Advice on PC upgrade

supitza

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Hei guise! I have a bit of extra money and I'd like to buy some upgrades. This is my current setup:

CPU: Intel i7-4790K, 4GHz (socket 1150)
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2070 GAMING OC 8G
RAM: 16GB DDR3 HyperX Savage 1600
MoBo: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
Storage: 120GB HyperX Fury + 250GB 850 Evo
PSU: Corsair CS750M, 750W
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212x
Case: NZXT H440
Panel: LG 34UC79G-B, 34" 144hz IPS Curved, 1080p

My CPU, although really good considering its age, has a 1150 socket. So the mobo (which is kind of crap) has a 1150 socket. And the mobo only supports DDR3 RAM. So the issue is I can't upgrade the CPU, mobo or RAM by themselves, I'd have to change all 3 at once.
What would you upgrade first?
Before you ask what games I'm trying to prepare my rig for: none. I'd just like to make my PC more beast.
 

Talonsbane

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In all honesty, since you have the extra cash & you're not looking to improve your capabilities on any particular game at the moment, based on the presentations at CES, I advise waiting until around late May or early June for more details of both the next generation of AMD & Intel systems are better released around or at CompuTex 2019 which should be running from around May 27 - June 1. Hopefully that will help you get the most bang for your well earned finances my friend.
 

supitza

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Thanks for the advice! I was considering the SSDs as the potential upgrade, as in getting a 1TB 860 EVO to replace the XyperX Fury. As for the mobo+cpu+ram, I guess I'll wait until the next gen releases since I'm not in a hurry.
 

O-Lefty

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The new M.2 drives are way faster than the previous generation of SSD which will mean new motherboard to support it. If I were you I'd save your money and do a complete system rebuild when you have the money for all the best, or one step down from that.
 

Bambooza

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The new M.2 drives are way faster than the previous generation of SSD which will mean new motherboard to support it. If I were you I'd save your money and do a complete system rebuild when you have the money for all the best, or one step down from that.
I agree at this point it would be best to save and upgrade the mobo, cpu and memory after late May or longer.
 

Montoya

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Never ask for PC advice online. All you get are people shitting on you for not spending $3000 to get top of the line everything and/or waiting for the next generation top of the line hardware which is always 6 months away.
 

BUTUZ

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All you really need to do is upgrade the ram to 32GB.

I'd overclock the CPU a bit too going to 4.4 or 4.5 makes a big difference.

That's it the rest of the PC is great.
 

Bruttle

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Hei guise! I have a bit of extra money and I'd like to buy some upgrades. This is my current setup:

CPU: Intel i7-4790K, 4GHz (socket 1150)
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2070 GAMING OC 8G
RAM: 16GB DDR3 HyperX Savage 1600
MoBo: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
Storage: 120GB HyperX Fury + 250GB 850 Evo
PSU: Corsair CS750M, 750W
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212x
Case: NZXT H440
Panel: LG 34UC79G-B, 34" 144hz IPS Curved, 1080p

My CPU, although really good considering its age, has a 1150 socket. So the mobo (which is kind of crap) has a 1150 socket. And the mobo only supports DDR3 RAM. So the issue is I can't upgrade the CPU, mobo or RAM by themselves, I'd have to change all 3 at once.
What would you upgrade first?
Before you ask what games I'm trying to prepare my rig for: none. I'd just like to make my PC more beast.


Honestly, it looks like you have a really solid rig there regardless of age. You should be able to handle just about anything on the market on max settings and good fps. If it were me, I wouldn't upgrade it. Hardware seems to have outrun the software lately. So buying better gear isn't going to do much for you other than deplete your bank account.

So, in place of upgrading, I would suggest adding to your rig. Instead of throwing 1k at components that will get you very small gains, buy a vive with the wireless adaptor (if you don't already have a vive/rift). I guarantee you will have infinitely more fun running around in vr than squeezing a few more frames of the latest shiny. This christmas I bought the vive (with the wireless adaptor) for my wife and the psvr for our daughter. I have since lost them to vr. Well, Beat Saber to be precise, but they're both hooked.

It's not without it's quirks, but I assure you it's only going to grow. The gaming industry is slowly catching up and accepting that vr is actually, finally here. So that's my $0.02.

TLDR: You have a really decent rig. Instead of throwing money at overpriced new parts, try out vr.
 

supitza

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All you really need to do is upgrade the ram to 32GB.

