General

[quote=prestigechef]In conclusion, is the 960 a worthy upgrade?[/quote]

That is something I cannot easily comment on. It's your opinion on what graphics performance is acceptable and for how much you are willing to play. The GTX 960 or its closest AMD counterpart, the Radeon R9 285 will certainly get you by with Medium settings at 1080p with today's most demanding games.

[quote=prestigechef]Also, seems to me like upgrading my cpu won't be too drastic on performance if I stick to the $100-$150 price range.[/quote]

I'm not sure if you are reading the charts the same way I am. The following are still bad extrapolations because performance bottlenecks aren't usually predictable, but it does give a possibility of what a bottlenecking CPU could do.

For GTA V, the AMD FX 6350 processor has 82% the performance of the Intel Core i7-5960X, the latter of which was used for the GPU tests. Assuming the same scaling, the GTX 960 will run GTA V Normal settings with FXAA at 46 FPS.

If that same logic is applied to the Phenom II X4, which has 65% the gaming performance of the i7-5960X, then a GTX 960 will be bottlenecked to output 38 FPS.

[quote=Burning]I'm looking at these charts.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/991/bench/CPU_01.png
http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/991/bench/1920_Normal.png

Taken from this article. http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/

The testing methodology is that an Intel Core i7-5960X is used for the GPU tests and an NVDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X is used for the CPU tests.[/quote]

In conclusion, is the 960 a worthy upgrade? Also, seems to me like upgrading my cpu won't be too drastic on performance if I stick to the $100-$150 price range.

I'm looking at these charts.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/991/bench/CPU_01.png
http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/991/bench/1920_Normal.png

Taken from this article. http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/

The testing methodology is that an Intel Core i7-5960X is used for the GPU tests and an NVDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X is used for the CPU tests.

@Burning:
I'm slightly confused now by your wording. From my understanding, my current GPU is pretty outdated and when I bought it was already around $150 range I believe. I'm having trouble understanding the amount of bottlenecking that will occur if I only update the GTX 960? And if by not much, how will the gameplay change from how it is now to how it will be if I do buy the card?

[quote=prestigechef]so do you suggest to upgrade my CPU to the $119 one you suggested when I upgrade to gtx 960?[/quote]

GTA V benchmarks suggest a roughly 20% performance difference between using the Phenom II X4 and the FX 6300. However, two bottlenecking factors makes extrapolation more difficult as the GTX 960, R9 280X are also limiters to that game's performance.

I do recommend it for the most part. It will be quite some time before we see AMD or Intel push for IPC improvements so there are no outstanding processors worth waiting for. At the same time, per dollar, a video card upgrade will net the most gains and you aren't forced in anyway to upgrade both the video card and processor.

[quote=Burning]The Phenom II X4 will bottleneck gaming performance.[/quote]

so do you suggest to upgrade my CPU to the $119 one you suggested when I upgrade to gtx 960?

[quote=prestigechef]What are your thoughts on just upgrading the gpu to GTX960 and leaving the CPU as it is?[/quote]

The Phenom II X4 will bottleneck gaming performance.

@Burning:
What are your thoughts on just upgrading the gpu to GTX960 and leaving the CPU as it is?

[quote=prestigechef]I want to upgrade the case because everything is dusty-ish right now so I want to dust everything and put into a new case(any recommendations?). Secondly, I want to upgrade to an R7 GPU for increased gaming performance. I'm making this thread to basically double check if this is a good idea.
Please and thank you

P.S Would I be able to upgrade my CPU to a newer one with my current motherboard and is it worth it, as well(any recommendations?)?[/quote]

Your previous thread:
http://www.basilmarket.com/forum/2875488

The R7 260X and 265 provide quite some more performance over the HD6770. The other weaker R7 GPUs do not. For the R7 260X, expect around 40 FPS on GTA V's "Normal" setting.

