Can I get away with just gfx upgrade again

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Hi All,

I have a super old PC which is now struggling to cope with games at even 1920 resolution and medium/low settings.

What am wondering is if I can get away with a nice fast SSD or traditional HDD (fairly sure mine are significantly under performing and near death) and a new gfx card. I have been upgrading the gfx since I got it and hoping I can get away with it again.

Rig is... get ready for this!
EVGA 780i FTW Mobo
Q9650
6GB DDR2
HD7950
Various HDD's

Really dont have budget for new PC, would be looking at £200-£250 for gfx card and then look at HDD's later
 
Soldato
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If you don't have the budget for a new pc then a new gfx would make a difference.

The Q9650 was a cracking chip - and the first thing you would need to do is to add a decent clock - it's criminal not to - plus it would help the overall performance with the new GPU as it will become the bottleneck. This bottleneck would be reduced somewhat, with an added clock, and your FPS would benefit when combined with a better GPU. (Don't worry about the bottleneck - you'll ne none the wiser - as you have nothing to compare it to).

The CPU is starting to show its age in games but should be revitalised somewhat with a better GPU. I would only risk an Nvidia flavour as they draw less power than their AMD counterparts which sometimes struggle even in Sandybridge/ivybridge motherboards. There's a strong possibility that the RX 480 may not boot in your MB - even with a BIOS update (which is also another thing you should do if you haven't done so already). I've found that the new Nvidias have been more compatible with older boards and I've assumed that this is because they put less stress in the PCie slot.

If your gaming at 1080p then the GTX 1060 would probably be the best pairing, given the CPU limitations - but if you plan upgrading in the next 12 months I would look at a GTX 1070 as it would fit into your next build nicely and if you shop around can be picked up for under £300 (but i would stick to the 1060 if you have no plans to upgrade).

The RX 480 - is faster than the 1060 - but as mentioned you could run into stability issues - perhaps google your board and look at success rates.

Whatever - clock that CPU ;)

EDIT: An SSD would be a great addition no matter what for windows and apps - but won't help with gaming speeds - other than load times onto servers, and the speed in which a game loads up etc (No FPS benefit). But an SSD is a great overall addition if you can afford it - and your system isn't a limiting factor.
 
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Thanks @Plec thats great advise, especially about the older PCIe slot revisions not being able to give the newer cards what they need.

In terms of a clock I have the CPU running a 4.0Ghz day to day which is nice.
 
Soldato
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No problem and welcome to the forums (just noticed).

Don't take my word as gospel on the AMD front - but the experience I've had with the RX 480 on older boards (even the R9s) has been difficult but usually they've been resolved with a BIOS update but some people have still struggled. And these were on 1155 socket motherboards. I've not tried or even come across an RX 480 being put into a socket 775 - nor a GTX 10 series, so still an unknown.

But because of the AMDs power draw and the difficulties in even newer motherboards I personally would try the GTX 1060 - plus the speed difference in your system, gaming at 1080p, there would be negligible difference - if any.

I would still recommend googling your board and GTX 1060s...

And nice clock - I had the q6600 - both cracking chips.

EDIT: Don't get the 3Gb version of the 1060 it's a stripped down version of the 6gb - it's not just a memory difference.
 
Soldato
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Ah, welcome back then.

If you decide to get the GTX 1060 take some benchmarks with your present card (MSI afterburner is great for this) and then compare the results with your new card installed. It would be really interesting to know how much of a boost you get. These new set of cards are really invigorating older systems - the 1155 socket in particular. Normally, everyone would be upgrading a 5 year plus CPU now but these chips are still holding there own when paired with new GPUs - even with the 'slight' bottleneck issues with the larger GPUs.

I've never owned a CPU for so long (2500K @ 4.5GHz) - and would have upgraded in January but paired with a 1070 it's enabled me to wait for the release of Ryszen and even watch for BIOS/drivers to sort themselves out and let the prices drop...
 
Soldato
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Strange I had a 6950 which is slower than yours, and everything plays at pretty medium/ high settings, Tomb Raider, Witcher 3 and playable fps

What games are you finding unplayable?
 
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I just dropped a 1060 into an older Linux rig and it has given it a new lease of life. Can't really tell it is an older rig when running games or Blender or anything OpenCL for that matter.
 
Soldato
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The CPU is weak but you could upgrade the GPU, I'd probably just keep it and save until I had enough for a 6c/12t Ryzen PC which would cost about £350, then upgrade the GPU.
 
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