9 replies to this topic

[Viymir]

Time to look for a new PC as the old workhorse is starting to show its age. I have not been keeping up with current events so unsure what is a good buy and what to avoid. Plus I know you nerds love to give advice on what piece of kit to use. I want to stick with Intel chip set and I intend to keep the 970 card for now while we see what happens with the 1080/2080 prices. I also want to keep the PSU & SSD if I can as it doesn't make sense to change these either. I have windows 10 (the free upgrade from 7). I assume i can use this on a new build and still have the free upgrade to 10? I am also not going to build it myself so want to use one of the various companies that offer a custom build PC if anyone can recommend a reliable one? 

 

Current system specifications:

 

ASUS EZ Motherbaord

Intel i7-2600K @ 3.40GHz

16 GB DDR3 @1333MHz

 

Corsair 750W CS750M

SanDisk Ultra II 240GB

Nvidia GTX 970

 

I don't stream or intend to stream so not sure if i7 is really needed. I got an i7 previously as it was on offer at the time.

 

Edit: Budget is whatever it needs to be. I am thinking around £1,000 but if its worth me spending more I will.

Edited by Vi Neomir, 07 October 2018 - 03:05 pm.

[Demondim]

What's the budget?

+ what's the intended core use?

 

You want to keep the gfx, psu & ssd.

This leaves case, motherboard, cpu & ram.

Note : there isn't an i7-2500k, so you've either got an i5-2500k or an i7-2600k.

 

Case should probably be fine to keep, as would the RAM, assuming it's a reasonable speed rating.

Sure, motherboard and CPU are a few years old, but I don't think you're going to see massive performance improvements by getting new generation components.

 

If you just want to upgrade motherboard, CPU & RAM to something more current then I can offer some suggestions, depending on budget.

[Kansalis]

Yes, you can keep the Win10 license. You may need to activate over the phone when you change the motherboard, it seems pretty random.

 

You will see much more gaming performance upgrade by replacing your GPU first. Even 1080ti card prices are on their way down at the moment. If you don't want to go bleeding edge, they are definitely worth it. 1070ti cards have never been cheaper if you want to keep the budget down a bit they are still a good buy. I'd be very very surprised if the 20xx cards come down in price before Q2 next year. All the good ones are out of stock & are likely to stay that way for a while.

 

There are a lot of CPU options these days, and even more motherboards to choose from. For starters, I'd use this site to compare relative performance between CPUs: http://cpu.userbench...2600K/3941vs621

 

I'd steer clear of the premium gaming/overclocking motherboards. They are not worth the extra cash and are only useful if you will be really pushing your overclocking to its limits. Almost all motherboards do flexible overclocking now. Choose a mid-range well-known named motherboard for the processor you decide on. You will probably not be able to keep your RAM. The latest CPUs need DDR4.

 

One key component is CPU cooling. I'd suggest going for a closed-loop AIO liquid cooler. It's much quieter and more efficient cooling, plus easier to clean if your machine is prone to dust.

[Viymir]

Note : there isn't an i7-2500k, so you've either got an i5-2500k or an i7-2600k.

 

I have both haha I some how managed to cross them over. The i7-2600K is what I am looking at upgrading the i5 is in my back up unit, but if i am not going to see a huge performance increase then I might as well go for the GPU upgrade and consider CPU next year. My intended use is gaming only. I don't stream or do artwork. Not sure what other uses there are.

 

 

 

Almost all motherboards do flexible overclocking now. Choose a mid-range well-known named motherboard for the processor you decide on. You will probably not be able to keep your RAM.

 

One key component is CPU cooling. I'd suggest going for a closed-loop AIO liquid cooler. It's much quieter and more efficient cooling, plus easier to clean if your machine is prone to dust.

 

Thanks for the link there does seem quite a difference to me, but as you are saying the GPU will give the biggest improvement I might as well go for that first and consider CPU upgrade in 2019. 

