Time to do a little upgrading

[Xarick]

Not a lot of cash here.
i5 4670k at 4.3hz
8gigs ddr3 at 2400mhz
Nvidia 670
antec true power 750
xtreme gamer sound card
gaming at 1080 with hopes for more later

So.. my thinking is video card.. maybe 1070
or should I wait for vega...
or should I go for a 480 and add 8 more gigs of ram?

or
something else?

Is the processor still adequate?

Thanks

 

[VirtualLarry]

wait, and save your cash. Is there a particular program or game that is running slow, stuttering, or not giving you the performance that you want with that system? Or you just feel the need to upgrade?

Edit: I might consider a video card upgrade, if you must upgrade something. Either an RX 480, or a 1060 6GB, or 1070.

 

[lehtv]

@Xarick The video card is definitely your bottleneck. The processor should be fine, provided you don't need ultra smooth gameplay, just good enough. Whether to upgrade the GPU now or wait is entirely up to you... If it were me I would upgrade now, GTX 670 simply isn't fast enough (well, I'd have upgraded it years ago to be honest).

GTX 1070 doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now, it's twice as expensive as RX 480 but only 50% faster, and doesn't support FreeSync which will probably be of interest to you if you're upgrading the monitor. Meanwhile, GTX 1080 prices just dropped, it's actually very nearly as good value for money as GTX 1070 right now but will last longer before needing an upgrade.

Two good RX 480 choices on newegg:
Sapphire RX 480 8GB Nitro $195 AR shipped
Asus RX 480 8GB Strix OC $220 AR shipped
Asus is quieter and has longer warranty.

What motherboard do you have? If it's a Z series board, you can quite easily overclock that processor to 4.2GHz with just a quick visit to BIOS: clock multiplier to 42, VCore to 1.200, done. This will improve CPU performance by about 20% compared to stock and reduce CPU bottlenecking in the more CPU intensive games. Of course, you'll want an aftermarket cooler, the stock cooler won't be able to handle 4.2GHz very well. Some cheap and good ones: Arctic i11, 212 EVO, Arctic i32.

Is your current monitor 60Hz or 144Hz? If it's 60Hz, I would probably buy RX 480 and then upgrade the monitor to 144Hz FreeSync next. Samsung's curved 144Hz VA monitor C24FG70 would be nice and I've heard good things about it. It's not the cheapest one though, and it's still just 1080p. If you want 1440p, you may have to upgrade the graphics card again when upgrading the monitor.

Do you have an SSD for the OS, programs and games? If not, you're missing out

As for the RAM, I doubt you will need more. You can easily keep track of RAM usage in Task Manager. If you're not experiencing slowdowns that are clearly RAM use related (not mere hitches but proper slomo stuff), then you don't need more RAM.

 

[Xarick]

Already at 4.3ghz on the proc overclock and yes an SSD.

 

[Valantar]

Like everyone else is saying, unless you have $800+ to spend, the only sensible path is a GPU upgrade, or possibly nothing at all. Vega is coming in the next few months, which will probably push prices down somewhat (around GTX 1070 levels of performance, at least). Your CPU is fine for now, and I'm hesitant to recommend buying high-end 4c8t today when Intel is rumored to go 6c8t with Cannonlake in a year or so, and AMD is already giving you 8c16t for the same price as a 7700K. Arguably, the 7700k performs better in most games, but that's not likely to be as cut-and-dried in a year or two as games become increasingly multithreaded.

If you want something now, the RX 480 is excellent value for money, and a decent step up from your current card. It'll even do reasonably well for 1440p gaming (or ultra wide 1080p) should you upgrade your monitor at some point.

 

[lehtv]

Intel is rumored to go 6c8t with Cannonlake in a year or so

*6c12t

 

[Valantar]

*6c12t

*facepalm*

 

[mistercrabby]

Keep an eye out for a gently used GPU >= 980

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Keep an eye out for a gently used GPU >= 980

Even a 970 would be >2x the speed.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1769?vs=1743

I'm seeing them for $150 on eBay.

The not-absolutely-top-end cards are, IMO, less likely to have been abused by OCing used for mining.

Gaming at higher than 1080p would definitely lead me to a 1080 or 1080Ti. But that would require a new monitor, etc., as well. Probably too pricey for all at once. (Could be ~$1k for a 1080 and a decent 4k display.)

 

[lehtv]

Even a 970 would be >2x the speed.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1769?vs=1743

I'm seeing them for $150 on eBay.

$150 is a bit much when a new RX 480 4GB can be had for $35-40 more. Slightly better performance, 0.5GB more VRAM. A used card shouldn't cost more than about 70-75% of a new equivalent card, so a used GTX 970 is worth about $130 tops (+/- depending on exact model, of course).

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just looked on ebay, Newegg's got an XFX RX 480 4GB for $159.99 FS on their ebay site.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-Radeon-...256-Bit-GDDR5-PCI-Express-3-0-C-/381762505092