Got The Upgrade Bug...

[r1sefromru1n]

I am looking to do an upgrade on my current build. I was thinking about upgrading mainly the GPU or CPU or perhaps both. If I can get away with upgrading my GPU only that would be nice to save some cash, but I'd be willing to upgrade the CPU as well if it makes sense. Here is my current build:

AsRock z77 Extreme 4
i5-2500K
XFX 7970 DD 3GB
Corsair XMS3 4x4GB 1600 9-9-9-24 1.50v
Corsair Bronze TX 750W
2x Crucial M4 256GB drives
2x Western Digital Blue 1TB drives (mirrored)

I play lots of different types of games, but where I need the best performance is Battlefield 4. I don't really have any issues right now with in game performance, however I am contemplating the idea of upgrading my current monitor to a 2650x1440 monitor. I currently game at 1920x1080. I'm mainly doing this for more workspace in windows, but to be able to game at that a higher resolution would be nice as well. I'm not married to the green or red team as far as GPUs go either. If possible though I would love to be able to stick with my existing motherboard and intel CPUs if possible. I'm also not opposed to the idea of throwing another 7970 in a crossfire setup if that makes sense - I'm pretty sure that would be able to push 1440p. Just not sure if my CPU would bottleneck anything there. Oh and between a CPU and GPU, whatever the recommendations are, I'd like to keep the cost to around $500-ish. Over or under a bit is fine.

Hope I've included enough information for you helpers out there. Thanks everyone!

 

[Syran]

GTX 970 will run 1440p fairly well with decent (not max) settings in most games for $330-350. You can bump up to a GTX 980 for $550, but it's a steep climb. I honestly wouldn't worry about all the people having fits about the specs of the 970; if it does what you want it to do, then it's fine... the benchmarks didn't magically change when the hubbub about the specs sheet came out. Your i5 should be plenty fast enough for now. The SSD is probably the biggest upgrade you have already made, and that helps much more then CPU when you are talking about most i5-i7 processors.

 

[Ken g6]

You're in a similar place to [thread=2419379]this guy[/thread], but with a better GPU and without the hyper-threading. Which would help a little in BF4, but probably not worth upgrading the CPU yet. Have you overclocked the one you've got?

I'm also not opposed to the idea of throwing another 7970 in a crossfire setup if that makes sense

Hm. That's one option. 3GB RAM is getting small for high-end gaming, though.

Would you consider waiting a few months to see what [thread=2417448]an R9 380X[/thread] looks like?

Otherwise, you've got plenty of PSU, so a 290X is an option that's competitive with the GTX 970, and probably a few dollars cheaper.

 

[r1sefromru1n]

I could wait a few months until the new generation GPUs shake out but if I'm going to get a big performance boost from say doing another 7970 in crossfire then that would make the most sense since the cost would be probably sub $200 for another one. If the benefits aren't as good as going with a 290x or 970GTX then perhaps I should just wait it out. I am worried about the micro-stuttering issues I've heard occur with 7970s in crossfire. Additional thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks all for the help so far!

 

[Ken g6]

I just found a 7970 xfire benchmark. I think it's pre-Mantle, and it's for a bigger monitor than yours, so it looks like BF4 should do at least 60FPS avg for you on 7970 xfire. The only thing I'm concerned about is the 3GB VRAM limit, mostly for other games.

At this point, for you, I probably wouldn't consider a 290x, or 970, or 980. It's now between 7970 xfire now, or [thread=2420086]the AMD 390-series[/thread] in 3-6 months.

 

[r1sefromru1n]

Excellent Ken. I think I will probably wait it out for the next few months and see what the new gen cards bring us. Hopefully I can be patient enough