PC GPU died, need help with what to go for next

[Cure]

Hello, I had an Asus HD4870x2 2gb GPU, intel q6600 quad core at 2.4 ghz and 8gb DDR2 memory.
My HD4870x2 finaly died and at the moment only have a spare Geforce 6600 from 2004.
Lol, tried to log on with everything set to lowest quality and got 3 to 7fps. It looked aweful so logged out.

Im going to get a new PC soon so wondering which to go for. AMD is cheaper so was thinking to get AMD FX 8150 @ 3.6ghz (8 cores) AMD HD7950 3gb GPU and 16gb DDR3 memory.
I could spend more and get intel i7 3770 @3.4ghz, HD7950 and 16gb DDR3 ram.

The Intel version costs an extra £150 so does anyone think spending extra is worth it?

[Disc]

I would personally go with an i5 2500k. It's $120 less than the 3770, with a minimal performance hit gaming. For the GPU I would also personally grab a factory OC GTX 670, but that's solely personal preference. The GTX 670 is something like $30-$50 more & should only see a minimal boost in average performance at 1920x1080. And I get squeemish OC'ing GPU's.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=598

I would also say drop the RAM down to 4GB. There's no reason to go beyond that gaming unless you're using a RAM disk, which is better replaced by a 60GB-120GB SSD for roughly the same price.

[Valmonte]

Hello, I had an Asus HD4870x2 2gb GPU, intel q6600 quad core at 2.4 ghz and 8gb DDR2 memory.
My HD4870x2 finaly died and at the moment only have a spare Geforce 6600 from 2004.
Lol, tried to log on with everything set to lowest quality and got 3 to 7fps. It looked aweful so logged out.

Im going to get a new PC soon so wondering which to go for. AMD is cheaper so was thinking to get AMD FX 8150 @ 3.6ghz (8 cores) AMD HD7950 3gb GPU and 16gb DDR3 memory.
I could spend more and get intel i7 3770 @3.4ghz, HD7950 and 16gb DDR3 ram.

The Intel version costs an extra £150 so does anyone think spending extra is worth it?

Stay away from the FX series, if you must have more than 4 cores get the Phenom 2 1100T all current bulldozers are very poor performers.

Why ATi? Nvidia Currently has the lead performance wise.

[Valmonte]

I would also say drop the RAM down to 4GB. There's no reason to go beyond that gaming unless you're using a RAM disk, which is better replaced by a 60GB-120GB SSD for roughly the same price.

When 6 years ago? 8GB is the minimum now.

[Disc]

2.5GB RAM used with Chrome & FFXIV open.(1.9GB without FFXIV)

I've been out of the country for a while, do tell why anybody would need more than 4GB for gaming.

[TessaJalloh]

When 6 years ago? 8GB is the minimum now.

are you kidding? 8 is still a luxury, 4gb is still plenty for gaming. I'm running perfectly fine with 4gb DDR3 on a mid range system.

back to the OP though, listen to Disc, she's pretty much on the ball as far as what you need is concerned, if you want to go a little higher do so, but only if you've got LOTS of cash to spare. Gaming really doesn't require a pedigree system anymore.

[Randelmire]

Ram is so cheap now, there's no point in getting less than 8gig. Actually it would be stupid to get anything less than 8gig. Yes, if you only play FFXIV, you won't be close to 4gig of usage. But if you play in window mode, with a music player running, web pages, some other tools, you do get close to 4gig. You are still ok, but the day you will want to run that new cool software while playing if you go over 4gig of ram usage, you will cry.

It is more about being futureproof for about 20$ more (4gb vs 8gb) than actually needing it.

Also the i5 3450 is cheaper, newer and better than a i5 2500. But if you want to overclock, get the 2500k.

[Dhalmel]

Ram is so cheap now, there's no point in getting less than 8gig.

Also the i5 3470 is cheaper, newer and better than a i5 2500.

This, at most you will spend $15 more to go from 4GB to 8GB depending on that rated speed and latency. If you play BF3 it can and will use more of that extra memory. 8GB is the new gaming standard. I have 16GB but I actually use that (hover around 12GB use often) but you will definitely won't need that for any video game any time soon, or till at least 32bit windows is finally dead.


Speaking of speed and latency, on SB chips don't bother going over 1600MHz @ CL9 latency or on IB 1866MHz @ CL9 latency. Anymore adds stress on your CPU's IMC and can and probably will effect your possible CPU overclocking result.


As for I7 brand, ignore it unless you need the the extra threads for video encoding, folding, 3D editing, or bit mining. Stick to either the 2500k or the 3570k, to which i personally say the 3570k for it's lower power consumption and PCI-E 3 feature.

You will most likely get a Z77 motherboard and I've seen alot of users have issues using SB chips with Z77 on all brands, (MSI, Gigabyte,ASUS) in particular with OCing, and S-states (hibernation, sleep mode), another reason to just get the 3570k to avoid compatibility problems.


I also see you're interested in AMD, if you're going that route don't bother with FX "Bulldozer", they're slower than their previous generation Thuban/Phenom II clock to clock. FX is widely known in the OC community using an absurd amount of power use when overclocked also.

For AMD stick to either Thuban X6 or the Phenom II X4 960T (Thuban chip with 4 cores, has similar overclocking and better IMC compared to Deneb) or 970.


and lastly

BUILD IT YOURSHELF AND SAVE.

[Valmonte]

2.5GB RAM used with Chrome & FFXIV open.(1.9GB without FFXIV)

I've been out of the country for a while, do tell why anybody would need more than 4GB for gaming.

maybe for too long. take a closer look at your usage not just the little green bar. 4086 is 4GB your system has already Comited/allocated 4073 of that. that leaves you with 4099mb for your programs to play with. 1.5gb is already used up by ff14 that leaves you with 1.5 gigs left.

Tell me if you only need 4GB, why is it you have 8GB?

Edit: So your using a Paging file....once you hit the max allocate memory that leaves you with 3MB left, your system will be forced to use that swapfile.

[Randelmire]

So I started the game in the worst case scenario.

A few web pages opens, Steam running in the background because I'm lazy and never stop it, watching a youtube video, sitting in Ul'dah for shouting, MSI Afterburner to check temps (because it is stupid hot in my room in the summer). Some times even Photoshop is running too, but not in this 'test'.

I'm at 3.58 gb usage.
Not too far from 4gb.

Also, I'm about at 2gb free if you look at te numbers.

Other games could use more than FFXIV