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Question

Upgrade GPU or CPU First?

Mar 4, 2015 9:14PM PST

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics cards and processor. Currently I have a GTX 550 Ti and an i5 2400. The GTX 960 and i7-4820K seem to offer the best cost to performance ratio, so now I'm deciding which I should upgrade first? Which is going to make the biggest difference right off the bat?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: upgrade
Mar 4, 2015 9:48PM PST

Two remarks:
- Replacing a graphic card is easy. Replacing a CPU is somewhat more difficult. Moreover, you must be certain that your motherboard is compatible with the new CPU.
- Which of the two will have the most effect on the performance of your system depends on what tasks you run.

Kees

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Re: Re:
Mar 4, 2015 11:11PM PST

I'm capable of swapping processors BUT, I did forget to check the socket type and I'll need a new motherboard if I want to make a significant cpu upgrade (none of the i7 series that's LGA 1155 is really worth the price for the amount a performance increase), so I guess the video card it is lol.

As for what tasks I run, my PC is used for gaming (and general web browsing of course)

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Answer
OK, for gaming. We know the following.
Mar 4, 2015 11:25PM PST

"Our tests demonstrate fairly little difference between a $225 LGA 1155 Core i5-2500K and a $1000 LGA 2011 Core i7-3960X, even when three-way graphics card configurations are involved. It turns out that memory bandwidth and PCIe throughput don't hold back the performance of existing Sandy Bridge-based machines. "
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-4.html

You have a very similar i5 so for gaming we change the GPU first.

I like this list -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
Bob

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Re:
Mar 5, 2015 4:05AM PST

Yea once I actually read the specs of my processor I was surprised at just how little has changed since it was released. Guess that's a good thing though and I won't have to worry about upgrading for a little while.

Thanks for that link. I've always been an nVidia guy so my bias geared me towards the GTX 960, but now I see the R9 280 has it's advantages too. I think it was the core clock speed of the 960 that made me choose it (and because I only want to spend ~$200 lol). I'll look into some benchmarks though that compare the two. How are AMD cards nowadays in terms of support? I remember it was common for games to get glitchy when ran off AMD systems, but that was back in the day.

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Here, things just work.
Mar 5, 2015 4:12AM PST

So far, the Toms list seems to be the way to go.

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Answer
Depends on what you use the PC for.......gaming or
Mar 5, 2015 4:01AM PST

other CPU intensive apps.

If GAMING....then it's GPU first. You can enjoy all that gives you now and can carry it forward to a new system when and if that's needed.

What MB do you have ?

VAPCMD

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Re:
Mar 5, 2015 7:44AM PST

It's LGA 1155

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Really need the MB series and model # ....socket type
Mar 5, 2015 11:51AM PST

helps but sometimes MB BIOS support only goes so far.

VAPCMD

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it's an
Mar 5, 2015 2:48PM PST

asus p8h67-m pro