Upgrade suggestions/questions

Hello everyone, haven't really posted much on the DS forums since I purchased my computer back in July of 09. (Can't believe it's almost been 5 years!) Too busy enjoying the hell out of it, watching it do anything I want it to do.

However, as we all know, there comes a time when you have to plug new hardware into it to eek more performance out of an aging machine and I feel like it's a good time to look into doing this for my current rig:

Cooler Master HAF 932
Intel Core i7 920 2.66 ghz OC'd to 3.5 ghz
Vista 64 (I didn't realize I had a free 7 upgrade till it was too late =\)
EVGA x58 3x SLI Mobo
6 GB of DDR3 1333 mhz ram
EVGA GTX 570
1000W Corsair HX Power Supply
Has so much air cooling I have to lash it down or I'd have to scrape it off my ceiling.

The only non stock item I added after I bought it was the GTX 570, sold my old 295 to a cousin when the 600 series came out and decided I really did want a DX11 card. Other then that, this system has been rock solid since I bought it. I have had a single problem ever, and all the proffessional and friendly help I received prior to buying it has been exceptional and comforting. I'm decent with computers, but I always like getting a more up to date and knowledgeable info.

My question then, after such a long preamble, is...what is my best path for upgrading?

I'm thinking that doubling my ram and getting a new video card will hold me over for a few more years yet and allow me to do the things I'm enjoying now which is gaming. I'm aiming at getting my system ready to run Star Citizen respectfully until I either build a new computer later or keep upgrading this one. I was worried of any performance bottlenecks I might run into unwittingly so I decided to come back here and get help.

I don't want to spend a great deal of money on something like a Titan or the 780TI, and was wondering how big the performance gain I'd probably see out of doubling my ram and getting a GTX 750.

Any other suggestion? I'm not worried about memory costs moreso then I am about the video card options. Would it be best to wait until the 800 series came out and hope the 750 drops?





Edited by Ashandarei - 19 Feb 2014 at 11:22am

Well, now considering a GTX 770 (especially since a friend might buy my old card,) so that might be my answer. I'm guessing the 2 gig card is fine, would I really need a 4 gig version? Seems like I don't do gaming at insane resolutions, and I've got a smaller monitor, to really need the extra 2 gig of vram.

Edited by Ashandarei - 19 Feb 2014 at 12:51pm

Thanks for the link, looking at it now. (That's a cool little tool.)

Yea, I usually only run between 1600x1200 resolution to the 1900's on occasion, my monitor is extremely old but still works so, why replace? :P


Edited by Ashandarei - 19 Feb 2014 at 1:13pm

Originally posted by bprat22 Yep. That Anandtech tool is one of the best.    Just to answer a question that does come up, not necessarily by you, but your mobo is Pcie 2.0 and newer cards are Pcie 3.0 bandwidth. The 3.0 is backward compatible with no performance loss with single card. No problems.

I'm glad you mentioned this as it wasn't something I had considered. Thanks for the heads up and the explanation.