Possible new system spec, alternate options considered, £500-1500.

[q974739]

So this one is complicated.

Current (primarily) games machine is a Skylake i5 6600K, with an AMD 7850. It's reaching a point that new games I want to play (Bloodlines 2, witcher 3, subnautica sequal, probably kerbal 2) are starting to have minimum graphics specs beyond the 7850. Also, with the new consoles coming out I'm well aware thay my current 4 cores are going to rapidly become insufficient for gaming - but we're not quite there yet.

A couple of months ago I tried upgrading the current system with a vega 56. This produced a really annoying noise in the audio, and the card was returned. Neither overclockers nor I could tell if it was the card, or my current system - nor could they test it. So they returned it without an argument...and I didn't order a replacement, because I didn't want to be a pain by returning another card, forcing them to sell it as B stock.

And untill I move up from 1980x1080 the graphics on everything I currently play is ok...mostly...little glitches, nothing noticable. Much. I just have no hope that it'll hold up to any of the new releases. But there's no point in buying any 8Gb graphics cards - which means 150ish for AMD, 250+ for Nvidia.

Thing is, I like my systems to last ages. Before this, it was a Phenom II, 945, replaced only because the motherboard was dying. Before that it was a core 2 duo. So I'm looking at the market thinking "Ryzen is amazing... but if I wait till AM5 I could get 2-4 more years of use by upgrading the CPU at the end of board life". So a strong incentive to delay

But I hate wasting money - it's why I'm so slow to upgrade. Buying bleeding age (2080Ti etc) doesn't appeal. 10% more performance for double the price is a waste. Could push the budget past 3K, but at that point you're burning money for the sake of it, hence 1.5K limit.

Heck, if I could source a (reliable) secondhand card that might solve the problem - but not sure how I could do that on any current market available to me. Friends I would trust (but no one is upgrading), fleabay I wouldn't, etc.

if you've reached the end of my waffle...ideas? Shoud I buy a whole system? If so, what? Or go with a graphics card upgrade (but what?) which moves over to the new system when I do a full install? If so, what about PCIE 4? Does it matter? If not, why not? What do I do (if anything) to mitigate the audio risk/issue?

 

[EsaT]

AM5 is likely well over year away, unless AMD breaks their regular schedule.
And if its all DDR5 platform we don't even know if DDR5 will be available in good volumes for summer 21.
(and how much DRAM cartel charges for it, but pretty sure bet it's more than DDR4)
So even AMD might be scratching their head in trying to plan release time for it.

Production priority is apparently planned for LPDDR5 for mobile devices.
So even if JEDEC finally manages to finalize spec during summer, it might be longer time before any real volume production of normal DDR5 starts.


Buying any expensive graphics card now would certainly be wasting money.
Nvidia has been recently focused onto pumping buyer's butts... err prices and performance per price goes to bad and super bad above £500.
And no matter how much you pay you won't ge getting real future proofing:
Because Nvidia's marketing "forgets" to tell that using marketing feature, raytracing, makes performance crash down by 30-50%.
Wouldn't wonder much if by fall we'll have better raytracing cards for half the price.
Consoles just can't afford such performance losses, so also AMD's coming GPU architecture should do lot better in raytracing.

 

[q974739]

That matches my thinking, but isn't great in terms of options?

 

[EsaT]

Well, that quad core is sure to run out of life soon.
All big budget/AAA games under development are likely designed with 8 cores/16 threads in mind.
And there are already games bottlenecked by four cores, like Assassin's Creed Odyssey:
https://youtu.be/vVjdhXAdKE0?t=1m51s

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Dont factul in so much of new consoles will force PC ports to be multicore CPUs at the start , or more correctly well coded for multiple cores.
Current gen are already multicore set ups and 70% of Ports as Pi** down jobs that aren't even near Console efficiency.
Reason why Consoles are so good at Multicore and pushing the most out of aging hardware is they find ways to push the absolute max of the systems 7+ yr life span. Developing for PC is a nightmare as you have to cover sooo much hardware configs, consoles are set in stone .
And then you look at 90% of Games on Steam, Dual core... Indie and non AAA titles are released about 20 new games to one AAA launch .
Hopefully ray tracing will be featured heavily from consoles, more so then just for Nvidia Hardware but would still need developers at least one launch title to get to grips with what they can do, and then port teams will also need to gain experience .
Now that bits over ( I have BA in games design ) , move on

AM5 will feature DDR5 , i but it's like intel when switching from DDR 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 where cheaper boards had the former and higher tier had the latest Gen hardware - that's the Question. They Jumped on Gen 4.0 PCIe pretty quick with no need so will expect and hope DDR5 . They will attack attack intel as much as possible- thibk more server market, dominating with PCIe 4.0, DDR5 that allows higher density modules and lower power mixed with more cores then intel - which will then be piggy backed by prosumer /consumer .

