Current Specs: -AMD Phenom x6 1055T 2.8 GHz -8GB RAM -ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6GB/s USB 3.0 -GIGABYTE GV-R69%OC-1GD Radeon HD 6950 1 GB 256-Bit GDDR5 -550 W semi-modular power supply I'm looking to get a new processor right now, and a new GPU in 6 months or so. I want to be able to play Planetside 2 reasonably >30 fps. I want to be GPU limited right now as I will get a new GPU later. I know I will have to get a new MOBO if I get an Intel processor and probably anyways if I get a new AMD. So any advice? Oh, and I want a quadcore. Budget~ $400-$450
Unfortunately that motherboard does not support any newer processors than what you already have. Another option you could look at is getting a $40 heatsink like the Hyper 212 EVO and overcloking your current CPU to hopefully almost 4GHz, which would be a good upgrade in speed for only $40. Bit of a gamble though because the board isnt really great and the CPU is locked, so you have to rely on fsb overclocking. It can be done, if you can reach 250 fsb (from 200 stock) you will be running at 3.5GHz, but it just depends on how good you are and how well the motherboard can handle it. You need to look at your power supply to see if it is even compatible with Intel's Haswell processors, because if it isnt then you cant upgrade that way either. You could just go with an Ivy Bridge processor which is still pretty good and then you dont have to worry about the PSU compatibility. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293 and either of these depending on if you want to overclock a bit up to 4.4GHz or not: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115234 - not for overclocking http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 - for overclocking and this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214023
Alright thanks. Now I'm thinking I might just upgrade my whole PC. It's about 4 years old. I would not need a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. This is what I'm thinking. $800 would be my budget. I would sell my old tower to my younger brother possibly. CPU(fan)- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214023) GPU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127744 Mobo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293 Power Supply- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148008 RAM- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313342 Disc Drive- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106276 Wireless Adapter (for college, no wired connections :/ )- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704059
Be sure to check other sites for the same model parts that you are looking at through newegg, Amazon is sometimes cheaper and Microcenter pretty much always has the best prices on CPU's by a lot. That PSU is pretty shitty. Get this instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182068 This is better RAM for only $1 more: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313433 At this point, you should really look for a GPU that has 3+GB of vram if you are buying a new GPU. With Nvidia that would mean a 4GB card. You can get a GTX 760 4GB for not much more than that MSI one you linked, but new gen cards will be out within the next few months so you might want to wait and just get a new GPU then that will be higher performance for the same price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127748 and if you are not getting good enough coverage and speed on wireless then you can look at upgrading the antenna with something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833983005 I notice you dont have an actual case or hard drive listed in parts, yet you said you would sell the old tower to your younger brother. Do you plan on keeping those two items or will you be needing those in the budget as well?
I would not go with the 60's series of graphics cards. The history behind the X60 cards is they were first conceptually used as media cards. Contrary to belief, the numbers don't exactly follow a "higher is better", but generally the 80's are where heavy game hitters go. If I was you I would opt for a 770 for a few bucks much higher score. The following link shows you some price vs power comparisons in general. Here is a decent site to see what you will get, through actual benchmarking: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html Then again, the main thing you should get is a high end GPU in my opinion. i5 or i7 is your preference as the i5's can easily clock just as fast as the i7's minus the hyperthreading but games won't be utilizing a quad core hyperthreaded cpu anyways, at most dual core, MAYBE quad without need to use 8 lines. I run with an older sandybridge i5 and I can tell you it runs planetside at 60+ fps on all bases. Even after the merger I have no problems with 150 people fighting in 1 location. I can tell you even though I have 32 gb of RAM that I never see my total usage go over 5 either. So 8 gigs is fine there. I personally run with an EVGA gtx 680 special edition that came overclocked with 4 GB GDDR5
You cant fit any better GPU in his budget though, and PassMark isnt really close to an acceptable GPU comparison.