Do I need to upgrade my PC yet?

Here's a Speccy screenshot of my current specs (CPU temp is slightly higher than usual because I have Football Manager on in the background)

So I get paid tomorrow, and I'm planning on picking up Tomb Raider and SimCity - do you think my system needs an upgrade, or would it be fine to use for another few months to a year before upgrading something?

Thanks

Unless you're running at resolutions past 1920x1080 - no. Consider upgrading the graphics card when the new ones come out in the latter half of the year, as all indications point to AMD and Nvidia not exactly hurrying to the market this year. A question to answer your question: Are the games I'm playing running as smoothly and at high enough levels of detail as I'd like? If the answer's no, then upgrade.

But one upgrade that you should go for - get an SSD you neanderthal! :)

Hey, yeah all the games I'm playing are running perfectly really, just been a bit paranoid watching gameplay videos of Tomb Raider on YouTube using similar specs and not getting brilliant performance!

I SHOULD get an SSD, still not 100% convinced on them!

Duder, if you want to throw your money away, you could just give it to me. I have a lot of loans to pay off.

In fairness that could be because for a while Tomb Raider's performance was pretty fucked up on Nvidia cards, though I think this has been addressed recently with drivers or whatever you Nvidia kids download these days. And as for the SSD, I can understand why the prospect of only quicker loading times in games isn't enough persuasion, but at their current prices, and the snappy feel it gives to your computer, be it everyday use or games, I'd say go for it.

@elneebre: They're great. Once you put Windows on there every time you start a computer somewhere else you are wondering whats taking so long. Get a minimum of 128GB and put the OS and some heavy programs on there.

@elneebre: If games are running fine for you, then don't bother wasting money on an upgrade right now. Down the road you can get a better GPU, but as it stands right now the GTX 570 is no slouch and should do what you need it to quite well.

As for the SSD, I'll never have a system without one ever again. Rarely do I put games on it (only games that I play A LOT, or ones that benefit significantly from an SSD), however the OS and all other programs are on there. The OS boots and shuts down extremely fast, and every program that is on there launches instantly as well. Once you get used to that, I don't think anyone would ever go back to a mechanical hard disk for their OS and programs.

I'd say you're pretty good for another year or so. If you don't have an SSD, I would suggest getting one. Maybe a new GPU in 18 months or so.

As someone who got an SSD back when they were a little new, I can tell you that they are life changing. The capacity isn't that high, but the speed is amazing. Everything I do is almost instant. My system boots up and is usable in 30 seconds. With the price hovering around the $1/gig ratio, I think you should really get one. Like said above, get something in the 120GB+ range.

I would stick to Crucial, Corsair, and Intel, but stay away from OCZ.

Something like this would be awesome.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-148-443&IsVirtualParent=1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233191 (this is the one that I am using)

Like above said, but also throw Samsung into the manufacturer list, they top almost every best of list.

An SSD is pretty much all you should need. The feeling of loading your game saves in about three seconds is too amazing to pass up. (It also just generally makes everything in your computer load faster, but who cares? Video games!) They've also come down in price by a lot since I got mine about 15 months ago when it was about $2/GB.

500 series cards are still fine.

Heck I still have a Radeon HD 5850 and its been running almost everything at 1080p/60fps up until this spring, and its a 2010 card, and was most definitely not the top of the line model.

Agreed with everyone. I have equivalent specs only with different brands and Guild Wars 2 and Planetside 2 have been the only games I've played so far that have made the system show any kind of age (and at least with Planetside that has a lot more to do with turrrrrible optimization). It would be better to wait it out and see what impact the next gen consoles bring to game design and than upgrade. The age of the current generation of consoles means few games really thrash the CPU (which is why PC specific games like PS2 and GW2 have been the first to challenge my performance) which is why GPUs have been the go-to upgrade for awhile now. Next generation could change that in a dramatic fashion, and you don't want to spend money on a GPU and end up with a huge bottleneck somewhere else in the build.

Get the SSD though. It's the best part of owning a PC. My friends who played Skyrim on XBox could not fucking believe what they were seeing when they (barely) saw my loading screens.

I wasn't either, but I got one anyway. I installed Windows to it on my new computer and I now boot my computer up from being completely shut down to at the desktop and completely ready go in fifteen seconds. Restarting, it's about ten. It's AWESOME.

Depends on your disposable income, what kind of framerate/rendering quality/resolution you're shooting for, and if you're unhappy with what you're currently experiencing. Personally, those specs would suffice for me no problem. My PC is comparable to yours and I can run everything to my satisfaction.

I will not upgrade my PC for the next 3 years or so, simply because I'll spend most of my gaming time/money budget on my next generation console of choice - likely a PS4. The only reason to upgrade the PC is for gaming. Why would I upgrade now, when I'll anyways invest in new console hardware, which will satisfy my high end gaming needs for a good long while? It'll take at least 3-4 generations of software before the PC will offer a significant enough lead in multiplatform titles, and the few games that are exclusive to the PC will no longer play well enough with my current setup.

If some compontent shits a brick however, I will upgrade whatever failed. But really, usually I upgrade to a whole new build, rather than go for incremental upgrades, and right now, I don't think it's a good time to do so. If money is an issue at all, I'd wait 'til after we see what the next generation is capable of, and how much more demanding games become.

Well I've sorta decided my PC is totally fine for atleast another year, been playing through Tomb Raider at 60fps on Ultra settings (everything Ultimate except TressFX is off) TressFX kills the framerate but with it off and everything maxed, it's 60fps

@elneebre: yeah , you will run into more and more cases where you need to lower settings and tweak things to run smoothly , but you should be fine for a while. id say you made the right decison .. plus save some money for a ps4 ... j/k

I wouldn't upgrade any computer this year. Wait until next gen consoles are out and see what type of specs the PC ports require. I think the big upgrade a lot of people will need is RAM. Right now 8 GB seems like plenty, but with the PS4 having 8 GB I expect most PC ports will want 10-12 GB to run well. Plus, the closest thing we have to a released next gen game, Crysis 3, doesn't run perfectly maxed out using two Geforce Titans. Wait a year at least until we get cards that can actually run next gen games well and then upgrade.

You're good.

You could put in a new video card and keep the rest if you were really desperate, but I suspect those games you mentioned will run fine.

I think this is just another, I feel like showing off thread.

all this thread did was make me want an SSD :(

that being said if you're going to upgrade wait a bit

Here are my stats: Not as good as yours by any means. I don't care enough to get a proper gaming PC. SimCity runs fine at low settings and is totally playable at high resolution.

No, you're good.

Upgrading your video card when the new one come out, yes, if you can afford it but otherwise you are good to go.

I would stay clear of OCZ for SSDs. There are really only 3 brands I completely trust, Corsair/Kingston/Samsung.

When it comes to tomb raider and TressFX, that is an AMD version of physX basically, it doesn't run properly on any nvidia cards so i wouldn't worry too much about that effect..

kingston used to just be rebranded intel drives, dunno how they are solving their linup currently though.

Intel ssd's in general is what i use when i build a system for someone that doent want any hassle, like an aunt or something.
I've had a couple of OCZ SSD's they've all run fine cept the one that needed a firmware update in order to stop giving out BSOD's

My advice would be to overclock the GTX 570 should give you stock GTX 580. At 1080p, you're good. Wait until the GTX 700 series or AMD 8000 series. :)