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Gorgon

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It's not just the usb2 and sata2 ports that bothers me (I've added SATA3 and USB3 cards), but the memory limitation of 12Gb on my current motherboard that bothers me the most. Some day...

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Hi guys, I know there are probably better places on internet to ask but I am lazy so I will ask here :)

 

I got quite 'old' comp and I was thinking about upgrade

 

I got intel i5 2500+ processor

500mb nvidia graphic card

4 gigs of ram (4x1)

1T WD black HD

some asus MB probably p5b but not sure, have to check it

 

so far it runs solidly but I fear that with new consoles on market new games start to be much more demanding to looks good

 

Any Idea where to start? I am quite happy with processor. I would love to switch to SSD disk but they are quite too expensive for me. In the end I think I will just update GF and add more cooling as my CPU runs really hot with stock fan (also my PC is loud as hell but I am not sure if its CPU fan or my HD) maybe scrap those 4x1 Rams and get new ones (but I fear my MB will not support much better ones). I have checked a little bit some online shops but it seems that GF are expensive as hell these days. I thought that cost willl run lower and lower but to get high end PC today is more expensive that 5 years ago xD

 

Thanks for any inputs

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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Eh, graphics card prices are pretty stable, from budget options to 'sensible' high end it still covers the $100-400USD spectrum as it has for years, so any issues would be down to exchange rate.

 

Your CPU is up to date, so it's a complete non-issue. The motherboard can easily support higher capacity RAM, but this is not necessary unless you need to replace them all for some reason (e.g. to go 2x4GB). So just buy a new video card, that's all you need to do to make it a competitive system. Would suggest R7 265 as the cheapest viable option. R9 280 is the next major step up.

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Yeah, that Sandy Bridge CPU is fine.  RAM should be okay for a while, though you may need to upgrade for some games in the near future.  Video card is the big thing.  I don't know what you budget looks like so I can't recommend a specific card other than to say I generally prefer Nvidia over AMD, but that's down to my own personal choice.

Edited by Keyrock

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Yeah, that Sandy Bridge CPU is fine.  RAM should be okay for a while, though you may need to upgrade for some games in the near future.  Video card is the big thing.  I don't know what you budget looks like so I can't recommend a specific card other than to say I generally prefer Nvidia over AMD, but that's down to my own personal choice.

 

Yeah I prefer Nvidia as well even thou they are less competetive in terms of price/performance 100 bucks is really cheap something between 200-300 bucks probably. Thanks for putting confidence into my CPU. I know it was good buy :)

 

And yeah, If I want to upgrade RAMs I will have to get rid of those as I have only 4 slots and I am not sure if its good idea to get 2x4 and leave another two with 2x1. So any hints on good cards in range of 200-300 buck would be welcomed.

 

Thanks guys!

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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AMD's R9 285 is probably the price to performance king in the $200-$300 bracket right now, though Nvidia's GTX 960 is supposed to launch in a matter of days, it might even be tomorrow, so you may want to hold off until we get full specs, pricing, benchmarks, and reviews to make a decision.

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"Any organization created out of fear must create fear to survive." - Bill Hicks

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Finally ordered the CM Nepton 280l (4 nocuta A14 will replace the stock fans for push/pull). Hope to god that pump is not loud (reviews are really bad for AIO coolers).

"because they filled mommy with enough mythic power to become a demi-god" - KP

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Hmm R9 290 is 400+ bucks where I live :( 

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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The first GTX 960 reviews and benchmarks are coming in.  Obviously, do your research and don't just go be a single review, but from that single review the card seems like a real winner, delivering plenty of horsepower at a very reasonable price point ($199, don't know what that translates to where you live).  If nothing else, this will likely force AMD to drop prices on some of its cards in the same general performance range, so everybody wins.

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The first GTX 960 reviews and benchmarks are coming in.  Obviously, do your research and don't just go be a single review, but from that single review the card seems like a real winner, delivering plenty of horsepower at a very reasonable price point ($199, don't know what that translates to where you live).  If nothing else, this will likely force AMD to drop prices on some of its cards in the same general performance range, so everybody wins.

OK will wait a while to see what price it will have localy - funny note in URL they got 760 :)

I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene"

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Surely there's got to be more coming, a GTX 960Ti hopefully at least. As it stands the efficiency is nice but other than that it's an HD7950/R9 280, a two-year-old product at the same price/performance point. Granted, the 960 becomes the better buy most likely (unless you're pushing a lot of pixels - more than 1080p - in which case it might start to fall behind) but in terms of the overall product landscape it isn't really making waves. Given the all conquering GTX 970 launch at least, people could be forgiven for expecting more than this. There's a huge hole in the nVidia product range as a result, so hopefully it's filled sooner rather than later.

