Will58448 Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Hey, I'm looking to upgrade my system and was hoping for a bit of advice. My current system is: Processor: AMD FX -4100 Quad Core 3.60GHzRAM: 8GBGraphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti It is used mainly for gaming, I'm guessing a new graphics card? I'm not really very knowledgeable on these things so any advice would be appreciated. If you need any other info just ask. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rennn Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 (edited) Hey, I'm looking to upgrade my system and was hoping for a bit of advice. My current system is: Processor: AMD FX -4100 Quad Core 3.60GHzRAM: 8GBGraphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti It is used mainly for gaming, I'm guessing a new graphics card? I'm not really very knowledgeable on these things so any advice would be appreciated. If you need any other info just ask. Thanks! Eh... I'm not certain, but I think your CPU might be holding you back in at least as many games as your graphics card. I say this because your AMD FC-4100 Quad is slower than my Phenom II 955, and I know my Phenom II limits me in certain games. Which game(s) do you mostly want to upgrade for? That might be the best way to decide whether your GPU or CPU would be a more worthwhile upgrade. If you're set on just upgrading your graphics card (which will help more in newer games), how much are you planning to spend? Edited March 11, 2014 by Rennn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werne Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 (edited) You'll need more than just a graphics card. What's your budget? And what are your other components (aka, motherboard and PSU)? On the CPU side, FX 4100 performs the same as a generation older (and quite a bit cheaper) Phenom II X4 940. I'd usually suggest overclocking to alleviate the issue but overclocking BD doesn't help much since it flat-lines at around 4.3GHz (in 4100's case, 20% overclock, that's the same as getting a 4350 and keeping it on stock), only major gain after that is heat. If your motherboard supports it (your post lacks motherboard model), Piledriver would bring some much needed improvement to push you ahead of the Phenom II, but if the board doesn't support PD then I'd suggest Intel (since you obviously don't overclock). Bulldozer was and still is garbage, the fact that it got replaced by Piledriver in a flash is the best thing that happened to it. As for the graphics card, GTX 660 and Radeon 7870 are ~20-25% faster than 560 Ti. Those are minimum since going lower would bring pretty much nothing in terms of performance compared to 560 Ti, even those two don't bring that big of a leap in performance either. To put things simply - you need both a new CPU and graphics card. By upgrading just the graphics card you'd be left with a CPU that holds the card back, and by upgrading just the CPU you'd be left with a card that holds the CPU back, neither of those two options is good. Edited March 11, 2014 by Werne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rennn Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 (edited) To put things simply - you need both a new CPU and graphics card. By upgrading just the graphics card you'd be left with a CPU that holds the card back, and by upgrading just the CPU you'd be left with a card that holds the CPU back, neither of those two options is good. Agreed, but depending on his budget, one or the other might still help more if we find out what games he wants to upgrade for (and whether his motherboard supports overclocking). Edited March 11, 2014 by Rennn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now