What upgrades?

So, I am currently running an AMD setup, with a quad core Phenom II, integraded graphics, and a Micro-ATX board, I am looking to upgrade, I already have a 6-core processor, I am looking to upgrade to that with a full size ATX board, what graphics card do you think would suffice?

What games do you play? Any idea of a budget?

SLI FOUR GTX 680s

DO IT

NO 690S!

I would like to max out all the settings in any game I play, and my budget is $700-$800ish…

[quote=“DEFET, post:3, topic:450311”]SLI FOUR GTX 680s

DO IT[/quote]
Its an AMD Chipset…

You can use NVIDIA cards on an AMD board, just not Intel CPUs.

For that budget, just get a GTX 680 or Crossfire 7950s, 7970s, or GTX 670s. The new series of AMD is actually pretty good and scales very well.

Well, I prefer the Radeon HD series, and those 7950’s come in at $300+. I’m looking to include numerous other upgrades with that budget, so I’ll probably be upgrading to a 6000 series card. What PSU do you suggest with these specs? I’m running 550W right now…

With that budget you should sell your motherboard for cheap, get an lga socket motherboard, get $220 i5 3570k intel processor, GTX 570 for $250, and any 650w-750w psu. None have really failed me or did better for me so I can’t suggest any ones that will be “good”, since I’ve had a lot that never did better or worse than the others.

you do realise the current generation nvidia cards offer better performance for less cost? a gtx 670 (~$400) will outperform a 7970(~$450)

if you have a $700 budget and want the best graphics performance, get a $100 mobo max and a 670, $500 and bam you’re done

EDIT: and you can use a nvidia card on an amd motherboard without issue

It appears you are right: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
I’m just not familiar with the nvidia cards benchmarks. My current wish is to get that 8-core AMD processor, I’m just curious to see how it is. So replacing the Radeon HD 6850 with a GeForce GTX 480 is a good idea? I’m not familar with Nvidia cards.

[quote=“tyb97, post:10, topic:450311”]It appears you are right: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
I’m just not familiar with the nvidia cards benchmarks. My current wish is to get that 8-core AMD processor, I’m just curious to see how it is. So replacing the Radeon HD 6850 with a GeForce GTX 480 is a good idea? I’m not familar with Nvidia cards.[/quote]

  1. Bulldozer sucks shit with games (FX).
  2. Games don’t utilize more than 4 cores, some don’t even support multi-threading.

It’s only good for rendering things, but even then you can get an i5 3570k or an i7 quad-core and that will outperform it even in rendering.

If you really MUST get an AMD processor and really do not wish to get an LGA-socketed motherboard, then get an Phenom II X4 980. If you’re gaming don’t get the X6’s. The X4’s clocks are much, much higher (3.7ghz compared to 3.3ghz) best bang for the buck and you don’t have to put money in for the two potentially unnecessary cores.

Still would rather get a new mobo and 3570k.

3570k is overkill compared to a 2500k which is still overkill

They’re the same price, might as well go for the 3570k.

Wouldn’t call 2500k overkill, that cpu has a usage of >90% at times when playing Battlefield 3, best to get an ivybridge i7 to be a little future proof.

[quote=“SilentCJ, post:14, topic:450311”][quote author=Niall link=topic=553205.msg4060937#msg4060937 date=1343416297]
3570k is overkill compared to a 2500k which is still overkill
[/quote]
Wouldn’t call 2500k overkill, that cpu has a usage of >90% at times when playing Battlefield 3, best to get an ivybridge i7 to be a little future proof.[/quote]

cpu usage doesn’t mean a thing

the only thing to get a high end cpu is if you’re doing something extremely demanding where a gpu solution doesn’t exist and you have nothing better to spend your money on

cpu benchmarks from battlefield 3 beta,

i7-920 performs the same as a 2600k both of which are only 1fps better than the 2500k

a 2500k will be overkill for gaming for years to come and I can’t see anyone needing to upgrade for at least 5+ years

EDIT: it all depends on how cheap you can find the cpus for

[quote=“Niall, post:15, topic:450311”][quote author=SilentCJ link=topic=553205.msg4061069#msg4061069 date=1343427481]

Wouldn’t call 2500k overkill, that cpu has a usage of >90% at times when playing Battlefield 3, best to get an ivybridge i7 to be a little future proof.
[/quote]

cpu usage doesn’t mean a thing

the only thing to get a high end cpu is if you’re doing something extremely demanding where a gpu solution doesn’t exist and you have nothing better to spend your money on

cpu benchmarks from battlefield 3 beta,

i7-920 performs the same as a 2600k both of which are only 1fps better than the 2500k

a 2500k will be overkill for gaming for years to come and I can’t see anyone needing to upgrade for at least 5+ years

EDIT: it all depends on how cheap you can find the cpus for[/quote]
But if the cpu gets to 100% that’s when the game will stagger at 10-30 frames, I’ve seen a friend with a GTX560 running it, but he could only get 10-30 frames on lowest settings because he was running it with an old intel core 2 cpu.

It depends though, games like GTA IV are pretty CPU intensive because of the open world space, most others are more GPU based.