Do I upgrade my current gaming rig or build a new one?

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1

Hello!

First of all, the reason I have decided to even consider upgrading, or building, a new gaming rig is because the one I currently am running is beginning to show some signs of falling behind on the times. This could be what I am running on it, but I am 99% certain that this PC is beginning to be a bit overworked.

Figure I should mention that this PC is only just over two years old, and I built it hoping that it would be able to keep up for at least 3 years, but here I am, a year after installing my second GPU, looking to either do some modifications to it or replace it.

I can no longer max out any of the games that I play. It doesn't matter if it's CPU intensive or GPU intensive, they will not run over 25FPS, and I've gotten used to a solid 60 frames at minimum, since some games can go higher.

This has been going on for about 2 months, and I'm at a loss of things to do to this machine to make it run games the way it did when I first built it.

Now that the explanation is out of the way, upgrading. The current specs of my gaming rig are as follows.

The CPU is an Intel i7 4770, non-K processor, clocked at 3.4GHz. It has an aftermarket cooler on it, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with a push-pull fan configuration.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3.

The ram is 16GB, 2x8GB sticks, of Kingston's HyperX Fury DDR3 clocked at 1600MHz.

The GPUs. I have a pair of EVGA's GeForce GTX970 4GB ACX2.0, neither of them are the SC/SSC/FTW models or anything like that, just the ACX2.0. I have the graphics cards running in SLI-ed configuration with the, three, 23", 1080p screens connected to the second GPU.

For storage, I have an Adata XPG SX900 128GB SSD that is for Windows and important files, and a Seagate Barracuda 1TB Mechanical Hard Drive that is for games and other, not so important, files.

For the power supply, I have a Corsair RM850 850W that is fully modular.

All of these, what I thought were when I purchased them, beautiful parts are encased in a Corsair 300R Mid-Tower case.

Now, with the specs out of the way. What are your thoughts that A. might be slowing it down, or B. might need to be upgraded to speed/catch this rig up?

Like I said above, building a new rig is a possibility but I would much prefer upgrading this one, if need be, to keep it going for at least another year.

At the current moment, I do not have the craziest budget for a new gaming rig. Selling the parts I have is an option after I purchase the ones I need, but hopefully don't need, since I would like to only upgrade the current PC.

My budget at the current moment for a new rig would be somewhere around the $700 US dollar range. I know, not a lot of money to play with, but I am pretty certain the graphics cards I have will be fine for a little while longer, unless I am told otherwise.

I have been looking at building an AMD system, because I haven't run an AMD system before and the best way to fully test one is to make it your daily driver. I have some questions/concerns regarding AMD systems.

First, compared to my current system, how would a FX8350 8-core CPU stack up to the quad-core i7 4770 I am running now?

Second, following the answer to #1, would it be arguable to make the switch to an AMD powered system if the GPUs were the same and all I changed was the motherboard and processor?

Third, if the GPUs do need to be upgraded, what are some of your suggestions?

And fourth, should I just say screw it, let it be for another year, fighting to get 25FPS, and build another system later when more funds are available?

I appreciate any answers I get to these questions/concerns! Hopefully this whole situation will get resolved and I can sit back and enjoy gaming again, instead of constantly asking why this system isn't preforming the way it should.

2

What games do you play and at what resolution? That rig should be doing a lot better assuming its 1080p or even 1440p.

In short: Very poorly don't do it. That processor should still have a lot of legs on it (you mentioned its a non-k sku and then said you didn't overclock it, that's a bit redundant).

My guess as to why you're experiencing low framerates is because the sli isn't operating properly. Make sure that's working before doing any upgrading.

3

Apart from SLI not being on, what temps is everything running at? Throttling is the only other thing I can think of to explain this.

Not sure if troll post...

4

I currently am more a simulator player, though I did run Skyrim on this PC up until I got tired of it.

As far as the 8350 goes, thank you for saying not to so it, that's what I was looking for.

Now that I think about it, yes, it was somewhat redundant to mention that the i7 is a non-k sku and that I haven't overclocked it.

As far as the SLI goes, I know this motherboard runs one PCI-E 3.0 lane at 8x instead of 16x, would that be the problem? I'm not very experienced with the SLI sort of thing.

Thanks!

5

Don't even...
Check out September, when the new AMD CPUs will be released...

Well, the system is pretty solid. 4770 is really really good CPU, 970, as much as i dislike Nvidia is really really good GPU...

What games do you play? What do you classify as slowing down and showing age or whatever phrasing you used? Because that is really good machine...
SLI - Stay away... Pointless...

6

That wouldn't be a problem.

7

The CPU at the moment is running at 32 degrees Celsius, and never gets above 55 when gaming.

The GPUs, when not gaming are around 38-42 degrees Celsius, and when gaming they're at no more than 60.

8

Well it is dual 970s so you only have 3.5GB of VRAM available to you... I'd drop those and go w/ a 980ti or wait til pascal/polaris to upgrade but i don't think that's the problem

9

Your PC is fine buy a 40" 4k display

you can't OC your CPU anyways

and wait if your GPUs are in SLI, can't you only hook up displays to the top slot GPU?

10

Wouldn't that overpower the VRAM?

11

I can only hookup displays onto one of the two cards, I just chose to have them hooked to the second GPU

12

Depends on the textures used, but if a game isn't playable at 4k, it's bound to be playable at 1080p, the point would be to simplify everything to a single display

13

Well with triple 1080p, I suppose it's possible you're hitting a VRAM limit, try turning down your textures, but you shouldn't have much trouble running most games that support dual GPUs.

14

Oh i just saw where he put the res and triple monitor setup lol yeah prolly VRAM limit because its only 3.5GB to push all those pixels

15

If you're hitting VRAM limits, maybe looks at swapping out your 970s for a couple of R9 390s.

16

You'd want to simplify it to a single GPU, probably a Nano at this point for triple 1080p, as new GPUs are going to be coming out soon anyways

17

I'd wait until the new GPU's drop to upgrade but yeah sell the 970s and buy they best single GPU you can (unless it's another titan... thats a stupidly expensive card).

18

At the moment, upgrading would be something I would go for, and with current prices and things being released soon, I think the 980ti 6GB is calling my name. Simply because the funds are here now, and I would like to get back to enjoying gaming. Thoughts?

19

If you don't mind that your rig will be supplanted in a few months i see no problem with a 6GB 980ti provided that Nvidia doesn't nerf the performance like they did the 700 series.

20

The R9 nano is down to $480 atm, it would make the most sense to buy.
https://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr9nano4gbhbmdh

If you're going to OC the 980ti maybe, otherwise at stock with recent driver improvements I believe the Fury X is now a bit faster, but it can't OC much if any, although it does come with the radiator so that's nice I guess.

2 more things to consider for a current Nvidia card, they don't seem to be supporting DX12 very well

and should you upgrade your displays you're going to have to pay extra for G-sync, at minimum it's about $100 more for the same display type.

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