Do I upgrade?

[JDCKVII]

Do at the moment ive got an i5 4690k @ stock, asus z97a, 8gb corsair vengeance pro and msi gtx 970. I’d like to upgrade my RAM to 16gbs next and because my mobo cant support ddr4 im wondering is it worth it? If i get 16gb ddr3 and later on upgrade cpu/motherboard to something like the intel 8 series id more than likely need ddr4 ram, right? Are there other 1150 socket cpus out there that would be worth the upgrade? Or, would saving and getting an 8 series cpu, a 1151 socket motherboard and ddr4 memory at once be the better option?

 

Cheers for any answers in advance!

[jiyeon]

It depends if you have the funds and need to upgrade. If your current PC is noticably slow or holding you back performance-wise, then skip the 16GB upgrade and go buy a new PC.

 

A 4690K and GTX 970 is perfectly fine in this day and age, for the record.

[AMDPRO]

I would wait. I rlly depends on your budget and if you believe that you can upgrade your cpu mobo and ram soon. If you think youll have to wait over a year just upgrade now

[Crunchy Dragon]

Do you need to upgrade?

 

Another 8Gb of RAM never hurt anybody, but is there a real need to upgrade anything else?

[JDCKVII]

1 minute ago, MiNy said:

It depends if you have the funds and need to upgrade. If your current PC is noticably slow or holding you back performance-wise, then skip the 16GB upgrade and go buy a new PC.

 

A 4690K and GTX 970 is perfectly fine in this day and age, for the record.

Yeah the cpu and gpu are fine, havent touched overclocking yet so might boost either of the two and see how things go. I wouldn’t say the PC is slow but I would like to go further than 60fps 1080p at high in the future. I’m thinking 16gbs and an SSD, still rocking the HDDs atm

[JDCKVII]

3 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Do you need to upgrade?

 

Another 8Gb of RAM never hurt anybody, but is there a real need to upgrade anything else?

I’m not sure honestly. Yes, my computer could run games better but it does the job well. I think the 16gb would be a nice touch. 

[JDCKVII]

6 minutes ago, AMDPRO said:

I would wait. I rlly depends on your budget and if you believe that you can upgrade your cpu mobo and ram soon. If you think youll have to wait over a year just upgrade now

Yea that’s the problem, if I could do the upgrade of all 3 soon then I would wait, but I’m not quite when I would be able to. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, JDCKVII said:

I’m not sure honestly. Yes, my computer could run games better but it does the job well. I think the 16gb would be a nice touch. 

If there's no real need for an upgrade, then no reason to invest money.

[Daniel644]

you could go ahead and do the RAM then down the road buy an i7 from that generation used on the cheap and be perfectly fine to upgrade to a better GPU if you need more FPS, the fact is there haven't been huge gains on Intels side and if you get a better GPU for higher resolution gameplay then the CPU is less of the bottleneck and you could run the CPU you have now.

 

the only real reason to replace that CPU is purely for the speed other things get done at, like if you do video encoding or something that benefits from more cores or just want your browser to load faster.

 

honestly START WITH AN SSD BOOT DRIVE (at the very least this can move with you to a new system should you decide to go that route), that will give you a more noticeable difference then going to 16 GB of RAM, then do the ram, try for USED ram from someone like Kingston, that way if it's bad they will replace it for free. definitely don't buy overpriced new DDR3 modules.

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

25 minutes ago, JDCKVII said:

Do at the moment ive got an i5 4690k @ stock, asus z97a, 8gb corsair vengeance pro and msi gtx 970. I’d like to upgrade my RAM to 16gbs next and because my mobo cant support ddr4 im wondering is it worth it? If i get 16gb ddr3 and later on upgrade cpu/motherboard to something like the intel 8 series id more than likely need ddr4 ram, right? Are there other 1150 socket cpus out there that would be worth the upgrade? Or, would saving and getting an 8 series cpu, a 1151 socket motherboard and ddr4 memory at once be the better option?

