Is it worth upgrading the following...?

[Draco1962]

Just wanted to make sure. Video Graphics Array is the video format that is analog only and was the first replacement of the old RGB connectors. Soon followed by DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort.. amazing how much things have changed since I first got into computing in the late 80's-early 90's.

[RIP-Felix]

Acronyms can be pitfalls. I too run into the VGA nonsense from time to time, at work with IT pros who remember an analog world and use the acronym VGA daily in connection with VGA cords that refuse to be replaced with DVI and HDMI. I sorta came into computers during the transition period. Analog has it's advantages and was an engineering feat these digital guys don't understand nor appreciate. Nowadays they think using computers to tell a pixle to be yellow is hard. Let them try calculating the necessary voltage to send an electromagnet to bends an electron beam to excite a specific phosphor on a CRT! It's amazing to me those guys figured that stuff out with slide rules! New tech, new rules. I like both, but I'm sad to see the analog era die. The retro gamer in me saved an old CRT so I can continue playing my analog consoles without the lag and the way they were meant to look. The digital gamer in me bought a 55inch 4k for skyrim. I feel so confused!

[KRC]

So I completed this build with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, disabled Turbo Core in the bios and overclocked to 4.4ghz, stress tested for 8 hours and all is good. Max 50 degrees under full load. At least a 20% gain in PCSX2 and around 10-15% fps in pc stuff.

The CPU Cooler fans are running at no more than 1050rpm which is very quiet.

[KRC]

Just an update.

Overclocked this FX 4300 CPU to 4.6ghz with the same cooler and turbo core disabled but added a new Corsair case fan.. All stress tested and good to go. Still max 50 degrees under full load and I still cannot believe how quiet it is.

The FX-4300 gets so much negative press and I dont see why, It's a diamond in my eyes.

The only thing the CPU ever struggled with was No Man's Sky but that has apparent issues anyway. But I managed to get it decently playable in the end.

Oh and swapped out 8gb Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz to 16gb of the same.

[RIP-Felix]

Glad you like it, I loved my AMD builds. I went with an i7 this time and love it too. Intel or AMD are really great options. Just depends on your budget.

[KRC]

Haha so I went ahead and took the plunge for an i3-7100, Asus H110M-R and Crucial 8gb DDR4 2133mhz, so I swapped out the AMD components and hung onto the GTX 770 with the CM Hyper Evo and 550M Power Supply and I must admit it is faster, I must say I can see very noticeable gains in all aspects. The H110M-R Mobo is entry level but does the job just fine, this also opens up the gates to upgrade later on.

I will probably go with 7700k and GTX 1080ti at the beginning of next year and a possible dual channel DDR4 upgrade as well.

The i3 Bundle was free so I cant complain.

BTW, Windows 10 was a pain to reinstall when I swapped the AMD build for the Intel, I was tearing my hair out.

[DazzleHP]

Yeah that's just MS, they are anal bout major hardware reworks. All one has to do is get in contact and bitch a lil bit and they cave real quick They're almost apologetic if you get the right guys hehehe.

[RIP-Felix]

I usually never have to talk to a real person. Just call the 800 number and answer the questions. It gives you the code and you're done. I've had to do this many times. I bought 1 OEM Win vista way back when. It had a free upgrade to 7 when it got released. Then I took advantage of the free upgrade to 10 during the transition. I've upgraded that original computer probably 5 times since, nothing is original anymore, except the OS (albeit upgraded)...lol. Yeah, MS has been pretty lenient about the transfers. I'll credit them that.

[KRC]

The windows 10 I used was the upgrade from 7 to 10 via the web originally on AMD then because I changed tech to Intel I had to pay for a new licence, got one from eBay for less than £5 and installed it via flash drive.

My issue was changing the boot sequence in the Asus Bios from C: drive to the flash drive. It wouldn't recognise the flash drive. So I checked the USB headers on the MOBO and they were fine. Then I took the whole machine apart and back together and then the flash drive was picked up finally.

[RIP-Felix]

Weird, I switched from AMD to Intel. I just did a fresh install using my original code. It saw that I wasn't rocking the same hardware, prompted me to call, and that was it. I went with a M.2 drive that required some UEFI magic to get recognized too. Been very happy with it though.

[tthurman]

I had several copies of Windows  7 pro and 8 pro, and started eyeing up what machines I wanted doing what.  I thought had it all figured out, then I decided to upgrade my GameEx rig and primary gaming rig, I thought I had wasted two licenses.  Well, it turned out or appears to have for me, that you could move the license around freely during the "Free Upgrade" period, but after that, it was married to the hardware.  Perhaps that's the difference here......

