Computer Upgrading Questions

[andrewace15]

Hello, 

 

I'm fairly new to this and am still learning so let me give a quick rundown of what I got and what I plan to do; I bought my system off of Newegg about 3 years ago with the intent of gaming and my specs at the time were: CPU: AMD FX-6300 GPU: GeForce GT 640 MoBo: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2 F6 Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 with 16GB of RAM and stock cooler and a 430w psu

 

So about a month ago I decided i wanted a better graphics card so through the advice of some friends and coworkers, I got the EVGA GTX 970, a 600w psu, and a new cpu cooler (Hyper EVO 212)

 

and thats working pretty well, but I read on some forums that with the 970 I will be bottlenecked pretty severely and with games like Fallout 4 and Arkham Knight (If they ever fix it) coming out, I want to be 100% ready to go max or near-maxed out settings for now and the next couple of years. A lot of people said go with the i5-4960k or the AMD-FX 8350 (and I'm still debating on that) and according to PC part picker, my mobo isnt going to support a better processor than the one I got, and my case wont support a new processor.

 

So I have to upgrade my CPU, my Mobo, and my Case. My questions are:

 

1) Is the bottleneck that severe that i need to upgrade my stuff? or if i overclock my cpu to maybe 4.1ghz or so that would do the trick?

2) If i do upgrade, will my operating system and everything on my HDD work just fine with my new gear? is it just replacing parts and no big deal? or is it more extensive? 

 

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated, again I'm very new to this and am eager to learn

 

Thank you!

[Comessy]

and my case wont support a new processor.

 

Can you show me this? That makes absolutely no sense

[ApolloX75]

Can you show me this? That makes absolutely no sense

Thank you. I thought it was just me.

[Nena Trinity]

I would say get a GTX 750Ti, R9 370 or R9 380 4GB

 

That CPU in a modern decently optimimized game should be near a i3.

[runit3]

I would say get a GTX 750Ti, R9 370 or R9 380 4GB

 

That CPU in a modern decently optimimized game should be near a i3.

He already purchased the 970.

 

 

So I have to upgrade my CPU, my Mobo, and my Case. My questions are:

 

1) Is the bottleneck that severe that i need to upgrade my stuff? or if i overclock my cpu to maybe 4.1ghz or so that would do the trick?

2) If i do upgrade, will my operating system and everything on my HDD work just fine with my new gear? is it just replacing parts and no big deal? or is it more extensive? 

 

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated, again I'm very new to this and am eager to learn

 

Thank you!

1) No way to tell without you running the games in question on your system. If you're consistently dropping below 60fps due to the bottleneck (if one exists), an overclock on your CPU will certainly help. What you can do relatively easily (and free of charge) to reduce the bottleneck, should one exist, would be to enable DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) via Nvidia control panel. Increasing the resolution (or in this case rendered higher and downsampled back) will put more of the load onto your GPU, hopefully alleviating some of the CPU bottleneck. You will have to run the game(s) in lower detail depending on their age, but I can run Smite in 5k DSR on one 970 w/highest and AA like it's nothing (game doesn't support SLI ).

 

2) Depends on your current setup and how the OS handles the new vs. old chipset drivers. You will definitely want to uninstall any audio, USB, and chipset specific drivers (NIC for instance) once the new MOBO is installed, and install the correct ones for the new hardware. I'm from the school of new OS is always better, but there's plenty of instances where keeping the OS is the easier of the two options (losing the key, not having a viable way to install, etc.).

[Nena Trinity]

He already purchased the 970.

 

 

1) No way to tell without you running the games in question on your system. If you're consistently dropping below 60fps due to the bottleneck (if one exists), an overclock on your CPU will certainly help. What you can do relatively easily (and free of charge) to reduce the bottleneck, should one exist, would be to enable DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) via Nvidia control panel. Increasing the resolution (or in this case rendered higher and downsampled back) will put more of the load onto your GPU, hopefully alleviating some of the CPU bottleneck. You will have to run the game(s) in lower detail depending on their age, but I can run Smite in 5k DSR on one 970 w/highest and AA like it's nothing (game doesn't support SLI ).

 

2) Depends on your current setup and how the OS handles the new vs. old chipset drivers. You will definitely want to uninstall any audio, USB, and chipset specific drivers (NIC for instance) once the new MOBO is installed, and install the correct ones for the new hardware. I'm from the school of new OS is always better, but there's plenty of instances where keeping the OS is the easier of the two options (losing the key, not having a viable way to install, etc.).

Well with a 970 I would have had a FX-83XX minimum! But others would say jump on the Intel train!

 

But the thing is with that mobo he gotta swap anyway... (FX-83XX+That Mobo=VRM HELL!)

 

To me he cant go wrong with any of the two CPUs but if he had issues with FX-63XX I think he should jump to i5.

[andrewace15]

Can you show me this? That makes absolutely no sense

 

On pcpartpicker, it said that my case doesnt have a 3.0 USB header and all the new motherboards do. Again im super new to this, so I didnt know if it made it incompatible or not. If i dont have to change my case, all the better 

[colt92]

On pcpartpicker, it said that my case doesnt have a 3.0 USB header and all the new motherboards do. Again im super new to this, so I didnt know if it made it incompatible or not. If i dont have to change my case, all the better 

No, it doesn't make it incompatible. You'll just have an unused USB 3.0 port on your motherboard that's meant for the case's front panel.

[andrewace15]

No, it doesn't make it incompatible. You'll just have an unused USB 3.0 port on your motherboard that's meant for the case's front panel.

 

Ok thank you very much! that way that saves me some money so I don't have to buy a new case, just a new processor and new motherboard.