 

Cheers for any answers in advance!

ur build currently is perfectly balanced, the ram can upgrade to 16gb, but it wont matter too much

 

if u upgrade, upgrade to atleast i7 + high end gpu again  because of new platform costs

 

short said, its not worth it unless u go big

[Suika]

Here's a handy guide with upgrading essential and/or expensive components in your system.

 

Are you happy with what you have?

 

If yes, don't bother.

 

If no, then do it.

[AMDPRO]

18 minutes ago, JDCKVII said:

Yea that’s the problem, if I could do the upgrade of all 3 soon then I would wait, but I’m not quite when I would be able to. 

If you can run the games that you want to now upgrading ram is borderline. linus did a good job showing that you only need 8 gb for gaming. try and upgrade cpu as well if that's what I would do

 

[JDCKVII]

1 hour ago, Daniel644 said:

you could go ahead and do the RAM then down the road buy an i7 from that generation used on the cheap and be perfectly fine to upgrade to a better GPU if you need more FPS, the fact is there haven't been huge gains on Intels side and if you get a better GPU for higher resolution gameplay then the CPU is less of the bottleneck and you could run the CPU you have now.

 

the only real reason to replace that CPU is purely for the speed other things get done at, like if you do video encoding or something that benefits from more cores or just want your browser to load faster.

 

honestly START WITH AN SSD BOOT DRIVE (at the very least this can move with you to a new system should you decide to go that route), that will give you a more noticeable difference then going to 16 GB of RAM, then do the ram, try for USED ram from someone like Kingston, that way if it's bad they will replace it for free. definitely don't buy overpriced new DDR3 modules.

I’m definitely buying an SSD for my next upgrade for booting and maybe a game or two that would benefit from it. 

 

The DDR3 prices are insane at the moment but I never knew kingston did that. Do they do that no matter where you buy the used RAM from or do they sell refurbished etc.?

[JDCKVII]

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

ur build currently is perfectly balanced, the ram can upgrade to 16gb, but it wont matter too much

 

if u upgrade, upgrade to atleast i7 + high end gpu again  because of new platform costs

 

short said, its not worth it unless u go big

My thought exactly, just not sure if i’m arsed going big  

[Daniel644]

11 minutes ago, JDCKVII said:

I’m definitely buying an SSD for my next upgrade for booting and maybe a game or two that would benefit from it. 

 

The DDR3 prices are insane at the moment but I never knew kingston did that. Do they do that no matter where you buy the used RAM from or do they sell refurbished etc.?

just checked it looks like they require a scanned copy of a receipt/invoice these days, I had to do it once years ago, I wouldn't buy refurb to be safe, find someone selling USED RAM that has access to the original receipt so you can have the receipt incase you ever need to RMA and when I say EVER, I mean EVER, Kingston (like the other major players in RAM) have a LIFETIME WARRANTY on RAM, you could research RMA requirements for the different brands and see if any don't require a receipt and buy that brand. I just know the Kingston warranty was the easiest RMA I ever did, I filed the claim, it was approved, they emailed me a shipping label, I boxed it up and sent it to them, within a week I had my replacement module. cost me NOTHING but the gas to drive to the nearest UPS dropoff location.

[JDCKVII]

1 hour ago, Daniel644 said:

just checked it looks like they require a scanned copy of a receipt/invoice these days, I had to do it once years ago, I wouldn't buy refurb to be safe, find someone selling USED RAM that has access to the original receipt so you can have the receipt incase you ever need to RMA and when I say EVER, I mean EVER, Kingston (like the other major players in RAM) have a LIFETIME WARRANTY on RAM, you could research RMA requirements for the different brands and see if any don't require a receipt and buy that brand. I just know the Kingston warranty was the easiest RMA I ever did, I filed the claim, it was approved, they emailed me a shipping label, I boxed it up and sent it to them, within a week I had my replacement module. cost me NOTHING but the gas to drive to the nearest UPS dropoff location.

Noice. Hopefully that’s a service they provide in Ireland

[Daniel644]

22 minutes ago, JDCKVII said:

Noice. Hopefully that’s a service they provide in Ireland

https://www.kingston.com/support/rma-enduser