Need help with upgrading 7yo computer.

BUTUZ · Dec 16, 2020

TBH all you really need is a better gfx card (1080/1080TI/2070/2080/RTX3060TI) and you'll be golden. I was running a 3770k rig until recently and even though the CPU was dragging the frames down a bit, the GFX card is often the main bottleneck.

Where are you in the world?

Radegast74 · Dec 16, 2020

Upgrading now is probably the worst time, unfortunately...supplies are tight, and prices are way above retail, for pretty much everything. If you could hold out another 3-4 months, I think supplies will pick up and prices should start going down.

FYI, a graphics card update will help you with other games, but not Star Citizen, which is still heavily using the CPU.

If you could get a 3000-series graphics card, that would be a worthwhile upgrade as you could then use it in any new rig you would build later on. Your PSU is big enough to handle it, so you wouldn't need to do any other upgrade.

Honestly, other than that, any other upgrade that you couldn't just put into a new rig would be money wasted, imo. If you have an empty PCI slot, you could get a PC card NVMe SSD and then be able to use that with your new rig. The speed won't be as fast as a MOBO NVMe slot, but will be faster than the SATA-II speeds you are currently getting.

Sirus7264 · Dec 16, 2020

Grimbli said:
So I was planning to build a computer within a few months, but that looks like it may not happen. So I need help figuring out what I can do fairly cheaply to extend life on my current 7-8 year old computer I built. I know I need a few things such as another SSD since I'm running out of space and I may need a new mobo, but not sure I should get the same one as they're fairly expensive for such an old board. I do know I can't upgrade to a newer CPU without also replacing the mobo though. I upgraded my GPU a few years ago and might be bottlenecking my CPU, not sure, let me know.

Mobo: Q87 LGA 1150
CPU: Intel 4770k 3.5ghz
RAM: 24gb
GPU: 980ti
SSD: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB
HDD: 3TB random
Audio: Sound Blaster Z
PSU: EVGA 1000w 80+ Gold

That's most of it, the GPU was upgraded after it was built, the original was a 780ti. When I added the 980ti I forgot to upgrade the PSU and it didn't have enough power which caused crashes on intensive games, may have borked the mobo a bit. A lot of the front USB ports don't work. My RAM also has a tendency to be at 50-90% usage on startup and requires a reboot to take it down to ~2.5gb usage.

I currently play Cyberpunk 2077 on 1080p with mostly Medium settings and get around 30-45 fps. My budget is probably less than $1000, but I might be able to squeeze more if it gave a significant boost to performance.

First step

Cugino83 · Dec 16, 2020

Upgrading a rig right now is a nightmare: CPU, MB and GPu are all eiter out of stock or freaking overpriced, so as a first thing I'll suggest to wait for better time when prices will fall back to normal and supply last more then few seconds.

After that first step if your motherboard support a PCI 3.0 (sorry haven't check the specs) I'll go for a new GPU, even a 1070 will be a good upgrade but I'll aim for a 3070.
If you are going to build an entire new rigs I'll go for an AMD CPU: a Ryzen 5 a 3700x will give you a good all round CPU, overclockable and with a better price/performance then an Intel one at the moment. GPU a 3070 or a 3080 will serve you for years to come and if you pack it with 16GB of RAM you should be ok with pratty much everything.
For the storage solution go for and NVM.Me drive for SO and some 1-2TB SSD sata drive for "mass storage".

Bambooza · Dec 17, 2020

Cugino83 said:
Upgrading a rig right now is a nightmare: CPU, MB and GPu are all eiter out of stock or freaking overpriced, so as a first thing I'll suggest to wait for better time when prices will fall back to normal and supply last more then few seconds.

After that first step if your motherboard support a PCI 3.0 (sorry haven't check the specs) I'll go for a new GPU, even a 1070 will be a good upgrade but I'll aim for a 3070.
If you are going to build an entire new rigs I'll go for an AMD CPU: a Ryzen 5 a 3700x will give you a good all round CPU, overclockable and with a better price/performance then an Intel one at the moment. GPU a 3070 or a 3080 will serve you for years to come and if you pack it with 16GB of RAM you should be ok with pratty much everything.
For the storage solution go for and NVM.Me drive for SO and some 1-2TB SSD sata drive for "mass storage".

It doesn't, which sucks because the CPU is still a great chip.

Michael · Dec 17, 2020

Agreed wait for it.

Also Agreed on the suggestions for a new GPU to stay in budget

except for Cyberpunk / Star Citizen which might actually be CPU limited with its 4c/8t

CP2077 benchmark

View: https://youtu.be/-pRI7vXh0JU?t=811

long term: i would consider that 5000 ryzen cpu (5600x is a good gaming cpu and not overly expensive)

Lorddarthvik · Dec 17, 2020

I had a very similar machine as you, just upgraded from it last week! Originally it had a 4570k, I added a 4770k later, than 32gigs instead of the 16 it had, and went from a 750ti to a 1060 6g to a 2060Super. It was doing really well, even in SC, but it was the CPU that was holding it back from being a buttery smooth experience.

What everyone else said. Get a 30xx GPU once the prices drop on em. At least here in EU they are still 3x the msrp, reason why I only upgraded my mobo and CPU and ram for now. (10700k + 64gig + gigabyte z490 auros).
Games for the next +4 years will be made aimed for the next-gen consoles (ps5/xboxsillyname no one can remember), so a 30xx series card should last a long time.

My 4770k machine will live on though as my father's dedicated MSFS rig, cos it's still a pretty damn good CPU. You could use yours for dual boxing easily I think.

