Need an adult to help with upgrading.

[Icebann]

I really want to upgrade my build because I'm starting to get games I have to run at low specs and I want to get back up in to high end. 

What I have= ASUS Z87-K, NIVDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, I5-4670 Quad, and 8 gb Ram. 

I'm not looking for a here buy this help but more of a teach a man how to fish help. 

I know that I need to up the gpu, but I don't know whether I should go A GTX SSC 960, or go full titan cause I know gpus are limited by cpu video performance.

I feel like all I need right now is a gpu and ram upgrade though and I was just double checking with this form to see if I'm on the right track.

[Aytex]

Why an adult, most of the people on this forums are teens/kids...

What is your power supply, we need to check that before seeing what you can upgrade to

(specific name/wattage please)

[TheRandomness]

Get an R9 390. What PSU specifically?

[aeroencychris]

Something like an R9 390 or GTX 970 would suit you well as it would last ~3-4 years at 1080p gaming. It all depends on your budget. RAM is not a problem for you at this point, as 8GB is plenty.

[Unhelpful]

Just now, Aytex said:

Why an adult, most of the people on this forums are teens/kids...

Well shit. Nobody told me that.

 

Then again, I've been here since I was...

[soup]

Well I possibly have the most claim to being an adult, as I am (?) the oldest but I have no idea what you mean by :-

Quote

I know gpus are limited by cpu video performance.

How would this video perfomance on say an AMD Athlon X4 870K be measured ?

 

[Toxicknight79]

There's probably more adult teens in here than me at 37 but honestly  depending on what games you play.  8gb is fine for most titles, processor is fine, graphics card is entry level fine.  so its your graphics, since for some strange reason you wanted a titan (overkill and  old news now) GTX960 is a big step up from the 750 ti,  but lets say 970 is nice or if you want to wait till later this year the  new gen nvidias will be coming out.  however a GTX970 will  probably be your best bet for the need it right now, not too  expensive ,,  and wont be buyers remorse when you don't pay out 600 bucks plus  for a card that right now is top tier and wont be given a few months.

[chiwas]

Adult answer: Stop playing video games

[Aereldor]

The R9 390 is a great bet right now. However, you did want more than a simple recommendation, so I'll 'teach you how to fish'. Well, for graphics cards at least.

 

So; why the R9 390?

 

Dedicated graphics cards have their own graphics processors and video memory (VRAM) that function similarly to the way your CPU and RAM work. In layman's terms, VRAM is used to load textures, artifacts, and visual game data, and the graphics processor is used to, well, process it and run the 3D logic required for games.

 

GPU's are not limited by 'CPU video performance', but you can have a 'bottleneck' in your system. Think of it as a group of horses pulling a cart- once one of the horses reaches its maximum capacity, it'll slow the others down. Let's assume there's three horses- one each that represents the CPU, GPU, and RAM. If your CPU is incredibly weak, and much weaker than the graphics card, then it will reach its maximum capacity well before the graphics card. It won't allow the graphics card to go faster and reach its maximum capacity.

 

The 'bottleneck' analogy is used as when you pour water out of a bottle, it's held back by the bottleneck, which is the narrowest part the water has to pass through. 

 

That being said, games don't lean evenly on the CPU, GPU, and RAM. In fact, most games use the GPU-horse more than anything, and only rarely will they tax the CPU horse as much. So, unless your CPU horse is seriously slow, you should be fine.

 

Understanding what parts create bottlenecks is a process that involves learning more about individual parts and observing real-world benchmarks and performance tests; you'll learn as you go.

 

As far as CPU-bottlenecks go, games these days are leaning towards having a CPU with 4 physical cores, and CPUs with 4-threads through hyperthreading (Intel's Core i3 CPUs) will do in a pinch. You can think about this in such a way- a horse with 2 legs might have problems, but a horse with 4 legs (or two real legs and two wooden legs) will hold its own. Of course, the strength of each leg will affect the total speed of the horse, just as the single-core performance will affect the total speed of the processor. The AMD Athlon x4 860k runs at a fairly high clock-speed, or GHz, but its individual cores- or legs- are not as strong as that of a Core i5 4460, for example. Even though the i5 runs at a lower clock speed, its stronger legs allow it to push faster and beat the Athlon in any situation.

 

You already have a fairly fast Core i5 4670 CPU, so it won't hold back a lot of cards. I'd recommend an R9 390 for the following reasons.

 

• It isn't such a speedy racehorse that it'll be held back by even a powerful CPU.
• It has a lot more VRAM than other cards like the GTX 970, allowing it to hold higher-resolution textures. Games are starting to use a lot of VRAM, so the more, the merrier.
• It presents the best value for performance you can get.

Happy fishing, comrade.

[Citadelen]

A 390 is a great price to performance card, avoid ASUS and Gigabyte, go for MSI or Sapphire.

[Icebann]

The Adult thing is something we say at work all the time as a joke. In the Army (US) there are a lot of regulations that feels like hand holding. 

 

I have a 600W.

 

AAA games and dota, so Witcher, Division, BF4, SFV, etc, and I can spend about 250 a month rt now my pc. 

 

I like the 390 option but I'm mostly soft Spec for Nvidia.

 

Thank you all for the in put.

[i respawn.]

On Monday, March 21, 2016 at 0:37 AM, Icebann said:

I really want to upgrade my build because I'm starting to get games I have to run at low specs and I want to get back up in to high end. 

What I have= ASUS Z87-K, NIVDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, I5-4670 Quad, and 8 gb Ram. 

I'm not looking for a here buy this help but more of a teach a man how to fish help. 

I know that I need to up the gpu, but I don't know whether I should go A GTX SSC 960, or go full titan cause I know gpus are limited by cpu video performance.

I feel like all I need right now is a gpu and ram upgrade though and I was just double checking with this form to see if I'm on the right track.

Well i'm not an adult (i'm 14 actually) but i believe i can help so; why not ;-;

 

Your cpu and ram is just more than fine for 1080p gaming for the next few years.if i was you i would upgrade the gpu first to a gtx 950 or r9 380x or r9 390 respectively depending on budget (the more you pay, the more performence u are gonna get.but high-ultra in all these gpus.and 750 ti is also supposed to be a 1080p high gaming card being equivalent to ps4.what games are you running on low?).i'd go for amd as it is completely devastating dx12 benches right now and dx11 performence is almost same.(in fact a little better in 380x than 960 and in 390 than 970).and of course the psu is a factor.in ur current rig u would be safe with a 450w for gtx 950 or 960.for 380x go for 520-550w, for gtx 970 500w and for 390 u'd be safe with 550w.80+ bronze efficiency is enough for all of these.