Looking to upgrade but need help!

[abasers]

Hey,

After playing some of the newly released games such as Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and some others I realized that my rig could probably do with some upgrading.

I have a couple of options for upgrading and i'm looking for some advice. I could get a new processor or new graphics card or improve the cooling of my rig with a new case, some more fans and graphics card cooler.

Current Rig -

Case - Cooler Master Elite 430 / X4 Bit Fenix spectre 120mm
PSU - Corsair CX600X2
Motherboard - MSI Z77A-G45
CPU - Intel Core i3 2120 @ 3.30GHz / Cooler NZXT Havik 140
GPU - AMD Radeon HD 6870 / Cooler XFX DoubleD
HDD - 500GB Western Digital Blue

For processor I have an i3 2120 and was thinking of getting maybe an i5 2500k or a i5 3470 if I were to upgrade it which was my main focus as most games now are quad core recommended and my gfx card is reasonable.

For graphics card I seen a TTL vid where he said that the Club3D 7870 Joker Tahiti LE is pretty good for the price but i'm not really too sure if i need one or if the 6870 is good enough?

The last option would be to upgrade the case and improve cooling. I'm too sure about this being an option as the processor with a Havik 140 never goes above 50 degrees C it was more for the graphics card as it can see temps of 70 after a couple of hours playing games. But people have said to me that the XFX coolers aren't the best.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for looking.

 

[seumasbeathan]

What is your budget for this? If it is decent then get a 3570k and a 7870 Tahiti LE, if you can only get one then get the 7870

 

[alienware]

Budget?

 

[abasers]

Thanks for the responses.

As for a budget I guess between £150-£300.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Gpu would be the biggest improvement to your games, after that if you got enough go for a 3470 if you do not want to OC

 

[seumasbeathan]

Personally I would just get the 7870 Tahiti LE and then later on if you find cpu is holding you back you can always upgrade to Haswell

 

[equk]

Depends on budget, but I would get a i5 2500k or a i5 3570k + a HD7950

Also depends on whether you want to overclock or not I guess.
The 7870 tahiti cards seem pretty expensive (not much more for a 7950)

What RAM do you have?

 

[seumasbeathan]

Depends on budget, but I would get a i5 2500k or a i5 3570k + a HD7950

Also depends on whether you want to overclock or not I guess.
The 7870 tahiti cards seem pretty expensive (not much more for a 7950)

What RAM do you have?

7870 Tahiti LE gives about 95% of the performance of a 7950 for 75% of the price, its a no brainer

 

[Ator]

7870 Tahiti LE gives about 95% of the performance of a 7950 for 75% of the price, its a no brainer

Very true.

@abasers
I have a similar rig and i recently upgraded my gpu from a xfx 6850 to a sapphire 7870 tahiti le and if you intend to upgrade anything on your pc i would definatly go for one of the tahiti le 7870 cards, it is worth it.

 

[iBeInspire]

Buy a 7870 Tahiti LE now, then save again until you have enough to stick in a 3570k/hazwell i5

 

[slovenlyjimmy]

Would agree with most of the other replies on here. You'll get the biggest gain from putting in a new GPU and the 7870 gives a pretty good bang for buck performance and should show some decent gains on your 6870.

Personally I would hold off upgrading the i3 even if you can afford it, maybe think about picking up and SSD drive instead?

Whilst the latest games are starting to make use of more than 2 cores, the hyper threading in the i3 does a good job of simulating 4 physical cores and in lots of games the increase from i3 to i5 isn't that great; especially if you have a good GPU like the 7870.