As for a full new rig, as above, if you wanna go ryzen, I would wait a bit. I was okay with the 10700k cos price as that was as expected, but I see that the ryzens are way over the top at the moment. All new ryzens are currently 2-3x their +vat/taxed msrp here. It's kinda ridiculous that the most basic one is well over a 1000bucks at my local store lol.

Tei · Dec 17, 2020

BUTUZ said:
TBH all you really need is a better gfx card (1080/1080TI/2070/2080/RTX3060TI) and you'll be golden. I was running a 3770k rig until recently and even though the CPU was dragging the frames down a bit, the GFX card is often the main bottleneck.

But Star Citizen is more CPU heavy than GPU...

I have also similar rig, 3790k and 1070, with just 16GB RAM though.
In SC my CPU is max load but GPU is below 90%. Therefore I know my bottleneck is CPU.

Scape · Dec 17, 2020

Grimbli said:
So I was planning to build a computer within a few months, but that looks like it may not happen. So I need help figuring out what I can do fairly cheaply to extend life on my current 7-8 year old computer I built. I know I need a few things such as another SSD since I'm running out of space and I may need a new mobo, but not sure I should get the same one as they're fairly expensive for such an old board. I do know I can't upgrade to a newer CPU without also replacing the mobo though. I upgraded my GPU a few years ago and might be bottlenecking my CPU, not sure, let me know.

Mobo: Q87 LGA 1150
CPU: Intel 4770k 3.5ghz
RAM: 24gb
GPU: 980ti
SSD: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB
HDD: 3TB random
Audio: Sound Blaster Z
PSU: EVGA 1000w 80+ Gold

That's most of it, the GPU was upgraded after it was built, the original was a 780ti. When I added the 980ti I forgot to upgrade the PSU and it didn't have enough power which caused crashes on intensive games, may have borked the mobo a bit. A lot of the front USB ports don't work. My RAM also has a tendency to be at 50-90% usage on startup and requires a reboot to take it down to ~2.5gb usage.

I currently play Cyberpunk 2077 on 1080p with mostly Medium settings and get around 30-45 fps. My budget is probably less than $1000, but I might be able to squeeze more if it gave a significant boost to performance.

I have an LGA 1150 and run a xeon e31225 v3..not the best but it was free. I looked to upgrade to the best cpu available for the chipset which is the 4790k 4ghz which aren't too expensive if your lucky.

24GB ram? How many sticks? 3 x 8gb?

The guys are right the GPU will give the the most noticeable boost but id wait a few months honestly, even used cards are crazy prices.

Jayztwocents did a good video recently about it.

View: https://youtu.be/UdsaTRBZePw

Lorddarthvik · Dec 17, 2020

Scape said:
I have an LGA 1150 and run a xeon e31225 v3..not the best but it was free. I looked to upgrade to the best cpu available for the chipset which is the 4790k 4ghz which aren't too expensive if your lucky.

24GB ram? How many sticks? 3 x 8gb?

The guys are right the GPU will give the the most noticeable boost but id wait a few months honestly, even used cards are crazy prices.

Jayztwocents did a good video recently about it.

View: https://youtu.be/UdsaTRBZePw

4790K-s were going for 300+ bucks used on ebay about a 1-1.5 years ago, that's when I decided on the 4770K instead. The performance difference is negligable while the price difference is huge, I got mine used for less than a 100 bucks. It gave a good boost over the 4570k cos double the thread count, while it supposedly performs a tiny bit (2-3%) slower overall in regular benchmarks cos of the lower clock.

Scape · Dec 17, 2020

Lorddarthvik said:
4790K-s were going for 300+ bucks used on ebay about a 1-1.5 years ago, that's when I decided on the 4770K instead. The performance difference is negligable while the price difference is huge, I got mine used for less than a 100 bucks. It gave a good boost over the 4570k cos double the thread count, while it supposedly performs a tiny bit (2-3%) slower overall in regular benchmarks cos of the lower clock.

Thats a good point, It might make sense for me to do the same

BUTUZ · Dec 17, 2020

Tei said:
But Star Citizen is more CPU heavy than GPU...

Star citizen is the one game that is as CPU bound as it is GPU bound.

I assumed SC wasn't the only game he played!

Lorddarthvik · Dec 18, 2020

Grimbli said:
The only games I own that really tax my system are SC and Cyberpunk. But I know more are coming!

What if I upgraded my CPU to a 10th gen i7/i9 and kept the 980ti, then next year saved up for a 3060ti/3080ti? A 10700k is only around $250, which is insane for the upgrade and a 10900k is about $500. They'd fit in my budget and a new mobo for it may fix a few issues I've had with mine.

Why wouldn't games use HT? Ofc they do, games just use it like it's another core. That said, for gaming, having over 16 threads will have diminishing returns as discussed above.

I went that route, i7 10700k. It was well worth it. It's the first time ever I've seen area18 be smooth 60fps, without any stuttering. It was rather glorious. Although it's paired with a 2060S GPU, so your milage will vary. That 980ti is great of older games but will be your bottleneck in Cyberpunk. For SC, it might be good enough to enjoy the benefits of the new CPU, but you will definitely want to upgrade that later for the full gains.
Don't forget that you will.need a decent mobo, new ram that costs a fortune, new psu, and a decent enough CPU cooler. This will increase the cost significantly.

I can't tell about AMD. Imo it's not worth it at the moment but probably will be worth it later when prices stabilize.
For GPU I'd stick with nvidia, if you can get one closer to msrp than their currently.inflated price.

Need help with upgrading 7yo computer.

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