PC upgrade for AAA games

[MatthewBowker]

Hey everyone!

 

I have a desktop PC which I built in 2015 which ran games like Battlefield 4 and GTA 5 without any problems. However, after about 2 years I kind of fell off PC gaming and ended up getting an Xbox One S to play games with my friends. Now with Xbox Play Anywhere and cross platform multiplayer I'm thinking of jumping back on PC gaming but I downloaded Halo 5 Forge to test my PC using a fairly modern game and it didn't hold up too well. The game is virtually impossible to play competitively with screen tearing and low FPS with medium to high settings.

 

I get the feeling that I need to upgrade my PC or build a new one to get back to playing modern games with good graphics competitively so I was wondering what people in the know would recommend. This is my current setup:

• Intel i5 4570 Haswell CPU
• Asus H97-PLUS 1150 Motherboard
• Crucial Ballistix DDR3 8GB (4GB x 2) Memory
• Crucial 256GB MX100 SSD
• EVGA GTX 660Ti 3GB GPU
• XFX 450W 80+ Bronze PSU

I currently don't know whether I would jump back into PC gaming or not, I guess it depends on how much I need to spend to start playing modern AAA titles at decent (not extreme) settings again. I've never been about playing games to their graphical best but I do like a smooth frame rate with decent graphics. Is this something I can do by upgrading my GPU and doubling my RAM or do I need to move to a newer CPU and upgrade the motherboard as well? What's going to get me the best bang for my buck? I would struggle to spend more than £500 on another build.

 

I look forward to hearing your advice! Thanks in advance.

[Firewrath9]

I’d keep cpu for now, wait for 7nm ryzen, and get something like a rx 570 or 580 for 1080p AAA. Mabye the new GTX 1660 non-ti if its better than rx 590 for 230$.

 

When 7nm ryzen is out, get the 6c12t.

[jonrosalia]

I would look into the used market locally and see what's kicking around and see if you can find a cheap 1070 for sale some one is selling doing a upgrade or a 6Gb 1060 is also a good choice used right now to get you back gaming and not break the bank . if you cant find good deals used for a Nvidia 10 series card I say look at the RX580 with 8gb of ram they are cheap as hell now.

[MatthewBowker]

Thanks @jonrosalia and @Firewrath9. So from what you've both said I'm guessing upgrading my CPU wouldn't make much of a difference? In terms of a GPU upgrade is there much difference between say a MSI 1070 and a Zotac 1070?

[NunoLava1998]

6 minutes ago, MatthewBowker said:

Thanks @jonrosalia and @Firewrath9. So from what you've both said I'm guessing upgrading my CPU wouldn't make much of a difference? In terms of a GPU upgrade is there much difference between say a MSI 1070 and a Zotac 1070?

No, there's not much difference and it'll perform normally.

Upgrading your CPU would make a difference, but it's pretty small.

[jonrosalia]

I personally like zotac because they usually make great overclocking cards and give great performance but I would look to the local listings and see what's floating around used to save a few dollars. as far as the new ryzen is concerned Im not getting exited before I see the testing and overclocking numbers its how people got suckered into RTX and that was all hype I would love to see 5.0+ with ryzen and have a alternative to intel but cores/threads I don't need arnt enticing to me im looking at the 8350k for my next build 5.0+ghz 4 cores for $160 done.

[jonrosalia]

looked about they also make a bunch of xeon 6 core and are unlocked and can reach 4.5ghz that drop into the same socket if its a overclockable motherboard x58 wasn't terrible and $50 for the xeon and add a good air cooler.