They don't even need to be from the same brand (MSI, ASUS, etc.)
If you have to choose, go with one powerful card rather than two weaker ones in SLI. You might see some benefits in games that actually support SLI, but honestly, running dual GPUs often just results in worse frame times and annoying microstutter.
Take a look at the link above. Do you really think that's worth the swap? In my book, an upgrade only makes sense if you're jumping to a GPU that’s at least 40-50% more powerful. You want something you can actually feel in terms of performance, not just a marginal bump that fluctuates depending on which game you're playing.
Basically, if you're going to pull the trigger, you should be looking at a minimum of an NVIDIA GTX 970, an AMD Radeon R9 290/390, or whatever their successors are hitting the market with next.
Look, the Sapphire model just won't fit in your case. Your best bet is the MSI version, even if you have to shell out a little extra for it. I wouldn't touch the budget Gigabyte R9 390; the cooler isn't up to the task for a chip that powerful, and it runs way too loud.
If the MSI is pushing your budget too far, maybe check out this one with the GTX 970 . Alternatively, you could grab an R9 380X along with a 240 GB Adata SSD—you can find them for $166 at the Best Buy downtown.
The 380X offers better performance and much more bang for your buck, though the cooling solution isn't quite as robust. Both come with a 3-year warranty.
In my opinion, go with the Sapphire R9 390, but first, tell me what kind of case you're running. Length is a huge factor here, and you need to make sure you have enough airflow.
They aren't even Fury cards. That's exactly why everyone ended up having to fucking undervolt them.
But am I just imagining things, or is this 380X actually turning out to be the absolute best buy card on the market right now? It arrived quietly, without much fanfare, but that’s how it feels to me.
The R9 380 2GB probably has better price-to-performance, and if it had been priced lower $500 a few weeks back, it would have absolutely crushed everything else on the charts. But you have to consider that 2GB is becoming pretty mediocre, and the 4GB versions cost almost as much as the 380X—which, by the way, is a bit stronger out of the box... In a handful of games (especially DX12 titles) and at resolutions higher than 1080p, I've even seen it breathing down the neck of, matching, or even slightly edging out the GTX 970.
Check out the Nitro 380X review over at Linus Tech Tips; they put together a solid comparison table showing the overclocked and stock performance for the 380, 380X, and 390. The 390 is in a league of its own. As for the 380 and 380X, it’s a classic case of that unwritten rule: if you take a lower-tier chip with fewer stream processors and crank up the clock speeds, you can actually catch up to—or even overtake—the higher-end model running at stock settings.
Douglas Fisher78 said:I figured it wasn't worth putting MMOs on an HDD since I don't see much difference, so I'd just stick to single-player games. Guess I'm not the smartest guy here.
Actually, it’s quite the opposite. In many titles like Call of Duty, you get faster loading times—the map loads quickly once, and then everything else stays consistent.
MMORPG players say:
I experienced the most dramatic difference about two years ago when Star Wars: The Old Republic went free-to-play. I had just sold my desktop and was waiting for a new laptop, so I was playing on this ancient Dell Latitude (C2D 2.0GHz, x1600 mobility, 3GB RAM, some old HDD). It was a decent enough laptop, even though it sat well below the game's minimum specs, but while the levels were loading, everything ran above 24FPS at 1024x768. Since I had an SSD lying around, I thought I'd try installing macOS on it to see how it would perform on an NVMe setup with such an old machine.
To my absolute surprise, everything ended up running significantly better. My FPS hovered around 30 at 1280x800; sure, there were drops below 20, but I also saw spikes up to 40. Regarding questing in open areas where the game is constantly streaming in extra textures, NPCs, and other background assets—whenever I moved from one zone to another—FPS drops were inevitable on an HDD while things loaded, but with the SSD, they were almost non-existent.
Since I've spent a lot of time playing World of Warcraft—both on a mechanical drive and an SSD—I can tell you there is a massive difference. This is especially noticeable during raids when a phase changes, a big bad boss casts a spell that covers the whole raid, or teammates trigger spells they haven't used yet during the fight. Or even when you use Fast Travel to land in a city and everything starts rendering. Of course, you still see some FPS drops even with an SSD, but they are drastically smaller—barely noticeable compared to the struggle on a mechanical drive.
The specific example I remember best from WoW, back when I was raiding heavily and made the switch from an HDD to an SSD (CPU: i5 760 @ 3.8GHz, GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 @ 950MHz), was fighting Sauron on Epic Games difficulty. When the AOE phase started with all those little effects, the HDD would struggle to keep up with all the AOE spells and animations the boss threw at us, causing my FPS to tank to nearly unplayable levels of 15 FPS (otherwise, it rarely dipped below 30 in similar scenarios). Once I switched to the SSD, the drops only went down to 30 FPS, and situations that previously hit 30 FPS were now holding steady around 45-50.
Even in some single-player games, there's a benefit; for instance, in an open-world game like Stalker, you won't experience stutters in certain areas unless you're running on an SSD.
Which power supply are you running exactly? If it’s a decent model, why not? If you've got four sticks of RAM and an R9 390 nitro ($966 check Newegg), you could just grab a cheaper monitor instead—provided you absolutely need it to be 24" clickhere
A 120GB drive is just way too small if you’re planning to install even a single massive game—say, 30 to 50GB—down the road. Sure, you get faster loading times and fewer FPS drops in certain genres, but once you install one big title, you'll be hitting your capacity limit almost immediately. You never actually have the full 120GB available anyway, and you need to leave some breathing room for the system.
Plus, getting a 240-256GB drive is much more cost-effective in the long run.
Kingston SP550 series:
120GB - $0.02 per GB ($100) 240GB - $0.017 per GB ($166)
If I were in your shoes, I’d definitely prioritize upgrading the core platform first—CPU, motherboard, and RAM. That processor was an absolute beast back in its day, but unfortunately, it just can't keep up with modern demands anymore.
Picking up a VX 450W PSU and a solid graphics card like an HD7850 for around $600--$233 might seem like a decent move, but it’s honestly a waste of money if you aren't planning to overhaul the entire platform soon enough.
Honestly, I’d much rather go with a different SSD altogether. ovo Starting with the budget-friendly options. People seem to be boycotting the Samsung SSD more or less because... ovog
It's honestly a bit premature to be debating a game that hasn't even hit the shelves yet. Your CPU seems solid and everything else looks fine—though you should probably specify the exact model of that power supply just to be safe. If this isn't a massive leap in requirements compared to the last Call of Duty click you should be able to get by using that GTX 750 Ti 2GB.
Honestly... you’re probably going to run into stuttering in CS:GO, likely because of the GPU. Maybe try overclocking your CPU. Bottom line is, save up for a meaningful upgrade—think an i5 or, if you go the AMD route, maybe an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, since the FX 6300 isn't much cheaper anyway. As for SATA 3, you won't really notice any difference during everyday tasks like booting up.