18 replies to this topic

[Gunslinger76]

Hello all,

A year or so ago when I needed a computer to get the job done, I bought a Lenovo Erazer X3. A very basic set up.

AMD A8-7600 Radeon R7, 10 Compute Cores 4C+6G 3.10Ghz
8.00 GM
64 Bit Operating System, x64-based processor
Card: AMD Radeon™ R 7 Graphics

Fortunately, I'm at a place now where I can make more investments into my computer. I was wondering if anyone a little more knowledgable than myself could make suggestions on what would be the best upgrades to make.

Thanks for you help!

GS76

[BrockSamsonFW]

Depends entirely on how much money you are willing to spend and what you expect to get out of it. Going for 4k or 3x monitors is way different than a simple 1080 setup.

(I myself am waiting for one more generation of video cards in the next few months before going with a 4k setup)

[Ghogiel]

Sounds like either CPU or GPU could be a good upgrade route.

"best upgrades" is a tad vague considering people could suggest some rather pricey gear.

But basically you want as high up the food chain i5 as you can afford and something like R9380 or 970 if you can.

[Troutmonkey]

I like AMD but I can't recommend them right now. The GTX 970 is one of the best cards for the money right now. As for your CPU I'm not sure what you can do with that FM2 socket.

I'd say go for a new GPU, and then if the experience is still to good enough for you move to a new Intel based motherboard and CPU.

[Revis Volek]

Doesnt really get any better CPU wise with that board....

I suggest just starting with a new one, Maybe sell that one for a few extra funds or keep it as a back up.

If you wanna stay AMD i suggest going with AM3/AM3+ and getting something newer and better. But honesty if money isnt an issue get an i5 or i7(close to 4.0 the better) and some(SLI or Crossfire)/a nice video card along with a SSD and you will be flying in comparison.

Can always add water cooling easily now a days and OC it if you want MOAR POWER!

Troutmonkey, on 30 November 2015 - 06:47 PM, said:

I like AMD but I can't recommend them right now. The GTX 970 is one of the best cards for the money right now. As for your CPU I'm not sure what you can do with that FM2 socket.

I'd say go for a new GPU, and then if the experience is still to good enough for you move to a new Intel based motherboard and CPU.

https://www.change.o...und-for-gtx-970

Dunno how much truth is to this...but apparently that card isnt as good as advertised.

Edited by DarthRevis, 30 November 2015 - 07:00 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

DarthRevis, on 30 November 2015 - 06:54 PM, said:

https://www.change.o...und-for-gtx-970

Dunno how much truth is to this...but apparently that card isnt as good as advertised.

There was a "scandal" around the whole 4GB is actually 3.5GB, but that didn't last very long. The card is still amazing, and I'm currently running 3x 1080p monitors on it without any VRAM issues. It also runs Witcher 3 on Ultra very smoothly.

AMD on the other hand have completely bungled the new driver release of "Crimson", with some users have their GPU fans locked at 20% and subsequently cooking them. Others have noted the new drivers are also causing 5-20fps drops under the new software

[Revis Volek]

Troutmonkey, on 30 November 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:

There was a "scandal" around the whole 4GB is actually 3.5GB, but that didn't last very long. The card is still amazing, and I'm currently running 3x 1080p monitors on it without any VRAM issues. It also runs Witcher 3 on Ultra very smoothly.

AMD on the other hand have completely bungled the new driver release of "Crimson", with some users have their GPU fans locked at 20% and subsequently cooking them. Others have noted the new drivers are also causing 5-20fps drops under the new software

I will agree with you there...even if Nvidia and Gigabyte skewed the numbers to make the card look better they still are amazing. And yes AMD just lost a customer in me actually for a while...i was going to buy a new R9 300 series card today and decided not to after this debacle.

Im just gonna wait a few months and see whats happens with the nex gen of cards....

I have a buddy who always gets on me because i drag my feet about updating video cards and such but this is exactly why. I mean Rolling back isnt a big deal if your card isnt a puddle...

Edited by DarthRevis, 30 November 2015 - 07:25 PM.

[Gunslinger76]

Thanks for all the great feedback. I'll need to chew some of this over and price it all out. I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out.

[Revis Volek]

Gunslinger76, on 30 November 2015 - 08:08 PM, said:

Thanks for all the great feedback. I'll need to chew some of this over and price it all out. I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out.

PCParts Picker is a great site...

https://pcpartpicker.com/

Use it to find the part you want in locations and for the cheapest price.

If you need anymore help feel free to PM me i will assist any way i can.

[Mycrus]

Troutmonkey, on 30 November 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:

There was a "scandal" around the whole 4GB is actually 3.5GB, but that didn't last very long. The card is still amazing, and I'm currently running 3x 1080p monitors on it without any VRAM issues. It also runs Witcher 3 on Ultra very smoothly.

AMD on the other hand have completely bungled the new driver release of "Crimson", with some users have their GPU fans locked at 20% and subsequently cooking them. Others have noted the new drivers are also causing 5-20fps drops under the new software

Single 970?

Wtf, my 780ti sli can't do ultra.. fps hit is too hard..

[Parmeggido]

May want to check up on your power supply and make sure it can handle an upgrade. It's easy to overlook, and hard to diagnose if problems arise. Much better to catch something like that now rather than later.

[Mistress Lilium Magnus]

I can make a few suggestions following a priority path.

That's an APU with virtual cores, right? Get a small closed-loop liquid cooler like a CM Seidon. It'll put you out between 45 and 90 dollars depending on model/size, but will keep your CPU super-cool, is no-maintenance and you'll have a little more overhead for overclocking and such.

