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Question

Please help me with a PC upgrade!

Mar 20, 2015 12:33AM PDT

I have a $150 credit to Newegg. I was curious if there was anything I could add to my machine. I am looking for a decent performance upgrade, I have a pretty decent rig as it stands.

CPU: AMD FD8320FRHKBOX FX-8320 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition

GPU: 2X NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 760 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card - Black

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

HDD: OS on Intel 730 SERIES 2.5-Inch 240 GB Internal Solid State Drive SSDSC2BP240G4R5

Movies, music, games on: WD Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300G2 ATX12V/EPS12V 1300W 80Plus Gold Power Supply 120-G2-1300-XR

Memory: PNY Optima 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Desktop DIMMs Memory Kit MD8192KD3-1333


Cooling: Apevia Case Cooling Fan CF20SL-UGN Green

Corsair Air Series SP 120 LED White High Static Pressure Fan Cooling - twin pack (CO-9050030-WW)

NZXT Sentry LX High Performance Fan Controller (Black)

ZALMAN Computer Noise Prevention System with Blue LED Fan and Circular Pure Copper Heatsink CPU Cooler CNPS7000B-CU LED

Case: Apevia X-Sniper 2 Metal Case with Side Window-Green X-SNIPER2-GN

Optical: Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial-ATA Internal OEM Optical Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black)

I think that's everything. Please let me know what you think, or if you see anything I don"t. I consider this a hobby and receive these newegg giftcards frequently. Throw any and all ideas out there!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Upgrade
Mar 20, 2015 1:15AM PDT

The cpu and the mobo will accept 1866 ram....native.
Perf bump?......beats me but it won't be any slower.

Just be sure you use the proper slots for dual channel.

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Answer
How's your backup plan going?
Mar 20, 2015 3:49AM PDT

If the rig is performing OK, you'd probably not be wise (financially) to replace any components that would need to be tossed. External drives might be a good choice if you're light on those. Just a thought.

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Agree..maybe even a third internal drive as a backup for
Mar 20, 2015 2:25PM PDT

SSD and the 1TB HDD. Makes fast, easy backups and restores (if that should become necessary).

VAPCMD

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Answer
Upgrade
Mar 20, 2015 3:43PM PDT

Hi,

I do not understand as to why you have 2 x 760? This is confusing. I am amazed that no-one else here detected that. A single 780 would out perform them in most games. I always advise people to go for a high end card rather than use an SLi setup. Games which either have bad or no support for SLi will run slowly. I also think that CPU is a litle slow to properly support SLi and as such will introduce stutter. The low memory amount aswell as when you have 2 x2 GB cards in SLi you only have 2GB VRAM, not 4GB. This is because they store the same information.

AMD FX-8320 is on par with an i7 920 which is several generations old now. Whoever advised you to get a power supply that big was clearly a joker. That is massive overkill for the system. You could have 4 760's on that and it still would not sweat.

Taking this into consideration, my advice would be to sell your 2 Geforce 760's on ebay, combine that money with your newegg cash and purchase a single 980. You would seem massive gaming improvements. The biggest gain here is also the future proofing of DX12 which ships with Windows 10, 4GB of memory which allows for higher resolutions, and an awesome GPU which will outperform both of yours together. The 970 is also an excellent choice in terms of power to price ratio.

I understand your thought process, the AMD CPU and 760's helped me to profile the way in which you think. I blame people on these forums who are too soft or generally have no clue on how to build a competent gaming system. AMD are far inferior to Intel now in the CPU market. They are concentrating more on mobile computing and industrial computers at present.

I always advise i5 minimum, paired with an SSD and either AMD or nVidia top end card, such as the 970 or even a 770.