$189.99 GIGABYTE Radeon R9 270 http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-radeon-r9-270-oc-5b-92027-1731.htm
$164.99 GIGABYTE Radeon R7 260X http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-radeon-hd-r7-260x-ae-90925.htm
$199.99 MSI R7 265 http://www.ncix.com/detail/msi-radeon-r7-265-2gd5-6d-97572-1470.htm
$179.99 MSI R7 260X http://www.ncix.com/detail/msi-radeon-r7-260x-1175mhz-dd-91765-1470.htm
$199.99 ASUS Radeon R9 270 DirectCU II http://www.ncix.com/detail/asus-radeon-r9-270-oc-18-92748-1323.htm

Your motherboard is compatible with the current AMD FX processors though it may need a BIOS update before performing the hardware upgrade.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A87/HelpDesk_CPU/

$119.99 AMD FX-6300 http://www.ncix.com/detail/amd-fx-6300-six-core-3-5-4-1ghz-c1-76934-1323.htm
$169.99 AMD FX-8320 http://www.ncix.com/detail/amd-fx-8320-8-core-3-5-4-0ghz-e8-76933-1323.htm
These two processors have the same gaming performance and they are substantially more powerful than the Phenom II X4.

[quote=prestigechef]What kind of things? [/quote]

Like it might be out of your budget. That's about it really.

[quote=drager260]Yeah that's the card. Didn't know you were Canadian though, that might change things.[/quote]

What kind of things?

[quote=prestigechef]http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=080466
This it?[/quote]

Yeah that's the card. Didn't know you were Canadian though, that might change things.

[quote=drager260]Yeah the 960 is compatible, it just needs a PCI-E 2.0/3.0 slot which your mobo has. I'm sure you'll be able to play both but don't expect maxed settings. GTA I think you can run at high with 60 fps but The Witcher I'm sure you'll have to tone it down in order to play at decent FPS.

The GTX 960 also comes with The Witcher 3 but I remember reading that the promotion ends on June 1st or something like that so you should get on it quick.[/quote]

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=080466
This it?

[quote=prestigechef]I have an AMD build, will the gtx run on it? and I'm planning to play gta5,witcher3 etc[/quote]

Yeah the 960 is compatible, it just needs a PCI-E 2.0/3.0 slot which your mobo has. I'm sure you'll be able to play both but don't expect maxed settings. GTA I think you can run at high with 60 fps but The Witcher I'm sure you'll have to tone it down in order to play at decent FPS.

The GTX 960 also comes with The Witcher 3 but I remember reading that the promotion ends on June 1st or something like that so you should get on it quick.

[quote=drager260]Either I'm blind or you never mentioned a $200 budget. All you said was R7 GPU.

If $200 is your GPU budget then I recommend the GTX 960.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Dual-Link-Graphics-02G-P4-2966-KR/dp/B00SC6HAS4

It'll prob be the best GPU for around $200. It'll beat the AMD cards that are in the price range and it also draws less power so you won't have to switch out your PSU. The 4GB VRAM version is just $30-40 more but I don't even know if you're going to be playing games that will utilize that much VRAM with this card.[/quote]

I have an AMD build, will the gtx run on it? and I'm planning to play gta5,witcher3 etc

[quote=prestigechef]@drager260:
Not overclocking and like I said I'm looking at $200 max for a gpu so a r9 290 would not fit into that budget[/quote]

Either I'm blind or you never mentioned a $200 budget. All you said was R7 GPU.

If $200 is your GPU budget then I recommend the GTX 960.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Dual-Link-Graphics-02G-P4-2966-KR/dp/B00SC6HAS4

It'll prob be the best GPU for around $200. It'll beat the AMD cards that are in the price range and it also draws less power so you won't have to switch out your PSU. The 4GB VRAM version is just $30-40 more but I don't even know if you're going to be playing games that will utilize that much VRAM with this card.

@drager260:
Not overclocking and like I said I'm looking at $200 max for a gpu so a r9 290 would not fit into that budget

Hm honestly I would just keep the case and upgrade the PSU/GPU. The R9 300 series is coming out next month so you should see a drop in price on the current GPUs. I would recommend getting a bit of a beefier PSU and then grab like an R9 290/290x. A 500W PSU would be pushed pretty hard at load with a R9 290X and it would leave no room to overclock your CPU/GPU if you wanted to.

Also, a budget would probably help a lot more.

Without a budget I can recommend you the most expensive CPU on the market for gaming but that wouldn't help you at all. Also, the Thermaltake v4 Case is one of the best on the market. If you think changing your case will solve your dust problem, you are wrong. All you need is compressed air so you can clean the inside(which you should do every 4months anyway)...

[quote=AbsymalTorment]Just use compressed air and clean the inside.[/quote]

I'll be doing that for my fans and other parts,yes.

Just use compressed air and clean the inside.