If you've already got one of those, the next best thing to get is a GPU card. At this point in time for MWO in particular I would NOT suggest AMD, as MWO and Radeon have never played well together and the latest Crimson drivers cause all sorts of fun little graphical bugs.
But if you had to anyways, get an AMD R9 270X. They're cheaper now than ever and they're still really reliable for general HD gaming, especially the 4GB VRAM models. EVGA and ASUS obviously being the best brands.
Otherwise, pick up an Nvidia 960 Strix. Same price range, comparably equal performance, but isn't shite with MWO and doesn't have horrific restructured drivers like the new AMD Crimson.

Beyond that, I'd say a gaming mobo with a sound processor and a net chip, most good gaming boards have both; the former obviously makes sound quality improve and usually support 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound, the latter kills a lot of random lag by throttling other programs and features that are running so that the game gets priority bandwidth. Can't tell you how much of a difference that made for me in playing League of Legends and such.

But definitely, upgrade that gfx.

Edit - TLDR Version: Build a whole new computer from scratch because what you have is never going to work optimally with MWO.

Like everyone else said, buy an Intel (4th gen+ i5+), and... well, I'm sure you know the rest from there.




On the subject of AMD, the fan speed thing was fixed two days ago, contrary to popular belief didn't actually kill cards (because the GPUs throttle specifically to avoid that, just like a CPU), and the drivers aren't horrible overall, but being they basically redid the entire Radeon drivers from the ground up, they are in their infancy and naturally they suck just like the original drivers did when the R series first launched. It's all hype and hear-say that should be avoided, but again -- if you're only talking about MWO, yeah, avoid AMD like the plague because the game's optimization issues clash with AMD's poor ability to sort them out.

Edited by Lilium Magnus the Bloodwitch, 01 December 2015 - 04:44 AM.

[William Mountbank]

For MWO specifically, the engine is severely CPU limited, I'd even say it's video card agnostic. Obviously your mileage depends on what else you do with your PC, but for MWO don't even bother doing anything other than upgrading the CPU unless you want 4K or Oculus Rift.

[-Natural Selection-]

ditch the AMD and you will be off to a good start.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

\Firstly this is totally in the wrong forum.

Secondly before anyone can make any reasonable adjustments they need the budget your working with otherwise there is no point to the thread.

Thirdly whatever the budget remember MWO is CPU limited and thus is the strongest factor in game performance. You will want to ditch that FM2 processor and ideally stay away from AM3+ as well and head into Intel territory.

Past that your budget is required to know what is and is not possible, as well as the rest of the computer, what case, PSU, do you have the Windows on Disc with the key, hard drives etc.

[Troutmonkey]

DV McKenna, on 01 December 2015 - 03:55 AM, said:

\Firstly this is totally in the wrong forum.

Secondly before anyone can make any reasonable adjustments they need the budget your working with otherwise there is no point to the thread.

Thirdly whatever the budget remember MWO is CPU limited and thus is the strongest factor in game performance. You will want to ditch that FM2 processor and ideally stay away from AM3+ as well and head into Intel territory.

Past that your budget is required to know what is and is not possible, as well as the rest of the computer, what case, PSU, do you have the Windows on Disc with the key, hard drives etc.

MWO is more engine limited than anything. My 4970k should be knocking this game out of the park, but it's really not doing all that much better than my AMD Phenom II 1090T from 2010...

Mycrus, on 01 December 2015 - 12:09 AM, said:

Single 970?

Wtf, my 780ti sli can't do ultra.. fps hit is too hard..

I have AA and vSync turned off, as it hits FPS far to hard at triple rez and I can't really tell the difference. Frame rate fluctuates between 30 and 70 depending on map / and whats happening on screen. Dropping the settings to low seems to have very little affect on FPS because MWO is terribly optimized, so I figured I may as well make it look relatively pretty. From what I hear from others SLI and Crossfire barely do anything for MWO.

Edited by Troutmonkey, 01 December 2015 - 03:23 PM.

[Mycrus]

Troutmonkey, on 01 December 2015 - 03:23 PM, said:

MWO is more engine limited than anything. My 4970k should be knocking this game out of the park, but it's really not doing all that much better than my AMD Phenom II 1090T from 2010...
I have AA and vSync turned off, as it hits FPS far to hard at triple rez and I can't really tell the difference. Frame rate fluctuates between 30 and 70 depending on map / and whats happening on screen. Dropping the settings to low seems to have very little affect on FPS because MWO is terribly optimized, so I figured I may as well make it look relatively pretty. From what I hear from others SLI and Crossfire barely do anything for MWO.

Not mwo asking about witcher 3...

Mwo has gotten good with sli profiles and the flicker bug seems to have disappeared

[Troutmonkey]

Mycrus, on 01 December 2015 - 06:31 PM, said:

Not mwo asking about witcher 3...

Mwo has gotten good with sli profiles and the flicker bug seems to have disappeared

Oh sorry. I run Witcher 3 @ 1920*1080 on Ultra, but I think I have hairworks turned off or only on for Geralt. This get me a pretty steady 50fps. Game looks terrible in triple rez and runs like arse. The stretching on the side monitors has characters nearly standing horizontal.

Edited by Troutmonkey, 01 December 2015 - 06:45 PM.

[Mycrus]

Troutmonkey, on 01 December 2015 - 06:45 PM, said:

Oh sorry. I run Witcher 3 @ 1920*1080 on Ultra, but I think I have hairworks turned off or only on for Geralt. This get me a pretty steady 50fps. Game looks terrible in triple rez and runs like arse. The stretching on the side monitors has characters nearly standing horizontal.

Oh okay, thanks

Running triple wide on 780ti sli

Graphics on high
Post processing off
Hairworks off

Using nvidia inspector for a custom sli profile

Using borderless window as with full screen the GPUs spin down and it causes lag...

Getting 30-35 fps which is just passable