Starting to look at upgrading my current system which will be 6 years old in December. Starting to notice issues here and there and its beginning to feel a tad sluggish with FPS drops down to the mid 20s in some games like Planetside 2. Looking to pick up Destiny 2 and CoD WW2 in the future. Currently: Intel i5 2500K Asus P67 Sabretooth 8Gb RAM Sapphire AMD R9 290 TRI-X OC 4Gb (Bought dec 2014 - Still reasonable or does it need an upgrade?) Antec 900W gamer PSU (Keep or upgrade?) Intel 320 series SSD 120gb (Main C drive - 2011) Samsung 840 EVO 250Gb SSD (2014) NZXT Phantom full case I know very little about selecting components but can build myself. UK based so limited on places to buy from, Would prefer to get bits from one or 2 places tops if possible. Had a very quick browse and kinda threw this together (Minus a GFX card) so feel free to pick it apart! Budget is flexible to a point but lets say maybe £800 tops. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/enixrecoil/saved/gP9WXL Main sites: ebuyer.com scan.co.uk overclockers.co.uk
Even though the CPU is older, it isnt really holding back a lot yet for a system targeting 60 frames per second. It would probably be best to just keep that CPU and go for a big graphics card upgrade since that will help your games far more than a new CPU would right now. Something like a GTX 1080 and call it good for another couple years
Thanks for the suggestion. I think I am starting to get errors with the motherboard though, Boot up and find that the network port doesn't exist or a USB port isnt working. Drivers are all up to date etc. Its also the CPU that is holding back sometimes in PS2 according to the in game FPS counter - Large fights drop the FPS to like 20 making it barely playable :/ That is a mix of CPU and GPU though. Also sometimes find that when loading a random folder on any of my hard drives it freezes for 5 seconds whilst thinking about it, then loads and continues as normal.Potential issues with a drive? Nvidia better than AMD's VEGA offerings for GFX cards?
Would make sense, sadly Intel had serious chipset problems with those "SandyBridge" chips that caused premature failures and wear. They said it was fixed in a revision, but that may or may not be really true. I ahve seen a lot more people than normal with MB chipset issues these past years. And ya, Planetside 2 is still notorious for needing a lot of CPU power. I forgot about that. Watch this video: That guy looks to be dropping into the low 30's in some areas wityh the R7 1700. He has shadows on ultra which could be causing it, but you may want to set your settings to the same stuff he is using and compare your FPS vs his FPS to see how much improvement you might be looking at.
Changed my GFX settings and going to try and find a fight in the same area to see what the difference is. My GFX settings were a bit weird though. Starting to wonder if an update caused most of mine to go blank :S Already noticing that its now the GPU holding everything back after pushing everything on the right to high (except shadows and lighting)
Okay after running the same settings as him but with half the resolution and not recording, I was getting about 20-25FPS in a smaller fight than when he was playing and quite a bit of graphics lag where infantry models were not moving smoothly - very jittery and rubber banding. And that was just infantry, no vehicles involved either. GPU was definitely the main culprit at limiting FPS but that is in part due to the poor optimization on PS2. I would really like to be able to start recording my playing again too but running fraps as is pretty much kills the gameplay. How much would I potentially need to budget to get a system that is going to last for about 4-5 years?
Sadly the costs on computer products are skyrocketting, so probably a lot more than you are hoping for An R7 1700 would be a great way to go on a processor because of the 8 cores and 16 threads. This will let you play PS2 and stream at the same time without a major hit to your FPS. You will have to research the best RAM to use with that processor, as it is very picky on RAM. And you want the most compatible DDR-3200 memory. The RAM speed increases the speed of core-core communication which will be very important. You dont need a ton of RAM, 8-16GB will be fine. But you want the high MHz and good timings. You might be able to find a good deal on a used GTX 1080 on a site like Overclock.net (or a similar site in the UK) or possibly EBay.
As it stands a 1080Ti seems a bit too pricey So I would be looking at a standard 1080 or a VEGA 64. Looked around and it seems there isnt much to choose between either. How do the following look based on your knowledge? Is the mobo good enough? I should be fine for storage/SSD as I already have a 850 EVO. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/enixrecoil/saved/KQ7WXL R7 1700 - £267 Asus STRIX B-350 F - £110 2x8Gb Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 - £146 Sapphire VEGA 64 - £470 ---- £993 https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/enixrecoil/saved/nvKBP6 R7 1700 - £267 Asus STRIX B-350 F - £110 2x8Gb G.Skill FlareX 3200 - £184 -(Another recommended RAM for the Ryzen 7) Zotac 1080 - £515 ---- £1075 Thanks for the help so far.
Id go with those FlareX RAM sticks. Not a fan of Corsair as they switch the chips they use far too often, you cant be 100% sure you are going to get a good batch with Samsung B-die chips in it that you need. The FlareX are specifically designed for Ryzen platforms and have much better timings on them. Reviews on Amazon and forum threads over at ROG look pretty positive on them as well. For the graphics card, the Vega64 and GTX1080 are pretty similar right now. Id expect the Vega card to gain more performance over the next year, whereas the 1080 is topped out in performance. So go with the Vega for £470 unless you can find a used 1080 for £350 or less
Thanks for the help Enigma. Will look to make a few purchases in a couple of weeks then Any way of transferring my Windows 10 across easily for a fresh install? I had one of the free upgrades from 7 so dont have a key unless there is a way to retrieve it?
From what I remember you can use your Windows 7 key directly during the install of Win10 now. I havent done it myself yet but I remember Microsoft saying they made that available. I dont know if you will be able to use it like that or not though, as the upgrade was tied to your existing hardware and the license fgor Win10 is non-transferable to new hardware.
Thanks Enigma. I never had a key with my download initially but got it from Squirl and have subsequently lost it over the years. I think i've been able to recover it by using Belarc Advisor. Hopefully it works when I come to install! If not, I guess I'll just have to purchase a new copy of Win10.