Which component you should upgrade next in your PC

A comparison would've been more interesting: Given a limited budget - which item provides the most boost to benchmarks.
Most of the article I found myself saying "no sh¡t":

* It is important to choose a graphics card capable of delivering sufficient power to play games at your chosen resolution.
* If you are encountering performance problems, and the processor is under 100% load while the GPU is functioning with power to spare, you may need to upgrade your CPU.
* If your system takes long to boot and your operating system is sluggish, purchasing an SSD and installing the OS onto the new drive can improve performance and boot time.
* If your memory consumption is reaching its maximum under load, you may need to increase the amount of RAM in your system.
Click to expand...
For a tech blog/forum I expect way more depth to articles than this.
 
saor said:
A comparison would've been more interesting: Given a limited budget - which item provides the most boost to benchmarks.
Most of the article I found myself saying "no sh¡t":

For a tech blog/forum I expect way more depth to articles than this.
Click to expand...

E.g. how to check what is bottle-necking if you're using a windows operating system.
Can check:
Task Manager:
quick call.png
Or on a quick process overview:
And more in-depth can click resource monitor at the bottom of that and isolate things (could be a rogue process?):
detailed.jpg
and you can go track specific processes by clicking the check-box.

Really quick and easy to write about and would be generally useful, a lot of people don't know about it. You can even check your latency/packet loss to servers on it:
latency process.jpg

All of those things are possible on Macs/Linux as well, pretty sure Mint has something similar within the terminal as well, forgot the command for the moment though, but there is probably a GUI version as well.
 
The answer should be SSD.

If you run a hardrive you should first upgrade to a Solid State disk first.
 
Thor187 said:
The answer should be SSD.

If you run a hardrive you should first upgrade to a Solid State disk first.
Click to expand...

Depends on usage, I can't afford putting a 1TB SSD in my laptop/desktop, for gaming on a desktop I'd rather spend that on a good graphics card, though getting a small SSD + HDD would be nice compromise.

I wish SSDs would drop in price more. :(
 
Johnatan56 said:
Depends on usage, I can't afford putting a 1TB SSD in my laptop/desktop, for gaming on a desktop I'd rather spend that on a good graphics card, though getting a small SSD + HDD would be nice compromise.

I wish SSDs would drop in price more. :(
Click to expand...
Your laptop should definitely get a SSD first!

You can get an external for the rest.
 
Thor187 said:
Your laptop should definitely get a SSD first!

You can get an external for the rest.
Click to expand...

Well, laptop only has one bay and I need 450GB worth of programs and a 500GB SSD would just cut it, don't want to carry an external around either. Meantime this is an SSHD, it seems to have a good caching algorithm, when I'm working the stuff instantly opens the second time, having 16GB of RAM helps (upgraded after I started bottle-necking on RAM due to emulations).
 
Johnatan56 said:
Well, laptop only has one bay and I need 450GB worth of programs and a 500GB SSD would just cut it, don't want to carry an external around either. Meantime this is an SSHD, it seems to have a good caching algorithm, when I'm working the stuff instantly opens the second time, having 16GB of RAM helps (upgraded after I started bottle-necking on RAM due to emulations).
Click to expand...
Get a proper laptop.

Mine has a 2TB HDD and a 512Gb M.2 SSD
 
Thor187 said:
Get a proper laptop.

Mine has a 2TB HDD and a 512Gb M.2 SSD
Click to expand...

i7 4720HQ, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSHD, GTX 960M, 1080p 15.6" for R14 500.
Was a good deal at the time and I would still say it is.

The upgraded model has a newer i7 and a 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, but sadly it only came out like four months ago. It will/(has been) replaced with one that has a better graphics card hopefully.
 
Johnatan56 said:
i7 4720HQ, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSHD, GTX 960M, 1080p 15.6" for R14 500.
Was a good deal at the time and I would still say it is.

The upgraded model has a newer i7 and a 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, but sadly it only came out like four months ago. It will/(has been) replaced with one that has a better graphics card hopefully.
Click to expand...
I'm just kidding with you.

That's a good laptop
 
Would definitely agree with the SSD. About 2 years ago I upgraded my PC i7, gaming mobo, 32 GB RAM etc etc. Problem is I am runnign 9 HDDs which slowed the start time down to about 6 mins. At the time SSDs were massively expensive. GF got me one for XMas and lord have I been missing out. Boot time in about 20-30 secs.
 
Let's talk monitors.

If you are not playing any FPS games, then what would be the better option here?

Dell U2515H @60Hz vs Samsung/LG/Hisense 4k 65 inch TV @60Hz (HDMI2)?
 
Last edited:
CamiKaze said:
Let's talk monitors.

If you are not playing any FPS games, then what would be the better option here?

Dell U2515H @60Hz vs Samsung/LG/Hisense 4k 65 inch TV @60Hz (HDMI2)?
Click to expand...

How far away will you be away from the screen?

Will this be for a desk or lounge?

TVs have a lot of input lag due to all the image processing. "Game Modes" help, but not always.

Without more details, I'd take the Dell for sure.
 
Chevron said:
How far away will you be away from the screen?

Will this be for a desk or lounge?

TVs have a lot of input lag due to all the image processing. "Game Modes" help, but not always.

Without more details, I'd take the Dell for sure.
Click to expand...

4m - 5m away.
Both will be locked at 60Hz in any case, will the input lag really matter that much if it is not an FPS game?
 
CamiKaze said:
4m - 5m away.
Both will be locked at 60Hz in any case, will the input lag really matter that much if it is not an FPS game?
Click to expand...

If you're 5m away, get the TV. You'll be fine as long as you set the input to "game mode".
 
This description fairs well?

https://www.cnet.com/news/input-lag-how-important-is-it/

First of all, not all gamers need low input lag. The only time you'll really notice it is with twitch games like Call of Duty, Planetside 2, Battlefield 3, and other first-person shooters. With most other games, such precise timing simply isn't required. Sure there can be some cases where you need to launch a certain spell in WoW or Guild Wars 2, but the window to do so is far more forgiving than with first-person shooters. Really bad lag can be noticeable in other games, but in the lag range of most "good" TVs we've been getting tweets, comments, and e-mails about aren't bad enough to be considered bad.
Click to expand...
 
SSD for the win!

I was very skeptical, but it has made such a noticeable difference to everyday operations!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X