I'd overclock the CPU a bit too going to 4.4 or 4.5 makes a big difference.

That's it the rest of the PC is great.
Do I REALLY need 32gb? Also, I feel like I don't want to invest in 16 more bg of DDR3 ram. So I think I'll hold off on that for a bit, until the next major upgrade. I should oc the cpu, though, considering I already have the cooling in place to support it.
Now that I've already given my initial recommendation, I'll offer my backup recommendation. Until you decide what to get, obtain & upgrade, I suggest that you find a beverage of your preference & enjoy. Cheers!
Today's beverage of choice is JD's honey liquor in my morning coffee. Yum!
Xbox. Problem solved.
No, August. No.

Honestly, it looks like you have a really solid rig there regardless of age. You should be able to handle just about anything on the market on max settings and good fps. If it were me, I wouldn't upgrade it. Hardware seems to have outrun the software lately. So buying better gear isn't going to do much for you other than deplete your bank account.

So, in place of upgrading, I would suggest adding to your rig. Instead of throwing 1k at components that will get you very small gains, buy a vive with the wireless adaptor (if you don't already have a vive/rift). I guarantee you will have infinitely more fun running around in vr than squeezing a few more frames of the latest shiny. This christmas I bought the vive (with the wireless adaptor) for my wife and the psvr for our daughter. I have since lost them to vr. Well, Beat Saber to be precise, but they're both hooked.

It's not without it's quirks, but I assure you it's only going to grow. The gaming industry is slowly catching up and accepting that vr is actually, finally here. So that's my $0.02.

TLDR: You have a really decent rig. Instead of throwing money at overpriced new parts, try out vr.
This is great advice. I've been looking at getting a VR headset, but prices in my country are really high, still. A Vive is about 780 EUR, the Rift is about 590 EUR, and that's considering that salaries in my country are a bit lower compared to the rest of civilized Europe. But that might be the way to go.

Cheers!
 

stockish

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pcpartpicker.com can be your best friend for this endeavor too, you can build systems and see prices for a full setup or change what you have for compatibility. There are even people who list builds that are cheap but perform very well on there.
 

Radegast74

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Do I REALLY need 32gb? Also, I feel like I don't want to invest in 16 more bg of DDR3 ram.
No, you don't really need 32gb of RAM, and as you pointed out, it would be wasted because you couldn't transfer it to a new rig.

My suggestion was going to be check out a better monitor, but the monitor you have is pretty darn good!

The funny thing is, as the optimize SC more, your same rig will play it better & faster! At this point, I would say just sit and wait for the new next generation, and see about upgrading then. In the meantime, just keep saving up. Heck, you could even blow some money on more JPEG ships!
 

Nijal_Lun

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All has been sound advice. My option is if you wanted to upgrade, an AMD setup is pretty spot on and will run about anything on todays market. I'm running a Ryzen 5 2600 (non x) 16gb ram on a MSI Tomahawk B450 motherboard and a EVGA GTX 1070 GPU. On battlefield V I am getting low 98 FPS, average about 104 and highs up to 120 FPS all stock settings, no over clocks. All on ultra settings, 1080P gaming.

On Star Citizen in current state I'm getting up to 98 fps (when not in lorville).

If you went with the current Ryzen series be it 2600 or 2700, you are set for the upcoming 3k series since they will continue to use the AM4 socket. On that future upgrade all you'll need is to update your bios. And me personally, I don't buy CPU or GPU's the first year they are launched due to any potential buggs. I usually wait at least another year. But granted this 2600 / gtx 1070 should last me a long time before I'll need to upgrade again.

Good luck to your future upgrades. As the options are pretty evenly out finally on the market when it comes to performance. :)
 

Radegast74

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I have 16GB. I would recommend 32.
For anybody who thinks they need 32GB, I would highly recommend BoredGamer's list of things to shut off to maximize your memory...
http://www.boredgamer.co.uk/2018/03/20/windows-10-ultimate-gaming-tweak-guide/

With all the Microsoft stuff and browser pages sucking up memory, people should take a moment to look at what they have running, and what they don't need to have running. When I play SC, my system files and other files only take up 2.1GB, the rest of my 16GB is free for the game.

When I had 32GB RAM in my old system, SC would start off using just over 14GB, and then over time slowly increase to just over 17GB (unless there was a memory leak, in which case, it would use all 32GB). So, I do not think buying extra RAM for a system that you can't use later would be the best use of money...
 
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