[RIP-Felix]

Hmm, that's disconcerting. I was kinda getting used to being able to keep installing my 1 copy of windows on every upgrade over the years. My last upgrade was during the free upgrade period, so I fresh loaded my win7 OS and upgraded to 10. It's probably is different now. Sucks. Looks like I'll be making this PC last for as long as possible.

[tthurman]

The best I can decipher is that it's married to the motherboard, which, if true, sucks if your motherboard dies!

 

[KRC]

I think I am going to upgrade the GTX 770 now, It's still a great GPU but I feel it's lagging a bit now.

Any suggestions for a GPU around £150.00?

[RIP-Felix]

From a quick look at Newegg, $150 budget would put you squarely in the GTX 1050 range, but for $200 you get into the GTX 1060 range.

     Sucks, but I guess I pulled the trigger on my GTX 970 just in the nick of time! You can hardly find them anymore and people want 250+ for them. E-bay may do better, but then you get into used territory. I originally bought one for $300, then refunded it for fan problems and decided to wait. Got it a year later for $200. That was back in January. I wonder what happened to make them so much more expensive all of a sudden. Scarcity? It's held up to the games and the test of time well!

[tthurman]

He's looking in the $200 US dollar range at 150 GBP.

I think at this point and time I'd hold off and see what the Volta lineup looks like.

[KRC]

9 hours ago, RIP-Felix said:

From a quick look at Newegg, $150 budget would put you squarely in the GTX 1050 range, but for $200 you get into the GTX 1060 range.

     Sucks, but I guess I pulled the trigger on my GTX 970 just in the nick of time! You can hardly find them anymore and people want 250+ for them. E-bay may do better, but then you get into used territory. I originally bought one for $300, then refunded it for fan problems and decided to wait. Got it a year later for $200. That was back in January. I wonder what happened to make them so much more expensive all of a sudden. Scarcity? It's held up to the games and the test of time well!

I think if I do go with a 10 series it will be 1070 and above, as I have an i3-7100 at the moment and I will upgrade to a i7 7700k in the new year, so a 1070,1080 with an i7 7700k will be a nice pairing, but then again it comes down to pricing, at the moment a 1080 or 1080ti is way out of price range at the moment. Maybe I can pick up a 1070 for less from somewhere in a few weeks at a decent price. I could probably stretch to £220 and sell off my GTX 770 to put towards the cost which could take it to around the £300 mark. If I was going to go down the 170 route, I think I will stick with MSI as I like the look and if my 770 is anything to go by, the 1070 should be fairly quiet. You cant even hear a single thing from my 770 under full load.

I mean the MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr I have is still a great card but with the world of tech moving ahead I can tell it is lagging a little.

 

9 hours ago, tthurman said:

He's looking in the $200 US dollar range at 150 GBP.

I think at this point and time I'd hold off and see what the Volta lineup looks like.

Looks good, not sure I can hold out that long though.

[RIP-Felix]

On 10/4/2017 at 2:50 AM, KRC said:

... If I was going to go down the 170 route, I think I will stick with MSI as I like the look and if my 770 is anything to go by, the 1070 should be fairly quiet. You cant even hear a single thing from my 770 under full load.

I mean the MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr I have is still a great card but with the world of tech moving ahead I can tell it is lagging a little.

 

Looks good, not sure I can hold out that long though.

IMO, I feel that video cards scale well. The more you pay the longer they stay relevant, up to around $300. Above $300 the price vs. performance drops off. January before last my GTX 970 was $300, this last January it was 200 (Until now, for some reason they're spiking). It still crushes everything I throw at it and it does so quietly! My advice would be to sell the other card and get the best one you can afford. Price vs performance is pretty linear (I actually plotted this a year ago). let me see if I can find those graphs...Yup! They're dated but you can see how AMD compares to Nvidia and how performance drops off above $300. I also linked my Intel vs. AMD CPU comparison for the sake of it. This is how I decided on a i7-4790K and a GTX 970.

[RIP-Felix]

I actually went ahead and created a new graph from current data. It is taken from here.

The 1060 is comparable to the 970 in performance. That's where I feel the best value is. Performance wise, I don't feel anything above 1070 is worth the added expense (especially given the fact that a 2 year old GTX 970 still hold it's own). I'd feel confident saying that a GTX 1070 in two years will be what the GTX 970 is now, and that by next January (2019) you'll be able to pick it up at $250-300. I figure the high end cards (Nvidia 70 and 80 series) depreciate $100/year for the first 2 years, but still perform well for at least 3-4 years. I'd pick up a GTX 1070 this Black Friday or cyber Monday. Alternatively, you can wait until January and get one open box or refurbished for ~$50 less. That's what I'd look for.

