How to re-balance HW in my desktop?

[euskalzabe]

I'm trying to refresh my PC this 2nd half of 2016 but I'm not exactly sure how to not overspend on parts that my PC won't be able to benefit from (as in, parts that offer extra performance that will be bogged down by the rest of the system). I can't believe I'm asking this as 3 years ago I would've immediately known what to get, but it seems that after finishing my doctorate and starting my current job at a university, I've been busy enough to lose some touch with current competitive players.

My current config for the past couple years has been this:

AMD FX 6300
ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS motherboard
Nvidia GTX 770
8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR3 1333
Crucial MX100 128GB - main SSD
Samsung Spinpoint F3 - HDD for games & general storage
Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 case
Dell ST2220T 1080p60 IPS monitor

I'm quite satisfied with my system, but it's getting a bit too old for new games - playing ROTR, ACU or ME:SOM at 900p, for example (I think my Kepler's 2GB VRAM is to blame...). I will consider replacing CPU/mobo/RAM once AMD's Zen comes out, so no rush on those for now. I've been asking around [H] to figure out parts, but realized I need to be holistic with any parts I buy: they need to fit the overall system and how far it can be pushed.

So, this is what I'm thinking, with a budget of ~$500:

Replace GTX 770 with either RX 480/NV 1060. Since I only game at 1080p60, 1070/Vega seem to offer too much for what I want. The price hike tells me those parts have moved up-market, so the mainstream x80 (AMD or x60 (Nvidia) may be enough for my 1080p ~40-60fps intentions. I don't need rock solid 60fps although it's welcome.

Replace HDD with OCZ Trion 150. It's a budget TLC SSD but from what I find online, it's faster than my Crucial MX100 and I'm satisfied with the latter's speed, so I figured the jump from HDD would be perfectly fine for my needs/expectations. All I want is for games to load faster, office files won't really be noticeable anyway.

I'm planning to get a new monitor too, but the Dell keeps working like a charm and since I don't care for 4K nor will I sacrifice IPS to go 144hz (nor could the GPUs I'm willing to spend money on drive that in anything other than older games), I'm comfortably waiting for HDR monitors to be released hopefully in 2017.

Any advice about my plans? Any better options? I think it's well balanced for now, but I'm not sure anymore as I'm too busy to keep up with all the new advances. I know I'm being frugal and not getting the best, but being content with 1080p60 gaming, I don't need or want to spend $3000 on a fully new PC (though I easily could) as it doesn't make sense to me nor do I have so much time to game as I used in the past anyway.

Any help or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Quix]

I'd recommend a Samsung 850 EVO instead of the OCZ Trion 150, it's not much more money and the performance is much more consistent than the Trion. Wait for the reviews of the RX 480 to see if you think it's worthwhile an upgrade because you're moving down the model-wise. A CPU upgrade would be pretty noticeable in CPU-bound tasks.

 

[euskalzabe]

Waiting on RX480 reviews, yup. Although I'm going down-tier model wise, I'm 2 generations behind, so a mainstream GPU would still be a good leap in performance. We'll see what reviews recommend for 1080p gaming in the next few months.

As for the 850 EVO, I've thought about it, but it's a whole $100 extra for that 1TB. I'm not sure I'm willing to pay that - I used to get Intel SSDs when they were the best, spending good money on them. Then my 3rd gen drive died like 3 days after warranty and Intel told me to go take a hike. I felt quite betrayed - as if the product was designed to be faulty right after warranty expiration, and I paid more for Intel SSDs to get better service and treatment. Even though they played by the rules, the fishy smell never quite went away, so I started to buy cheaper brands and if/when they die, well, I can buy again and the price of 2 would equal the price of 1 of the big brands.

I do the same thing with phones now - buy midrange $100 Android phones and renew every year. It's been working out fine so far

 

[Dangman]

What PSU do you have?

 

[euskalzabe]

What PSU do you have?

I have a Corsair CX600 PSU. Why do you ask?

 

[E4g1e]

I have a Corsair CX600 PSU. Why do you ask?

We are asking this because there are some PSUs that cannot handle their claimed wattage ratings. In the case of that CX600, it's not a good 600W PSU, especially for the price that you had originally paid for it. Have you ever come across a review where a given "600W" PSU can barely handle 520W? Or even less? (In fact, I have come across reviews of lower-end "650W" PSUs that barely are true 300W PSUs.)

 

[euskalzabe]

Huh. I've had Corsair PSUs for the past 5 years and never really had a problem, I figured as long as they're 80Plus certified that was enough guarantee of quality. What other 600W models/brands are recommended? Regardless, I've never had a problem with it in 2 years, my system seems juiced up fine (then again it's not a very demanding setup with 1cpu, 1gpu, 8gb ram and 2 drives).

 

[E4g1e]

Huh. I've had Corsair PSUs for the past 5 years and never really had a problem, I figured as long as they're 80Plus certified that was enough guarantee of quality. What other 600W models/brands are recommended? Regardless, I've never had a problem with it in 2 years, my system seems juiced up fine (then again it's not a very demanding setup with 1cpu, 1gpu, 8gb ram and 2 drives).

You figured wrong. 80 Plus certification is no guarantee of even mediocre quality, let alone good quality. In fact, the "80 Plus" certification has shown up on crappy and even sh*tty quality PSUs. However, the lack of such a certification is a near-guarantee that you'd get a poor-quality or outdated PSU.

 

[cyclone3d]

For the SSD, I would look at a Micron M600. They are about the same exact speed as a Samsung 840/850 Pro but cheaper. I've been using them in laptops at work and like them very much. I used to only buy the Samsung Pro series.

RX480 should suite you just fine, but I would wait for actual reviews before making a final decision.

I would also recommend replacing the power supply.
If you don't care if your new power supply is modular, you can get a good 650w Seasonic off of eBay for $35 shipped:
SEASONIC 650W ATX12V V2.31 EPS12V V2.92 ACTIVE FPC F3 PSU POWER SUPPLY SS-650HT

Also, I still use an HDD for games, and find that it works just fine. Loading is a definitely slower than an SSD, but until SSD prices come down even more, I will not be moving to an SSD for my games.

The other option is to get a program that uses an SSD to act as a cache for the HDD, such as MaxVeloSSD.