If my build was yours, then without going high dollar crazy where would you start with your hardware updates on this system? It's obvious that I need more SSD storage space, But setting that aside what semi-affordable things would you start with? Pretty sure you can see my specs in profile, but I can list them if needed. (I'm keeping this Power supply and case because they have been so great.) I think I can work around them. I put it together when Ivy Bridge K CPU was fairly new to market. Actually it's still holding it's own in terms of gaming, general use, and great reliability, but software demands of the past 5 years are starting to show it's weaknesses. Regards,
2x GTX 660Ti 2GB -> GTX 1060 6GB ...in therms of raw GPU power it would be a sidegrade but knowing how bad SLI is doing atm (and I don't see a light for SLI in near future) and the fact you got only 2GB of memory for game textures etc those 2GB can be a really limiting factor for latest games even while gaming at 1080p. i5-3570K -> i7-3770K if you can get it cheap on 2nd hand market ...HT is getting really handy now when more than few games can make a use of more than 4 cores/threads. edit one more thing: 2x GTX 660Ti vs GTX 1060 6GB ...way less heat inside case with 1060. Few monts ago for one of my boys I've switched from OC'ed GTX 760 (1215/6504) to OC'ed GTX 1050Ti (1911/7800) and temps are way lower now with 1050Ti and same goes for 1060. Earlier while gaming at summer on GTX 760 without AC on in his room (some 12m2) temps were near hell while gaming for few hours, turning on AC was the only solution to fight high room temps. When gaming in winter days almost there was no need for me to heat up his room: OC'ed GTX 760 was enough It was still summer when we bought MSI GTX 1050Ti Gaming X 4G for his gaming rig and first thing we noticed is almost no need to use AC to cool down air inside his room while gaming despite that 1050Ti is highly OC'ed (with custom fan curve in MSI AB it doesn't going above 52-53 Celsius on GPU!).
Not even close my man. Vram is more important than CPU and system ram now days. A 6b 1060 will run circles around 2 660Ti Fermi's !
Sure 1060 6GB is going to be faster compared to 2x 660Ti, especially in games not opmimized for SLI at all or badly SLI "optimized" games. Thats why I recommended 1060 6GB, not that it's going to swallow his wallet. But in (older) games that make a propper use of SLI and don't eat more than 2GB f VRAM these 2x 660Ti are still very fast for lets say 1080p gaming. Btw 660Ti is Kepler generation, not Fermi.
If I had that system and I was gaming, I would of purchased a new cpu, ram, motherboard and video card.
No you don't really have to replace Ivy Bridge. I have no problems getting over 100fps in any most games with 2500K (Sandy Bridge). If you trying to tell him to waste his money, yeah you sure doing good job.
I would be looking for a decently priced gtx 1070, and a new cpu cooler, maybe an AIO, get a delid tool with some kryonaut, and aim for 4.8ghz ,and consider running the memory at 2400mhz if possible with reasonable voltage. shouldn't cost more than 550$USD, if you dont need a 1070, you could drop it down to a gtx 1060 or rx 580 to save a 100-200 dollars
Get a 1070 but don't sell your SSD. Keep it as storage drive. Then for 175 bucks get a 500GB Sammy. Ram you should have 16GB especially if your using Winblows10 and what not. gl