Upgrade and replace conundrum

[Haswell_rasperry_pi]

I have owned a a second hand windforce r9 290 for about a year and a half, and now it is starting to give out artifacts at the factory clock speed (on games like project cars, squad, and insurgency).  The downclocked performance (800mhz) on my 3 1080p monitors wasn't all very good in the first place(only used eyefinity on insurgency and P.C.), but now is not acceptable.  My CPU is a now aging haswell core i7-4770k with 16 gigs of 1600mhz ddr3.  Would it be worth spending money on a new cpu, mobo, and ram or a new video card (like a gtx 1070 or 1080)? I am looking for the most effective performance increase overall.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Haswell_rasperry_pi

[Lord Nicoll]

1 minute ago, Haswell_rasperry_pi said:

I have owned a a second hand windforce r9 290 for about a year and a half, and now it is starting to give out artifacts and the factory clock speed (on games like project cars, squad, and insurgency).  The downclocked performance (800mhz) on my 3 1080p monitors wasn't all very good in the first place(only used eyefinity on insurgency and P.C.), but now is not acceptable.  My CPU is a now aging haswell core i7-4770k with 16 gigs of 1600mhz ddr3.  Would it be worth spending money on a new cpu, mobo, and ram or a new video card (like a gtx 1070 or 1080)? I am looking for the most effective performance increase overall.

Haswell is still going strong really, but the dying R9 290 is of much more concern, get a GTX 1070 for triple 1080p, it should do good, 

[Katsunaka]

If it were me, I'd just upgrade the card and overclock the CPU a little.

If you only use 1 monitor to play most games, and eyefinity for 1, something along the lines of a 1060 6gb or a 1070 on sale would be more than enough at 1080p.

Or if your budget is tighter, a 970 or 980 would do you. One of my friends uses a 970 for 3 1080p screens without an issue. 

 

Your CPU, ram, and mobo are enough to last at least until coffee lake comes out.  Skylake is what 10% over haswell, and kaby lake is 10% better than skylake. So your talking, 300-350 for a cpu, 200ish for a mobo, and another 100 or so on ram. 600 or so bucks to get the new mobo, that more than likely in the next 6 months or so will be old news.

 

My vote is OC your cpu, pick up a new video card, and maybe invest in an SSD if you dont already have one. Plus if you wait for coffee lake, rumors (take it with a grain of salt) are saying the 8700k is a 6 core, and an 8300 non K is a 4 core with hyperthreading.  So a 200-250ish non K cpu is on par with a 6700k.

[Haswell_rasperry_pi]

Just now, Katsunaka said:

If it were me, I'd just upgrade the card and overclock the CPU a little.

If you only use 1 monitor to play most games, and eyefinity for 1, something along the lines of a 1060 6gb or a 1070 on sale would be more than enough at 1080p.

Or if your budget is tighter, a 970 or 980 would do you. One of my friends uses a 970 for 3 1080p screens without an issue. 

 

Your CPU, ram, and mobo are enough to last at least until coffee lake comes out.  Skylake is what 10% over haswell, and kaby lake is 10% better than skylake. So your talking, 300-350 for a cpu, 200ish for a mobo, and another 100 or so on ram. 600 or so bucks to get the new mobo, that more than likely in the next 6 months or so will be old news.

 

My vote is OC your cpu, pick up a new video card, and maybe invest in an SSD if you dont already have one.

Ok.  My CPU is already oc'd to 4.5ghz, but my budget is at maximum around $600.

[Katsunaka]

Just now, Haswell_rasperry_pi said:

Ok.  My CPU is already oc'd to 4.5ghz, but my budget is at maximum around $600.

Yea, if your CPU is doing its job well for you, grab a new GPU, save your money and jump on coffee lake when it comes out.

I rocked a 2500k until 6 months after skylake launch. Just upgraded my card cuz my CPU did it's job in most other things I needed it to do.

[LogicalDrm]

Go for GPU. i7 will be good for 5 years after launch guaranteed, so 1.5 years more. I changed Q6600 to 4770K for BF4. Easy 6 years out of that CPU. If you want bit more performance and OC headroom, you could look for used 4790K.