That's why I waited until January of the following year to buy my GTX 970. It's first year premium wore off and I got it for $100 less, but still got 3 years of relevance for it. I traded 1 year for $100. If you buy the GTX 1070 this year you can expect to get 4 years of relevance, but pay $100 more to get it now.

[RIP-Felix]

Here is one with just Nvidia and data labels. The regression line signifies the Value of the card. Any card above that line is a great value, a good compromise between price and performance. You can see where your GTX 770 stacks up. It's right on the low end of that line, which means it's nearly out of the High end card category, but still a good value. It's a great mid range cart now. I updated the prices with the best listings I could find on e-bay and Newegg for decent looking listings (used, but working, or new where the price was competitive with used).

 

This GTX 780 is a good buy! It gets you back in the high end curve. Not quite, but close to doubling your 770's performance. It would be cheap if you sold your 770. A great value upgrade, probably another year or 2 of gaming for like $20-30 difference!

I found a GTX 980 (used) for $235, seller sounds legit. This would be a nice upgrade from a 770, but you take a chance buying used off ebay. If you're cool with it, then this is the best value IMO, because you'll get another 6mo - 1 yr more out of it vs. the 780. So around 2-3 years of relevance overall. It's one hell of a steal. Comparable in value to the GTX 970 I got last January for $200.

There is this: GTX 980 Ti for $400. Performance is slightly better than the GTX 1070 for a little more. That looks to be a nice trade off, but I'd do some research on how the tech behind the 1070 compares to the 980 Ti (there may be features that make the 1070 a better card, despite the difference in Passmark score).

Also through e-bay you can get a new GTX 1080 from newegg (yes newegg purchase through e-bay) for $469 instead of $499.

Still, the best value for a new card is the 3GB version of the GTX 1060. Great price, respectable performance. It gets you back on the High End card curve for the least amount of money (New). That's the safest choice IMO. If you want to take a chance on a Used card, then I'd jump on that GTX 980 ASAP! If you really want in that upper echelon, then do some research on the GTX 980 Ti and 1070. Get the 1070 new to be safe or the 980 Ti used for just a little more and a decent performance boost. Otherwise the 1080 is king. It's competitively priced and Tops the performance chart, a decent value card, but pricey. The Ti version is just too rich. That's only if you don't care about the cost, and must have the best. It's price is too high for the performance boost you get. It's the best performer, sure, but not the best value. When it's price drops $100 ($650 vs $750), it would be a better value.

I did find a 780Ti for $140, but I snatched it up. It has a broken fan bearing, but that can be easily fixed for $19. So for $172 (shipped) I got a card that should outperform my GTX 970 and any 1060. I could sell my 970 for $195 and net $22, but I think I'll put it in my arcade cabinet. That should handle anything I could ever want on it. If it doesn't outperform my 970 (it should), then I'll put it in the arcade. We'll see. If it doesn't work at all, then e-bay guarantees a refund (since it was described as working, but with a noisy fan). So I feel relatively safe with the purchase. Sorry, I snatched it out from underneath you however. It was too good to pass up. Besides, it sounds like you're going with the 1070 anyway. That's defiantly a smart buy. You may want to think about the 980 Ti however. Food for thought.

***EDIT*** The EVGA GTX 780 Ti, Kingpin Classified reference edition, came in and I put it through  its paces. It fell far short of the median passmark performance for 780Ti's on default settings (G3D = 7800), but after a little overclocking (+220MHz core, +200Mem, +10%power, no overvoltage) I got it closer to the chipset average (G3D = 8600 vs. the 8880 avg.), about a 10% increase over stock. It didn't quite meet the performance of My Gigabyte Windforce GTX 970 on stock (G3D = 8900), but it's closer to the GTX 1060s instead. It also doesn't support VR (that's what it says in the Nvidia settings, I haven't actually tried though). All in all, it's a great card! It was only $140 and I'm getting GTX 1060 performance out of it! A new 1060 starts a $220 as of writing this. They support resolutions of 8K, so there is real value added there, and newer tech that optimizes application performance. So, I feel the 1060 is competitively priced and worth it over a 780 ti. Since I got it at $140 and it's going in my arcade cab, I feel it was a good buy. Now the fan bearing is annoying, it's not that loud but it's a rattling fan noise that won't go away. So I think I will get the replacement fan, bringing the total cost to $172. Still that's very decent for this card.

GTX 780 ti (OC)

GTX 780 ti (Stock)

GTX 970 (Stock)

***EDIT***