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I would say the GTX960 seems to be the price to performance king at $200 right now.  It seems about the same, maybe a hair more powerful on average than a R9 285 at 1080p (let's face it, if you're going to run 1440p or 4k, you're not buying a $200 video card, so any benchmark above 1080p is irrelevant), which is a card going for about $20 more, as of right now (that may change very soon).  Nvidia does indeed have a gap in its lineup at the $250 price point right now.

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Put my Nepton 280l in (repurposed the 2xA15 from the nocuta cooler instead of the stock fans), same temps, same noise, but at least my first pci-express slot is free now.

"because they filled mommy with enough mythic power to become a demi-god" - KP

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I would say the GTX960 seems to be the price to performance king at $200 right now.  It seems about the same, maybe a hair more powerful on average than a R9 285 at 1080p (let's face it, if you're going to run 1440p or 4k, you're not buying a $200 video card, so any benchmark above 1080p is irrelevant), which is a card going for about $20 more, as of right now (that may change very soon).  Nvidia does indeed have a gap in its lineup at the $250 price point right now.

Wouldn't the 280X be a better value?

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I would say the GTX960 seems to be the price to performance king at $200 right now.  It seems about the same, maybe a hair more powerful on average than a R9 285 at 1080p (let's face it, if you're going to run 1440p or 4k, you're not buying a $200 video card, so any benchmark above 1080p is irrelevant), which is a card going for about $20 more, as of right now (that may change very soon).  Nvidia does indeed have a gap in its lineup at the $250 price point right now.

Wouldn't the 280X be a better value?

 

That's definitely debatable.  The R9 280X is certainly a little bit more powerful, but it's also about $40 - $50 more expensive.

Edited by Keyrock

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It's not a price-performance king at all, indeed it does not advance the price-performance metric at all, strictly speaking. But what it does is that approximately matches AMD in that respect, so it does make nVidia finally competitive in that market segment for the first time in a while.

 

...at least in theory. I'll never really understand the US hardware market with seemingly every second product having a mail-in rebate and various other pricing shenanigans. The suggested retail price of the GTX 960 is competitive and given the assumptions of 1080p gaming and cards being sold at SRP, it'd be the pick for that price point. On the other hand, you have the R9 280 apparently going for $150 after rebate, a card that performs approximately the same but less efficiently at 1080p, and which pulls ahead the higher you go - and yes, you can get viable options for 1440p at $200, and as this card shows, at $150. If you can find a clearance HD 7950, it's even better value, being essentially the same product as the 280. The power savings of a 960 will never add up to that kind of price difference over the lifetime of the product.

 

The other thing that kind of spoils this launch is the $250ish and dropping R9 290s, which is probably my pick of the midrange at the moment (though I'd add $10-20 for custom cooler version), beating out the 960 by ~50% for 25% more money. Hopefully this is the price-performance ratio that any hypothetical 960Ti aims at.

 

 

TL;DR version: GTX 970 was nVidia knocking the socks off AMD. GTX 960 is it gently ambling up to AMD and muttering "hey, I'm here, kinda".

 

 

EDIT:

 

 

 

I would say the GTX960 seems to be the price to performance king at $200 right now. It seems about the same, maybe a hair more powerful on average than a R9 285 at 1080p (let's face it, if you're going to run 1440p or 4k, you're not buying a $200 video card, so any benchmark above 1080p is irrelevant), which is a card going for about $20 more, as of right now (that may change very soon). Nvidia does indeed have a gap in its lineup at the $250 price point right now.

Wouldn't the 280X be a better value?

 

That's definitely debatable. The R9 280X is certainly a little bit more powerful, but it's also about $40 - $50 more expensive.

 

Yeah, never liked where the 280X was positioned. But as mentioned, both the regular 280 at $150 and and the regular 290 at $250 are very much better value. Newegg prices though, so international customers might not get the crazy good deals Americans tend to get.

Edited by Humanoid

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Sure, if you can get a R9 280 at $150 that's a killer deal.  I wasn't factoring in rebates.  Regular prices, as of now, for the R9 280 (no rebates included) are in the same ballpark as the GTX960 (often about $10 cheaper) and the GTX960 is just about always faster at 1080p.  And don't give me this 1440p bull****.  NOBODY seriously wanting to game at 1440p is buying a ****ing R9 280 or a GTX960.  I know you're not that stupid so please, do me a ****ing favor and don't try to assume other people are that stupid.  You're not doing anyone any favors by implying some people on here might be stupid.  Could you feasibly in theory game at 1440p on a R9 280?  Technically yes, but with sacrifices and no path for the future without buying another card.  Would anyone with even half a brain who invested in a 1440p monitor be buying a video card in the $200 range?  Absolutely not.  So don't try that stupid crap, that's just ridiculous.  If you're going for 1440p you're buying AT LEAST a GTX970 or a R9 290X, period.  

Edited by Keyrock

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