Best performance upgrade for the dollar?

they're not recommended for PA , though. they've had terrible performance so far with Ati. best just to stick to nvidia.

gtfo! that's some valuable information. i really hope it's true (as to render me spending more money on this box useless).

do you have a linky, though? cause there's this straight from varrak... doesn't seem like he's talking about servers

If you guys didn't know of this site, it's good for cookie-cutter custom PC's at whatever price range you choose:
http://www.choosemypc.net/

I wish I found this site before building my current rig. I could've been able to afford two graphics cards!

I built an entirely new PC in November using AMD parts which are far cheaper than Nvidea and Intel. I'd suggest saving up and building a pc that will last a quite a few years of gaming rather than short term upgrades that won't last so long.
Go with AMD processors are quite a bit cheaper, also they have a range of processors called APUs that are a combined processor and graphics cards. Albeit not as fast as individual processors and graphics cards at the moment, but they are getting there. Essentially killing two birds with one stone. You can have a completely new pc with great graphics and won't need to shell out a couple hundred dollars (I believe you are in the USA) for a graphics card.
I've taken the liberty of linking pc parts picker for you, a great site that I used to build my pc.
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/cpu/#s=25&sort=d0

Ok I should qualify my statement *currently* pa client is only single threaded. Multi-threading the render engine is on the 'todo' list. So it may make more of a difference down the line...

that's pretty impressive.

Being a case builder enthusiast myself I found their picks to be pretty balanced.

A little heavy handed on the PSU, and light handed on the cpu cooling (as usuall with these) but overall I'm really impressed !

Intel per core just kills AMD in performance though. They also have on chip GPUs like AMD, but AMDs implementation is faster in that respect. If you are very cost conscious performance per dollar AMD is better. But Intel CPUs are just so much better in performance.

like I said above, in the case of PA, better to stick with Nvidia.

like I said above, in the case of PA, better to stick with Nvidia.

EDIT : lag.
sorry.

I have been reading that PA benefits more from a fast GPU than a fast CPU because most of the CPU intensive work is done on the server. Given the age of my setup I'm looking for the best upgrade path. I don't need crazy performance (I'm quite happy with all graphics settings on low), I'm just looking to get the end game slow down issue resolved.

The truth of it is not entirely the server-client thing,

PA is just f ucking nuts when it comes to graphics. optimisations will sure help alot but in the end if you're going to play a 1M-unit game with several procedurally generated big-sized maps ...you better expect alot of polies for your GPU to render and store.

GPU seems to be the biggest bottleneck at the moment, but that might change when the new lighting optimisations come out.

I have a Sandy i5 2500k slightly overclocked, and it seems to do the job perfectly. 16GB RAM is also good for making absurdly-big systems, but presently both the CPU and GPU make this pretty unplayable for me.

My GPU is an AMD (Asus) 6850 1GB, and it's the weakest point at the moment. Although the last couple of builds have been noticeably smoother and faster, and this is only going to improve with the next few patches.

TL;DR - If you've already got 8GB of RAM, then a beefy GPU is probably your best bet.

And also a good net connection - mine is 4-5Mbps and it struggles like fuckery sometimes.

Okay, this is what I was thinking as well. I'm annoyed that my motherboard only supports Sandy Bridge CPUs but such is life. I'm thinking I'll get a GPU and then try and find a used SB CPU later on. I already have 16GB of RAM sitting here but never imaged that I would need more than 8GB of ram for anything but a server. When I get a GPU and install it I'll toss the RAM in as well.

Is anyone here playing on a 750Ti card that can comment on the performance, specifically in the late game?

I wouldn't worry about being on sandy. The main improvements on ivy and haswell are gpu and reduced power usage. Haswell is maybe 10% faster clock for clock than Sandy in most tasks so your not going to loose out imo.

Yeah, this is what I have been thinking. It is a little annoying that I haven't been able to find a SB processor for less than they were retail but I'm sure I will be able to find something.

Anyone on the 750Ti performance as it relates to PA?

If you are looking at the 750ti you are better off getting the 660 gtx. Only ~40$ more on Newegg but nearly 50% wider memory bandwidth and more cores. If you are going to stick with the sandy CPU's the best thing would be to use your money for a good GPU.

yea apparently it's the general consensus : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/best-performance-upgrade-for-the-dollar.57922/#post-897649

but only if it's a TI

Personally I wouldn't know.

Personally I am still wondering if I should upgrade my i5 to an i7, which means upping my mobo too. Does anything think that Intel will put out an i9 later this year?

lol

What is a good program to keep an eye on visual memory usage? This is the first game that has really taxed my GPU. I have an ATI 6850 with 1GB of visual memory. PA end game has a very low frame rate for me.
Load rarely exceeds 85% however; so I think the poor performance is GPU memory related or on the server side.

My CPU is a AMD955; rarely goes over 35% load and temps stay in the low 40C. From what I see in the resource manager, the 4 cores are used pretty evenly. CPU is not my bottleneck.
My RAM is 16GB, rarely exceeds 8GB with PA. This is not my bottleneck either.