What's your currently monitor ? If 1080p 60hz recommend upgrade, can be done with your budget cheaply and also allow higher res in turn allows AMD to be equal with Intel

 

[q974739]

Current screens are 1080, 60mhz. Both are 7-10 years old now, but showing no signs of age.

Would you bother to replace the graphics card at such low resolutions?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Current screens are 1080, 60mhz. Both are 7-10 years old now, but showing no signs of age.

Would you bother to replace the graphics card at such low resolutions?

rtx 2060 , RX 5700 OR VEGA 56/64 is a waste personally at 1080p 60hz unless your up ingame scaling to 1440p .

You'll have to try a gaming monitor - 140hz either 1080p or 1440p and you'll see the difference .

with screen Hz, if your GPU is doing 100fps, monitor will not display it as max fps it can handle is 60fps and you'll get screen tears . Plus current monitors have sync tech for smoother gameplay.

RTX 1060 Super might be a nice replacement card suited for good levels of visuals and performance with wasting money on performance you wouldn't see to much.

reusing case and storage ... £1k for nice little upgrade. if PSU is 550/600w and good unit with warranty- save a little more

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £259.99
• 1 x Team Group Dark T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDGED4= £62.99
• 1 x Bitfenix Formula Series 650W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £74.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 Gaming OC 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £319.99
• 1 x AOC CQ27G2U/BK 27" 2560x1440 VA 144Hz 1ms FreeSync Curved Widescreen LED Backlit Gaming Monitor= £265.99
• 1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £98.99

Total: £1,096.14 (includes shipping: £13.20)


now, with the above playing witcher 3 with HDR and high res texture mods... damn!​

 

[q974739]

Up till now I've averaged 45-60 fps on most things. But you seem to imply that without the screen upgrade, there's no point doing much of anything?

And would you really upgrade to Ryzen now, when it's only a 20% IPC upgrade on Skylake, and there's newer stuff every month?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Up till now I've averaged 45-60 fps on most things. But you seem to imply that without the screen upgrade, there's no point doing much of anything?

And would you really upgrade to Ryzen now, when it's only a 20% IPC upgrade on Skylake, and there's newer stuff every month?

50/50 . If you upgrade you'll hit 60fps easily and with high settings , but you'd want something like GTX 1660/RTX 2060 Super so your not over spending on something you can get full performance from, though you'll get more milage out of it in the long run

 

[q974739]

50/50 . If you upgrade you'll hit 60fps easily and with high settings , but you'd want something like GTX 1660/RTX 2060 Super so your not over spending on something you can get full performance from, though you'll get more milage out of it in the long run

Great. So spend now on low end, knowing it's a waste... spend even more, knowing it's overkill.

This does not fill me with joy.

 

[Plec]

Current screens are 1080, 60mhz. Both are 7-10 years old now, but showing no signs of age.

But they are showing their age and hindering your interim upgrade options - i.e. value for money

@orbitalwalsh's very reasonable suggestions are stymied by your aged screen and refresh rate. The optimum gaming experience to money ratio is 27" 1440p 120Hz+ and would give you a far superior real world gaming experience coupled with a 5700XT until you're ready to upgrade fully - perhaps a Zen 3 later in the year?

Yes, the 5700XT would be bottlenecked - but nothing that you would notice (and clock that 6600K if not done so already?) as you would be marvelling at your new high res screen, FPS and smooth refresh.

You have the funds - why not sub out one 1080p for a decent 27"1440p and 5700XT - it will play and feel like a whole new system visually. A quality larger screen is one of the more exciting upgrades than a few FPS - but you'll gain both when coupled with 5700XT. Plus, you can move the card to your next upgrade and the monitor will obviously still hold it's own for years to come - as proven by your aged 1080p.

*or wait for then next release of cards and make a decision then...

 

[BongoHunter]

The weakest component in your current system appears to be the graphics card and the monitor. You could just upgrade these (and maybe add 8gb of ram if you only have 8 now) and wait for AM5?

