Well I just want to hear others opinion/advice about my build if it will hold itself for awhile longer with gaming and web surfing. I game quite abit but not to the point of being and enthusiast gamer. I've only just had this build for a year and a half. My 1TB HDD contains my steam and origin games, also a handful of movies that I stream to our roku box.
Specs Mobo: ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 CPU: 8350 OCed (4.5) with H100i (2 industrial Noctua fans) GPU: HIS 7950 RAM: 16gb SSD: 120 Hypr X HDD: 1TB WD black PSU: corsair GS700 Monitor: Xstar 27" 1440p (120hz)
As long as you don't mind playing games without ultra settings, your rig is still quite a capable gaming machine.
If you want to eke some more performance out of it, you could try overclocking your video card. Alternatively, you could try drinking the magical crossfire Kool-Aid.
That is still a capable rig for 1080p and even most 1440p gaming.
Really, the only thing that will be holding you back in most titles will be the GPU. You could upgrade to an R9 290 which should max most games at 1440p. A second 7950 (R9 280(X)) would also be a good idea and will be a powerhouse but you're gonna need a bigger PSU for that.
Ultimately, the need for an upgrade is up to you. If you're happy with the performance you're getting then no you don't. If you aren't happy then yes.
oh forgot to mention I have done abit of OC on the GPU but only using AMD catalyst really. You're right about not being able to play on ultra settings, I can get BF4 running 50-70 steady on high setting only (using chrome) but with 2560x1440p I doubt the GPU can handle more. It kinda seem hard to find 7950s atm and don't know if PSU will be able to handle another GPU.
The short answer is NO. The short to medium answer is a custom cooler r9 290 after the 390x launches and the prices on the 290's drop even lower. And then pick up a freesync monitor.
I wouldn't even let my gran use that machine. The spec is terrible. I tell you what, as a special favour I will take it off your hands...
Seriously, it's a good machine. I even believe that AMD have said that 7xxx series cards will be able to support DX12. If that's the case it will be good for the generation of games as most DX12 games will better utilise 8 cores.
Look through the slides with regards to multi-threading, the DX12 API finally allows the graphics card driver to address more cores.
Of course, you will need Winodws 10 and games with DX12 support, so it's unlikely to fix any performance issues you have with your current games library unless the game publishers add support retrospectively (which is probably unlikely).
He could do a GPU upgrade, but then i would recommend to wait for the new AMD 300 series.
1440p is more GPU demending in allot of AAA titles, so you could concider it. If you play heavy cpu bound games like mmo´s / rpg´s and what not, then on 1440p the cpu will still be a potentional bottleneck with a highend gpu, But it will be allot better then on 1080p.
Well from what I've gathered GPU upgrade will be the next step then. On the other hand my WD 1tb black is nearly full with steam games and movies. What do u guys recommend for another HDD??So I will just keep all my steam games and origin games on the WD black and move other files to another HDD. Would a WD green be fine for storing movies and pics?? (note I stream movies from my PC to our roku box) would the slow rpm affect the streaming quality?? 1080p movies btw :)
Grab a ssd for your games that have shitty load times. 7950's are still ok, but at your res you would already be seeing the limitations of it. You'd still get ok money for it if you were to sell it and get a 290. Especially not being a heavy miner (i assume anyway).