Looking for advice on Upgrade (June 2010) or New?

Budget: $1k-$3k

Expectations: Impressed but not bleeding?

Usage: Gaming. Total War: Warhammer was kind of the straw that got me around to posting. Also play/played/or look forward to: Witcher 3, Divinity II, Stellaris, Hitman, Deaus Ex Mankind, XCOM 2.. Strategy, RPG types mostly I guess.

*No VR needs (haven't seen anything worth it. I'd totally drop for VR + Thrustmaster Stick, Throttle, and Pedals for a great Wing Commander or old MechWarrior campaign though to fill my dreams when I used to see the old Steel Battalion game/dashboard. I also thought the 3D minecraft where you looked down at it on a table seemed kind of cool for the idea of the old Warhammer and Battletech gaming tables me and my friends use to put together.)

Special Needs: A wireless option so I don't have to thread the cable between the Verizon router and my CPU through the living room.

Saved Ticket #: None, looking for upgrade vs. new system advice first.

Specifications: Bought in June 2010, Order#12404
System Configuration:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Not Available
Trim Accents: - Not Available
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 Classified 3X SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports Triple SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1250W Enermax Galaxy EVO (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Recommended)
Expansion Bay: - Not Available
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (160GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Extreme Performance) (Model: X25-M MLC Edition)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Seagate/Hitachi/Western Digital (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA EVGA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
H20 Tube Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Red)
Enhancements: - Not Available
Chassis Mods: - Not Available
Noise Reduction: - Not Available
CPU Boost: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Graphics Boost: - Not Available
Memory Boost: - Not Available
OS Boost: - Not Available
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - Not Available
Office: - Not Available
Benchmarking: - Not Available
Pre-Install Game: FREE: Hot-selling game with a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 or above graphics card
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Medium)* (*I've since grown and realistically probably need to upgrade to a Large or Extra Large..)

So... Anything worth keeping/recycling (case still seems solid.. ;)) or should I just get a new system? Thanks for your thoughts! I know the new Nvidia chips are coming too so let me know if you have any thoughts on whether that should influence my decision.

Thanks in advance! ~Kevin

Originally posted by anoldman Special Needs: A wireless option so I don't have to thread the cable between the Verizon router and my CPU through the living room.

I use powerline adapters and they work quite well.

Thanks DST4ME!  I don't know if that forum account changes hands or not but you helped select and build it in 2010. :)

  My monitor is 2560x1440 and I usually like to game at that resolution if possible.  (That res may also be why my PC was struggling with Warhammer.)

  So you're saying my gaming bottleneck is basically just my old SLI 480's, and  all I should do is buy two new GPUs and plug them in?  Everything else is looks good otherwise?  Do you think upgrading or expanding the RAM is necessary?

(Thanks to you as well MrButters!  Very helpful.  I'm going to order the combo ethernet + wifi range version.  I need the ethernet for the PC, but this end of the house has always been a little weak on the wifi signal.  Is there any brand or ethernet/powerline + wifi range expander you recommend?) 

  Thanks all, --Kevin!

a lot of CRPG and RTS games are cpu-bound (meaning the time it takes to complete a task is primarily on the cpu, rather than the gpu). so with that in mind, combined with your listed game preferences, i'd say just a graphics upgrade isn't going to favorably impact your gaming experience.  Skylake, with it's improved architecture and under the hood tweaks to single core performance would be ideal for your situation (and it's a fast proc).  

i recommend a new system build (your's is long in the tooth).

also, forget sli and go with a single great graphics card. 


Edited by db188 - 01 Jul 2016 at 2:04pm