Need advice on upgrades

D

dagmor

I'm a noob when it comes to computer hardware and I'd like to know which cpu if any will be the best upgrade for my motherboard. Or if I just need to get a new motherboard instead. Any help is appreciated.

These are my system specs.
MSI X58A GD65
Intel i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
16384MB RAM, Just upgraded 4GBx4
2x GeForce GTX 465 sli
Corsair HX1000W
I have around a 300-400$ budget
 
That CPU is still pretty modern. If you really want to upgrade, I would recommend going for a Haswell platform which will be released in June. $150 for a Z87 motherboard + $330 for an i7 4770K. You will need a larger budget if you want an i7. A i5 4670K will be enough if you are only gaming. You will also need to upgrade your RAM and GPUs.

In my opinion, the CPU isnt really the bottleneck at the moment. I think you are better off just buying a GTX 660Ti or GTX 670 or wait till the nVidia 700 series is released in June (if they arent impressive, then you can get the 660Ti cheaper than you would now). The real time you will need to upgrade your CPU, is probably in a year or two; for now, it will do you fine.

660Ti: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...i&name=Desktop Graphics Cards&Order=BESTMATCH
670: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0&name=Desktop Graphics Cards&Order=BESTMATCH
 
dagmor said:
I'm a noob when it comes to computer hardware and I'd like to know which cpu if any will be the best upgrade for my motherboard. Or if I just need to get a new motherboard instead. Any help is appreciated.
Click to expand...
My question is why you think you need an upgrade. Are you having issues that you think an upgrade will help on? As JC713 mentioned you have a pretty decent machine still yet.
 
Thank you for the response. I'll look into the graphics card, The reason I'm wanting to upgrade my system is because I'm wanting to keep all of my hardware working decently together. I'm thinking that my system should be more capable than it is when It comes to gaming and I thought the cpu or motherboard would be the next best thing to improve.
 
Any i7 is considered modern, despite its age. I wouldnt upgrade will DDR4 RAM comes along, and that will be in about 1-2 years (after Haswell).

Do you have an aftermarket CPU cooler? Because overclocking your CPU to 4GHz will really improve performance.
 
As already stated you will see prob little actual performance gains jumping even to haswell. The early I7's were such overkill for gamers needs they were really future proofing themselves, as JC said a good overclock will extend that processors life till we get a significant change in the processor world (like intel finally releasing more then 4 cores for less then $1000).
 
Or when DDR4 RAM comes along. I dont see any more than 8 cores coming any time soon for consumers. Maybe the Enthusiast series though. Barely any applications utilize quad core, and some dont even support dual core. Intel does what makes money. They dont care about peoples opinions anymore :/.
 
Barely any single applications utilize 4 cores but people are running more and more things at the same time anymore. Intel will have a consumer level 8 core out, specially with both next gen consoles being 8 cores it seems, gaming will finally enter a multithreaded environment beyond 4 cores, and more consumers are using software that can take advantage of the extra cores.
 
Good point! I remember a few months back I read about a 56 core CPU, it may have been an ARM, that was the size of a penny. It was on kick starter so that it can reach the $100 price point, I dont know what happened after that though.
 
If you look at TS graphics benchmarks, overclocking your i7 to 3.5GHz+ will make a GTX680 be the bottleneck.

Your GTX465's are the problem. Get rid of them ASAP if you can. And do more research before buying two of something. :p
 
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St1ckM4n said:
If you look at TS graphics benchmarks, overclocking your i7 to 3.5GHz+ will make a GTX680 be the bottleneck.

Your GTX465's are the problem. Get rid of them ASAP if you can. And do more research before buying two of something. :p
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650Ti Boost SLI are a powerful pair though ;)
 
460 was a freakin boss. It uses a different GPU core. 465 is a cut down version of 470 which is a cut down version of 480, which was so power-inefficient, hot, loud that it wasn't funny. Therefore, 465 is the lowest-tier card on the introductory Fermi core.

460 had a newer core, so it ran cooler, quieter, less electricity. It also overclocked better, resulting in better performance.
 
Hello Techspot,am having an issue with my computer.I have a 500gb ata Seagate Hard drive and when I plug into the sata port,I cant find it.any help?
 
mullafabz said:
Hello Techspot,am having an issue with my computer.I have a 500gb ata Seagate Hard drive and when I plug into the sata port,I cant find it.any help?
Click to expand...

Thread jacking is frowned upon. Try creating a new thread and providing a lot more detail. One of the main reasons threads get ignored is there's just not enough information to provide reasonable help. If users are going to be too lazy to get/give the info then we'll be too lazy to help out.
 
Didn't see which version of Wndows is installed, but I'll mention that Win/7 has an Experience Index (right-click My Computer) under System: see the thrid line

Going there you will see Processor, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics and Primary hard disk.

Whichever of the five is shown as the LOWEST score - - that is your systems bottleneck.

COOL, hey?
 
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