Advice on upgrading my rig
So with Xmas looming i want to upgrade my beloved rig, but unsure which bit. The rig i have runs most things well and i don't want to throw alot of money at it for very little benifit.
my rig:
Mobo ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) Motherboard http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...m5a97r2.0.html
8Gb RAM
AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 3.50Ghz O/C to 4.2Ghz (coolermaster hyper evo cooler)
Nvidia GTX 760 O/C to.......something or other (don't have it hand but its a good overclock)
I got about $400 (£350ish) to spend, any ideas?
thoughts were: mobo http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...-g0eay0vz.html
or maybe RAM??
Dunno, thanks for your help
Advice on upgrading my rig
Dont bother with more RAM. Anything more than 8GB is useless for gaming.
My Fx8320 is OCed to 5.0Ghz so it is possible that your motherboard is holding back from reaching close to what I have. I have an ASUS Crosshair IV ROG, so that motherboard you chose should do even better than mine. Although I remember reading a review that showed the the newest of the 990fx motherboards is the ASUS Sabretooth R2.0 actually beat out the crosshair v z in overclocking.
GPU looks good, maybe wait till microsoft releases directx12 and see what AMD and Nvidia come out with.
You could also do watercooling!!! Better cooling and quieter.
Advice on upgrading my rig
Oops forgot to ask.
What power supply do you have? especially for AMD FX processors love power so you will need a descent amount of juice. I am running a 650watt Seasonic PSU just for comparison.
Also if your going to change out your motherboard, check that the windows version you bought is not an OEM copy otherwise you will have to buy another copy of windows.
Advice on upgrading my rig
More Ram memory is not a good thing unless you NEED it. When more ram is added it reduces the overclockabilty (if that is a real word) of the system and makes it less responsive. When more RAM is added, the motherboard starts to increase the timings causing it to be slightly less responsive, while also needing more voltage/current to handle the load of the extra chips which lowers your overclock headroom. Unless you are playing 2games at the same time...?... or editing photos and videos using adobe software, then 8gb is plenty. Anything more than you need actually slows down your computer.
I have planetside running at max settings (64bit), ventrilo, internet explorer, steam, and some random stuff in the taskbar on windows7 (64bit) and still have 2 to 3GB of ram unused. Also if you are running Windows8.1 you will even have more free memory since it combines like files (probably one of the only great features of 8.1 over 7)
Goodluck