My partner and I each have reasonably specced but aging i7 PCs which are used heavily for gaming as well as other purposes (photo editing, audio recording, development, etc.). I built them in 2011, but using some parts (the PSUs and one of the CPUs) bought in 2009, and I'm ultimately wanting to build two new high spec machines to replace them - budget of roughly £2,500 to £3,000 each, including new monitors. I can't find the exact specs of the existing PCs and I'm not at home right now to check, but it's probably unimportant for the nature of my question.
We currently have a pair of even older monitors which are finally giving up and need replacing. My partner would like one of the ASUS RoG Swift 144Hz gsync monitors, and I'm considering getting the same. This is definitely going to call for new GPUs, and we've been thinking of grabbing a 980Ti each.
I initially looked at building my partner a new PC and then building myself one a bit later (as his current one is lower spec - could really do with more RAM, a bigger SSD, etc.), but my monitor now seems on the edge of death, and I also noticed that new Intel CPUs are not far off.
Should I just go ahead and build one or both new PCs now, or am I better off buying two GPUs and two monitors, and waiting for Skylake to hit before I carry out the new builds? I tried reading around a bit but can't seem to find solid information about how beneficial Skylake will be, or whether it's likely to be more expensive. Some people say wait, other people are saying there's no reason to. Money isn't my number one consideration, but I'd feel silly shelling out a load of cash now if I could get the same for considerably less in a couple of months, or if I could spend the same and get something better. Being more future-proof is a consideration for me, as well.
I'm thinking if I do replace the GPUs I might need to replace the PSUs in both machines as well - they're pretty hefty Corsairs (mine is 1000W, I think the other is probably a 750W), but they are pretty old. Is my thinking right on this, or are they probably fine? It'd be a hassle to switch everything to a new PSU if I'm not rebuilding, but I definitely don't want to put the new GPUs at risk!
Lastly - and this is probably a way down the road - I'd like to have the Asus RoG Swift monitor for gaming and then pick up a higher res IPS monitor to use for photo editing, development, and so on. It'd be nice if I could use them at the same time, but not critical. Is there anything I need to keep in mind to make this work smoothly?
tl;dr version:
We currently have a pair of even older monitors which are finally giving up and need replacing. My partner would like one of the ASUS RoG Swift 144Hz gsync monitors, and I'm considering getting the same. This is definitely going to call for new GPUs, and we've been thinking of grabbing a 980Ti each.
I initially looked at building my partner a new PC and then building myself one a bit later (as his current one is lower spec - could really do with more RAM, a bigger SSD, etc.), but my monitor now seems on the edge of death, and I also noticed that new Intel CPUs are not far off.
Should I just go ahead and build one or both new PCs now, or am I better off buying two GPUs and two monitors, and waiting for Skylake to hit before I carry out the new builds? I tried reading around a bit but can't seem to find solid information about how beneficial Skylake will be, or whether it's likely to be more expensive. Some people say wait, other people are saying there's no reason to. Money isn't my number one consideration, but I'd feel silly shelling out a load of cash now if I could get the same for considerably less in a couple of months, or if I could spend the same and get something better. Being more future-proof is a consideration for me, as well.
I'm thinking if I do replace the GPUs I might need to replace the PSUs in both machines as well - they're pretty hefty Corsairs (mine is 1000W, I think the other is probably a 750W), but they are pretty old. Is my thinking right on this, or are they probably fine? It'd be a hassle to switch everything to a new PSU if I'm not rebuilding, but I definitely don't want to put the new GPUs at risk!
Lastly - and this is probably a way down the road - I'd like to have the Asus RoG Swift monitor for gaming and then pick up a higher res IPS monitor to use for photo editing, development, and so on. It'd be nice if I could use them at the same time, but not critical. Is there anything I need to keep in mind to make this work smoothly?
tl;dr version:
- Should I build new systems now, or just partially upgrade for now and rebuild post-Skylake?
- Should I replace my powerful enough but old PSUs if upgrading?
- Do I need to do anything special to power both a 1440p gaming monitor and a 4k or 5k IPS for other uses?
