to overclock your CPU eventually.

and i have already overclocked my i5 to 4.0Ghz

lol fair enough. So in short then you do not need to mess with your computer just play and enjoy...or get a second monitor, will make you feel like an evil genius.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

1500 squid to play with?

HD 6990 and a new PSU to power it.

 

[Fooz]

1500 squid to play with?

HD 6990 and a new PSU to power it.

i hear the 6990 isn't really worth the cost