Personally I wouldn't wait - there's always new stuff around the corner, so buy the best and most future proof system you can afford right now and start enjoying it - it'll probably last you 5 years easy, maybe more with a midlife GFX card upgrade.

Doing something sooner rather than later also has a side benefit - your current components are worth way more right now than they will be when AM5 comes out should you choose to sell them!

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Aye, double edge with waiting for the next big thing is the next big thing is already on the road map and explained . Going AMD /Intel we already know next range is on a new socket. intel is every 2 gens and so far AMD is 3.
AM4 bit sneaky with Zen+ being a semi node shrink .
Zen3 should be a nice life over current Zen 2 but still looking Q3 with x670 boards as I'm sure AMD will push upgrade to buy X chipset boards due to them producing the chipset.

 

[q974739]

But they are showing their age and hindering your interim upgrade options - i.e. value for money

Honestly, I've been putting off upgrading the monitors. Partially because I keep hoping that 3D will take off sufficiently to be a valid replacement. Partially because there isn't anything actually wrong with them. And partially, finally, because they're only 22 inches. I don't have a huge amount of space, and I'm not sure I'd fit the larger screen. Difference looks like about 10-12 cm per?

Agree that they are definitely starting to loko like the limiting factor though.

The optimum gaming experience to money ratio is 27" 1440p 120Hz+ and would give you a far superior real world gaming experience coupled with a 5700XT until you're ready to upgrade fully

Are you sure about that? According to Userbenchmark, the 5700xt is about 4-5 times the card that the 7850 is. Increasing the screen res to 1440p increases the number of pixels by x4. So the amount of processing power per pixel doesn't really change. Certainly not enough to significantly increase FPS? (Or am I mssing something?)

Yes, the 5700XT would be bottlenecked - but nothing that you would notice (and clock that 6600K if not done so already?) as you would be marvelling at your new high res screen, FPS and smooth refresh.

You're right, I never did get around to overclocking the CPU. Always meant to when it became the bottleneck, it just never has been?

You have the funds - why not sub out one 1080p for a decent 27"1440p and 5700XT

It's now on my options list

*or wait for then next release of cards and make a decision then...

Don't tempt.

 

[q974739]

The weakest component in your current system appears to be the graphics card and the monitor. You could just upgrade these (and maybe add 8gb of ram if you only have 8 now) and wait for AM5?

Agree that graphics is the weakest, but didn't really appriciate how bad the screens were. Memory I've had at a decent level for a while, for the occasional VM.

Personally I wouldn't wait - there's always new stuff around the corner, so buy the best and most future proof system you can afford right now and start enjoying it - it'll probably last you 5 years easy, maybe more with a midlife GFX card upgrade.

While avoiding incredible buyers remorse!

Doing something sooner rather than later also has a side benefit - your current components are worth way more right now than they will be when AM5 comes out should you choose to sell them!

You say that. I've never had a surviving system to sell; I usually procrastinate so long that something DIES. And there goes the resale value

 

[orbitalwalsh]

1080p to 1440p is something like x1.5 , UHD is x4 .

They now do curved screens !!! Saves a little bit of space and keeps in your FOV .

No real need for AM5. In 3 years time, just slap in a 12/16+ Zen3 chip if you need extra performance .

We are now getting to the point of manufactures making such high core counts, developers are having to catch up. True high quality 16 thread coding for games will come about half way through Next Gen consoles when Firstly they have had enough time to Code on the system, and Secondly they need to start squeezing every bit of performance out of the aging hardware

Also AMD cards age like fine wine

 

[q974739]

1080p to 1440p is something like x1.5 , UHD is x4 .

Hmm, you're right, it's more like 1.8.

They now do curved screens !!! Saves a little bit of space and keeps in your FOV .

Ok, that's breaking my sense of screens. Does that mean you have to be perfectly centered? How do you cope with one curved screen and one normal?? And onlookers, are they screwed?!

No real need for AM5. In 3 years time, just slap in a 12/16+ Zen3 chip if you need extra performance .

I grant no real need. But...actually... I think I'm just kidding myself if I suggest jumping now, for the CPU. Better to overclock the skylake, like I always said I would and hold on another year. Provided the graphics card doesn't turn the CPU into a huge bottleneck.

 

[q974739]

Also AMD cards age like fine wine

Wait, you say this even with the current driver issues?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Wait, you say this even with the current driver issues?

Yeah, AMD do age their cards well .

Gaming at higher res takes pressure /bottleneck of CPU !