Need help upgrading my PC

[Eferas]

Hi guys,

 

let me start admitting I'm a noob in computer technology, so please be patient and clear in your explanations. Almost two years ago I bought a gaming pc with the help of a friend of mine, he chose the parts, he mounted it and installed the operating system, and I had a lot of fun with games and I modded the hell out of each one thanks to the modders of this community.

 

I run Witcher 3 almost at highest settings, but I have to lower them when I install graphic mods. I run Fallout 4 with middle settings, because some places had a huge drop of performance, and if I want to play it with mods I know I need to update my pc, it's time.

 

But I need help to understand what parts need to be changed, and with what, so please give me your advices :smile:

 

Here's my specs:

 

CPU: Intel® Core i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz

GPU: AMD Radeon Sapphire R9 270x (4Gb memory)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (4+4)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

 

Case: Cooler Master Silencio 650

Fan: Zalman CNPS11X Performa V-Shaped

 

HDD: Seagate 2TB 64Mb SataIII (where I install programs and games)

Solid State Drive 2.5" 120GB SATA3 SAMSUNG (where I keep only the OS, advice of my friend, I don't install games here)

 

Thanks in advance :smile:

Edited January 21, 2016 by Eferas

[obobski]

What graphics do you actually have? "200 Series" is too vague - it will have a specific name, like R9 290X, R9 280, R9 295X2, etc. Also, what resolution are you trying to run at?

 

Anyways: you won't do much better (if at all) than the 4690 as far as the CPU goes, barring an overclock (and that's entirely "up in the air" as to what you get). Broadwell and Skylake just haven't brought that significant of a performance increase (we're talking like 1 FPS or less in most games, per Anandtech's benchmarks). If that's a 290 card in there, you won't do a whole lot better than that either - Fury, Titan X, Titan Z, 980 Ti, etc are somewhat faster, but not orders of magnitude, and certainly not worth the price (and if its a 295X2, you already have the fastest graphics card on the market). A 280 is somewhat slower, but I'd still expect reasonable performance in newer games.

 

On the RAM: is that properly set-up in dual channel, or is it running as single channel?

 

I'm assuming you have a 64-bit version of Windows as well.

 

Overall, I don't see much that you could do apart from CrossFire, but even that wouldn't be leaps and bounds, and can cause issues in some games.

 

On the storage: *facepalm* The SSD doesn't benefit anything that's not computationally bound, or stored on it, and there's no point in having it as an "OS drive" - the sole benefit of an SSD is increased read/write speed and lower latency, but that's only for data it contains. In this case, it means the computer will load Windows (on start-up) quickly, which is of little utility beyond being a neat party trick. It has absolutely no benefit for games, or other applications, because they're not stored on it. It's small though, so you probably can't load much else but Windows on there anyways. Oh well, live and learn... :mellow:

[kyeee]

 

CPU: Intel® Core i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz

GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (4Gb memory)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (4+4)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

 

Case: Cooler Master Silencio 650

Fan: Zalman CNPS11X Performa V-Shaped

 

HDD: Seagate 2TB 64Mb SataIII (where I install programs and games)

Solid State Drive 2.5" 120GB SATA3 SAMSUNG (where I keep only the OS, advice of my friend, I don't install games here)

 

Thanks in advance :smile:

If your getting decent FPS in fallout 4 at medium settings an upgrade really isn't nessicary unless it is just a for the hell of it thing, witch I understand.

 

If your looking to get better fps a new GPU would come first assuming your power supply could power it and it fit in your case. An upgrade to an i7 would be nice, preferrably 4770k or 4790k. Hard drive and SSD are fine. You could grab some extra ram also.

 

IMO I would stick with what you have for awhile and just sacrafice lowered settings untill you have enough money for a full upgrade to something that can run current games at max.

[obobski]

Something I forgot to add: have you updated your graphics drivers since Fallout 4 came out? I know this has been a significant factor for performance with previous Bethesda games, and usually AMD (and nVidia) are pretty good about releasing driver updates that improve performance (and this can go on for quite a while - iirc nVidia didn't "stabilize" Skyrim optimizations/performance until early 2013, for example).

 

And on the 4770/4790:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/the-intel-haswell-refresh-review-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/9

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/the-intel-haswell-refresh-review-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/11

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9320/intel-broadwell-review-i7-5775c-i5-5675c/9 (and Broadwell for the heck of it; some Haswell-compatible boards support Broadwell

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/16 (and Skylake for the heck of it; Skylake requires a new platform)

 

I wasn't kidding about "won't do much better (if at all)" - it's not worth the $300+ by any stretch of the imagination imho.

 

Extra memory won't do anything unless we're running out of memory, which I'm skeptical is the case here. Would need more information about that.

Edited November 22, 2015 by obobski

[Eferas]

The GPU is a Sapphire R9 270x 4GB, sorry for missing the information. The system is 64 bit and the resolution 1080p. The ram is in dual channel. The drivers are all updated, I run Driver Booster 3 every week (and I download beta drivers for the GPU manually).

 

Should I get another GPU? How much ram do you suggest I should get? Is the CPU good enough?

 

Another question: I read SSD are good for games, they reduce the loading time, is it correct? I love the fact that, having the OS on the SSD, when I turn on my pc I'm on the internet in 10 seconds, so if it will reduce loading time on games too, I may get a bigger SSD for games.

[mark5916]

The GPU is a Sapphire R9 270x 4GB, sorry for missing the information. The system is 64 bit and the resolution 1080p. The ram is in dual channel. The drivers are all updated, I run Driver Booster 3 every week (and I download beta drivers for the GPU manually).

 

Should I get another GPU? How much ram do you suggest I should get? Is the CPU good enough?

 

Another question: I read SSD are good for games, they reduce the loading time, is it correct? I love the fact that, having the OS on the SSD, when I turn on my pc I'm on the internet in 10 seconds, so if it will reduce loading time on games too, I may get a bigger SSD for games.

 

The CPU is very good.

 

With that configuration you should get near 60 fps on 1080p and medium settings.

 

For higher detail settings a GTX 960 and above would be recommended.

 

Yes a SSD lowers the loading times a lot. Even on Fallout 4. So, if you have the cash, a SSD is recommended also.

[obobski]

The GPU is a Sapphire R9 270x 4GB, sorry for missing the information. The system is 64 bit and the resolution 1080p. The ram is in dual channel. The drivers are all updated, I run Driver Booster 3 every week (and I download beta drivers for the GPU manually).

 

Should I get another GPU? How much ram do you suggest I should get? Is the CPU good enough?

 

Another question: I read SSD are good for games, they reduce the loading time, is it correct? I love the fact that, having the OS on the SSD, when I turn on my pc I'm on the internet in 10 seconds, so if it will reduce loading time on games too, I may get a bigger SSD for games.

 

You could upgrade from the 270X to something more robust, like a 280/290/390 or GTX 960 (I'm not a huge 970 fan due to the memory bug), the CPU is basically as good as you're gonna get (see the links I posted). On the SSD, yes it can help load times IF the application is stored on the SSD. In other words, if you installed FO4 on the SSD, it would improve load times if they're disk-bound; its just a faster storage device so anything that will be constrained by storage speeds (e.g. load times) can benefit from it. It won't do anything for frame-rates, or other computationally-bound features, so you'll have to decide exactly how much you think "fast boot up" or "fast load times" is worth, as SSDs can get pretty expensive (and represent an awful $/GB proposition).