 

Cooling and dust is a bad problem for my current PC, maybe as a short term solution I should look at the cooling for my current set up and consider the OC options. The BIOS does have some OC functionality built in I have never investigated it. No idea where to start with that though.

Edited by Vi Neomir, 07 October 2018 - 03:45 pm.

[Hondy]

Yup, a GPU upgrade will be visible in any game, CPU only in a few of the most CPU hungry new games. Depends a bit on what type of game you want to run.

 

Upgrading the CPU will need new Mainboard and memory also. That was a high end CPU way back in 2011.....

[DiBBz]

pretty much what everyone is saying. you still have a decent processor nor would i think youd encounter any bottlenecking even upgrading to a RTX card. but games reliant and is heavy on CPU like most simulation games are or MMO are becoming the thing now these days.. might be worth to start getting a multicore processor and moving away from quadcore.

but yeah. everything is still nice and cheeki breeki. most of your improvement will come from your GPU

and im sure most modern CPU games would love you for a upgraded processor as some these days love having every core at max turbo boost clocks.

[danielcoles1989]

Id definitely say that your old proccessor would bottleneck a RTX. If you get a nRTX id assume youd want to keep the system for a couple of years and be playing at a resolution above 1080p. So its defo worth upgrading your system. Check your PMs. outside of that just take and hour to read a couple of articles on tomshardware and anandtech to just get a crash course. Also look at newly released games like Tomb raider's specs. It recommends a GPU which is abit better than your current one and a CPU already higher than one you have. 

[DiBBz]

Id definitely say that your old proccessor would bottleneck a RTX. If you get a nRTX id assume youd want to keep the system for a couple of years and be playing at a resolution above 1080p. So its defo worth upgrading your system. Check your PMs. outside of that just take and hour to read a couple of articles on tomshardware and anandtech to just get a crash course. Also look at newly released games like Tomb raider's specs. It recommends a GPU which is abit better than your current one and a CPU already higher than one you have. 

 

im personally unsure if it will or not. i7-2600k with a 1080ti still preforms the task but most benchmarkers say that it might be nearing its limit. obviously the benchmarks show lower results but some point out that depending on the game this might be evidant by the fact it doesn't have a good boost clock which most modern games like to have all your cores boost to 4.3 / 4.5 / 4.8

worst example ive seen was about a 14% decrease which was related to GTA5

as it stands right now for 1080p gaming even if he did go with an RTX card which i think might be highly unlikely. it shouldn't really make all that much of a difference. but with games that start adopting RTX and or if he is doing 1440p or 4k. then yup a CPU upgrade would be badly needed

but for at best 1080ti or 1070ti etc should be fine for the time being.

but not disagreeing with you i 100% agree with you that the CPU is getting very old now.

Edited by DiBBz, 08 October 2018 - 09:38 am.

[Fozzies]

 

 I am also not going to build it myself so want to use one of the various companies that offer a custom build PC if anyone can recommend a reliable one? 

 

Pc Specialist.

 

I'm on my second one from them, first (i7 4770k (i think)) is still going strong in my eldest's bedroom, new one is well built - far better than the first one ( no complaints on the build quality of that one either) , so i've got a whole load of faith in that company.

[Kansalis]

Another pointer worth mentioning - Don't buy any kind of proprietary built case or components. Make sure everything is standard and modular. That way, next time you want an upgrade, you can just change one thing at a time instead of the whole machine. Pre-built machines from some sites are still using bare bones cases with very specific layouts that can't really be expanded upon later. So if you want add another hard drive later, you may not be able to for example.

 

Also, make sure you get a modular power supply (one where you only need to plug in the cables you actually need to use). It makes cable management much easier and most modular PSUs come with more of each connector too. Bear in mind for example, that a lot of the 20xx cards need 2 x 8 pin and 1 x 6 pin power cables. You may not want one of those cards now, but you don't want to have to buy a new PSU if/when you upgrade later.

Edited by Kansalis, 10 October 2018 - 03:07 pm.