Topic: Upgrading computer, suggestions welcome :)

[Norwegian One]

Hey everyone!

I'm not very good with computers (that's to say, I know how to use them decently well, but not much about building or upgrading one), and I've noticed my three-year old gaming rig has started to struggle with some newer games. Mostly, I think it's the video memory that is starting to become a problem, as I've gotten warnings from Total War: Warhammer and Just Cause 3 about memory usage.

My system is as follows:
AMD Radeon R9 200
AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor

I assume that I'll need to switch out my video card (as I said, I'm not very experienced with computers, as this is my first desktop bought specifically for gaming), but would I also need to change out the CPU? What would be good choices for upgrades?

[Life in Color]

What's your budget looking like?

I like to peruse http://www.hardware-revolution.com/computer-systems/gaming-pc/ when I'm in the market for upgrading my PC.

They do a lot of research, have a lot of different builds for different budgets, and also provide walk-throughs on how to set stuff up if you're doing something new (like water-cooling or something like that).

[Norwegian One]

What's your budget looking like?

I like to peruse http://www.hardware-revolution.com/computer-systems/gaming-pc/ when I'm in the market for upgrading my PC.

They do a lot of research, have a lot of different builds for different budgets, and also provide walk-throughs on how to set stuff up if you're doing something new (like water-cooling or something like that).

I probably don't want to spend more than $1,000 or so, but I'm flexible in that regard.

That website certainly looks good, but I'm wondering if upgrading to a high-end GPU means I will have to upgrade my CPU as well? :)

[Orange Marmalade]

There can be a lot more to it, as well. Upgrading the video card may require an upgraded power supply, upgrading the CPU may require a different motherboard (which may then require new RAM).

Honestly with your budget it may be worth building one from scratch or buying a prebuilt system online from a place that does custom machines.

For example this build would run circles over your current rig with no problem at all and it is under $1000: http://pcbuildsonabudget.com/best-gaming-pc-build-for-under-1000-dollars

Or prebuilt custom: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Syber_Vapor_Elite

Or actually a rather nice upgrade on the GPU for $100 more: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/AMD_Prebuild_ET6340

I usually recommend the prebuilt custom ones like those rather than building yourself due to the all in one support and warranties - unless you love tinkering. Building your own PC is awesome, and fun, but it also means there may be weekends of you trying to fix things.

Lots of options out there for sure, and they are pretty decent systems for the price these days.

[Life in Color]

I probably don't want to spend more than $1,000 or so, but I'm flexible in that regard.

That website certainly looks good, but I'm wondering if upgrading to a high-end GPU means I will have to upgrade my CPU as well? :)

It really depends on how old your CPU is - for example, I'm lookin' at upgrading my own computer and my CPU is ~2 years old, so it's totally fine to leave alone. It's also important to note whether or not you're doing an AMD build or an Intel build.

AMD Processors tend to play better with Radeon cards and Intel plays better with NVIDIA - you can definitely cross them, if you'd like.

It depends on where your bottleneck is, really - at the very least, the new cards support DDR4 and not DD3, so depending on your motherboard, you're looking at replacing the GPU, the RAM, and your mobo, all from replacing the GPU.

xD

[Norwegian One]

@_@

*has much confuse*

This is starting to look complicated already, and I would have been tempted to go for a pre-built for simplicity, if not for a few reasons. For one, I've been raised to be environmentally friendly and ditching a well-working rig doesn't sit right with, not to mention the fact that I'm actually pretty happy with my rig, apart from the memory issue.

I managed to find out what sort of video card and processor I have, but I have no idea how to find out what motherboard I have. Also, I've understood as much that NVIDIA seems to have better graphics cards. How much would it affect it if I chose to get an NVIDIA card?

[Life in Color]

Could you run a DXdiag and PM me a screenshot of the results?

It'd be a good place to start.


<3

[Sabre]

What are your usual settings? Going with a lower resolution and turning down some effects can do wonders for helping with modern games. In general though Total War games will be taxing so don't sweat too much if you can't get as much performance as you'd think.

Try this site for a friendly guide: http://www.logicalincrements.com/
You can mix and match depending on your budget, and take a look at the game guides to get a basic grasp on how each level of GPU will affect your performance.

[Norwegian One]

Finally found a copy of my original order, so here's the component list

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Corsair Carbide 330R Blackout Edition
Fans: 1x 120mm Front, 1x 120mm Back, Muffled, M/E-ATX, mITX, 2x USB 3.0   

Corsair CX 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, 80 Plus Bronze , Standard. 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 5x SATA, 4x Molex   

AMD FX-6300 Black Edition, Socket AM3+
Prosessor, 3.5GHz, 6-Core, 6MB L2 + 8MB L3 Cache, 95W, 32nm, incl. cooler   

Corsair H60 Hydro Series CPU cooler
120mm Radiator, 115x/2011/2011-3/1366, AM2(+)/AM3(+)/FM1/FM2, 2000 RPM, 54 CFM   

ASUS M5A97 R2.0, Socket-AM3+
Motherboard, ATX, 970+SB950, DDR3, 2xG2-PCIe-x16, CFX, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0, UEFI   

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9
Kit w/2x 4GB XMS3 modules, CL9-9-9-24, 1.5V, Low Vengeance Heatspreader   

MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 3GB GDDR5
PCI-Express 3.0, "Twin Frozr IV", DL-DVI-I, HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort   

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

What are your usual settings? Going with a lower resolution and turning down some effects can do wonders for helping with modern games. In general though Total War games will be taxing so don't sweat too much if you can't get as much performance as you'd think.

Try this site for a friendly guide: http://www.logicalincrements.com/
You can mix and match depending on your budget, and take a look at the game guides to get a basic grasp on how each level of GPU will affect your performance.

I run Total War:Warhammer on mid-high settings, I think. Just Cause 3 I pushed all the way down, but it still crashed after about ten minutes of stuttery gameplay :/

[Sabre]

The 6300 is a fine CPU, but it will definitely bottleneck with a lot of games that don't do multithreading very well. You could try overclocking if you haven't already since you're water cooled, but I'd make sure about not overloading that PSU.

In Just Cause 3's case, that sounds like a memory leak issue. You might consider getting 16 gigs of ram for it and cut down on any non-essential running programs. Personally I don't think you need a better video card so much as a new CPU, and maybe more ram if you want to deal with memory leaking until someone fixes it.