I'll soon be in the lucky position to spend some money on my rig. My current system specs are in my profile. I'm not sure I would be best investing in a new graphics card or processor upgrade. The 780ti looks great but only seems to have 3gb ram. My current card has 4. I was under the impression that to run triple screens it's best to have 4gb minimum. Maybe I'd be better upgrading the processor ....tips appreciated Andy Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Pff i have a ati 7850 with 2gb and run rf2 with an i3 and 4gb ram. Granted can't run it with 10 cars on track at maximum settings. But i lower them, pretty shure with 3gb you will manage and slat least an i5 Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
If you want crazy fps, go nuts and buy what ever you can afford, you can't go wrong, but, be sure you don't bottleneck the pc. If you go nuts with graphics, buy a decent i7 and some 16 ram max. Give it stuff in all the places Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Ok cheers Just looked at the i7 I would need to upgrade motherboard and probably memory as mine is an lga 1155 board. Probably a bit too much cost to upgrade that and the graphics so would need to be one or the other. ... Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Well if you allready have a good graphics card, i7 are on 1155 i have one right in front of me, but it would be nice a good mb, get an i7 first then see hiw it. Goes. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Ah right.... 1155 is Ivybridge there's a couple of i7s available 1150 is Haswell and there's more options. Not too hot on processor specs but I guess the Haswell is a better version. .. Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Well always the latest models are better so. Get a decent mb and an i7 then see how it works Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
After that, just upgrade as needed, at least you have a good platform to begin with, and very upgradeable Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Haswell has better iGPU performance then IvyBridge ( not a issue for you ) Intel Core i5-3570K vs. i7-3770K Ivy Bridge (LGA 1155) Intel Core i5-4670K vs. i7-4770K Haswell ( LGA 1150) Drop-down menu at bottom of page for conclusions and other tests, OC, etc....... Maybe a GTX780 OC and a Intel i5-3570K (LGA 1155) , it would cost no more then a GTX780Ti , that is assuming your 1155 motherboard and memory are up to it. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-472-IN http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-256-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2574
Andy can you tell me your current system? I'm on tapatalk on an old phone and I can't seem to be able to access that info. 4 Gb vs 3 Gb will only make a difference in some games. Very few, like Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, the new Watch Dogs, etc. Even then it's only in certain graphics setup scenarios (Eg. running those games at 1080p, with a single monitor, and with medium graphics settings will use much less VRAM than maxed out, multiple monitors, etc). I play rF2 and other sims with triple 1080p screens, and trust me, 3 Gb of VRAM is enough. I don't even think I hardly use over 2 Gb, if at all. The 780 3 Gb will smoke the 760 4 Gb in 95% of cases. Get a used 780 non-Ti if you don't want to spend the $ on a Ti model. Same thing with the CPU. There are hardly any games that will make use of more than 4 threads. However games like Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, the new Watch Dogs etc. do. The new consoles (Playstation 4 and Xbox 1) have 8 threads so I feel that many games in the very near future will start benefitting from more than 4 threads. However this is not a problem for you either. Get yourself a 2600k or 3770k, they have 8 threads (4 physical cores + 4 from Hyperthreading). Again though, I don't think any sim makes use of even more than 4 threads, and sadly rF2 is only a 2 threaded program, so if you just care about sims then a 2500k or 3570k is fine. Can you please tell me your current motherboard and CPU?
Hi Spinelli Thanks for the reply... This rig is purely for sim racing, RF2 being pretty much my game of choice at the moment. Heres my current spec: GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H Intel Z77 Socket 1150 Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz clocked to 4.5ghz Win7 x64 GeiL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit Gigabyte Windforce 4096mb GTX760 OC graphics Samsung and Mushkin SSD's sata3 Thrustmaster T500RS Triple screens GT Omega racing rig It runs most things on medium to high, giving me around 60fps dependant on track etc. I looked at these yesterday, but not made any decisions as yet... core i7 4770k 3.5 haswell processor Gigabyte Z97-dh3 Z97 motherboard socket 1150 16gb Corsair vengeance blue (2x8gb) 1866mhz ram Thought that might beef it up a bit and give me another couple of years at least before any major upgrades needed. Cheers Andy
Some reason I assumed you had something slower ........... never looked at specs doh . With a 2500K@4.4GHz definitely I would get the GTX780Ti before I spent any other money. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28517633-I5-2500K-vs-I7-4770K-Gaming-Benchmarks If it is sim racing and mainly rF2 I see no reason for a CPU upgrade.
Thanks durge. ..very informative thread. My only concern is dropping from 4gb vram down to 3. Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Andy, I also used to run a 2500K, and also at 4.5 GHz. I upgraded to a monster 4930K (mainly for 2 things, PCI-E 3.0, and dual true 16x PCI-E lanes, rather than for the chip itself) and let me tell you... you are just fine with that 2500K @ 4.5 GHz when it comes to absolutely any piece of software that does not use more than 4 threads (which is most games by far ATM, not to mention that rF2 is sadly only a 2-threaded program ATM). A 2500k @ 4.5 GHz is equivalent to it's Ivy Bridge and Haswell based counterparts, the 3570k and 4670k, @ about 4.25 GHz and 3.9-4.0 GHz respectively. After Sandy Bridge, Intel has been an absolute joke when it comes to performance per MHz (mainly because AMD has been uninterested in competing at the top end for a while), and that is why a 4.5 GHz Sandy Bridge 2500K is about equivalent to a Haswell 4670K at 3.9-ish GHz. Your CPU is fine . Like Durge said, go for the GPU. You can see how much VRAM your game is using by using a program such as GPU-Z, Precision-X, Afterburner, etc. I bet your VRAM usage will be somewhere from 1.8 GB to 2.3 GB. Is your PC "out of commission" ATM? Because I can do some tests for you (VRAM usage, framerates, etc.) if you want (I know how to setup my 4930k to be almost identical to a 4.5 GHz 2500k).
your specs look fine, if I were you I'd hold off -save your monies and get a better spec at a later date ( a year or two ) new nvidia cards coming too
Thanks spinelli. ...great info....I find all the cpu numbering a bit confusing. ..They don't make it easy do they! PC is running find at the moment would just like to be able to up the graphics a bit more without losing fps. Such a great game it's a waste not to see the best of it I wouldn't know where to start with testing vram etc.... Cheers Adrian something to bear in mind Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Andy just download a tiny program called GPU-Z, get the EXE non-install version. Open it up, then click the 2nd tab that has the realtime GPU monitoring info, don't close GPU-Z, go play a game for 5 or 10 minutes, quit the game and check on the still open GPU-Z program what the max usage of the VRAM was. I think if you keep clicking on VRAM that it will switch between current, minimum, maximum, and average readings. You want to see the maximum obviously.
