Should I upgrade my CPU or GPU?

CJohnD

Hello everyone,

Here is my rig.
Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU G550 @ 2.60GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Memory: 10240MB RAM
GPU: HD 3850 MSI
I am wayting for black fryday sales, and I dont know what to get.
I do mainly arhitectural stuff in 3ds max Vray.
But I want to get better and better so I can work in the game industry one day.
If you guys want to check my portfolio here it is:
http://ido3d.wordpress.com/
My budget is not to great about 200$.
I've been hearing a lot of news about GPU rendering and how fast it is, with RT Vray, and many other render engines using the GPU. do you guys think it s a good ideea to upgrade my GPU now or gather more money and buy a good CPU.
I curently work as a freelancer on Elance, and I dont get to many jobs they usualy hire the lowest bid and for a lot of work, and my PC beeing so slow I have to wait and wait and wait for every change and render I do.

Thank you.
Have a good day everyone.

kidniki100

Both if you can. Get a firePro v4900 and then an i5 CPU

ZacD

If you do mostly rendering with vray, getting a better CPU will really speed up your render times. If you want to start trying out RT Vray, make sure it'll do what you need it to before spending money on a GPU for it.

illo

remember when you upgrade a cpu, you have to keep the same socket. so you cant just upgrade to a i7 because it wont fit in your motherboard. this is problematic for you because you are limited to much older cpus which wont give you a massive boost in performance.


the GPU doesnt get used a TON by most of the applications, with the exception of the 3d modeling program and any game engines(which you dont use too much it sounds like). and while photoshop does have some opengl advances, it doesnt seem to give a big boost unless you are high resolution images, or doing a lot of blur brushes and things like that(from personal experience at least).

so with that being said, I would save up some more cash and get something like an amd fx-8120, a new motherboard that supports it, some ram thats about 1600 to 1800 with 8 gigs to be safe and then use that.

on newegg you can get that for like 300

-nate

peanut™

Don't upgrade, just ditch your PC and buy a newer one, it will surely make a great slave for rendering and tutorial watching.

If your budget is 200$, wait it out, and get one when you can.

CJohnD

Thx for the reasonses guys.
This is the best CPU I can buy for my courrent rig:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3770K-Quad-Core-Processor-Cache/dp/B007SZ0EOW"]http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3770K-Quad-Core-Processor-Cache/dp/B007SZ0EOW[/ame]

And this is the GPU I want:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-GV-N65TOC-2GI/dp/B009L946II"]http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-GV-N65TOC-2GI/dp/B009L946II[/ame]

Do any of you guys use that CPU or GPU?

CrazyButcher

wait until you can afford to upgrade both. Though as illo mentioned CPU would be more important (it also has to send the commands to the GPU). The Celeron has lousy cache, which is where a lot of speed comes from in CPUs. An i5 would be cheaper alternative on same socket.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B007SZ0E1K/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1382083181&sr=1-1&keywords=i5-3570k"]Amazon.com: Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 - BX80637I53570K: Electronics[/ame]
Also check on using parts with similar power as your old stuff, or you need to upgrade PSU as well.

Or safe and get a whole new system.

Overlord

It's not that easy. Depending on how old that motherboard is, it might not even support an i7. You need to check the CPU support page for your motherboard and see if the CPU you're looking at is on the list; even then, it might need a BIOS flash. Also, that motherboard could be a performance bottleneck for such a powerful CPU if was originally paired with a Celeron. Budget boxes don't come with high-end chip sets. Save up your money and buy a whole new PC, you're not going to solve your performance issue with only a single drop-in component. A new CPU/Mobo/GPU/RAM setup will provide huge improvements compared to a single upgrade.

Xoliul

Seems like that Celeron is s1155. Benchmarks look like absolute crap though, like 1/3 to 1/4 of average to high end CPU's. I'd replace that, the GPU is probably still OK.