AM4 CPU & GPU upgrade or new build.

theDUFF

theDUFF

theDUFF

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Joined
2 Jul 2011
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46
Thoughts on the following upgrade very welcome. This forum has never let me down.

Current setup
  • Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming K7 AMD X370 DDR4 ATX Motherboard
  • AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700X 3.80GHz
  • Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler
  • Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4
  • Samsung 960 EVO Polaris 500GB Solid State Drive
  • Seagate BarraCuda 4TB 5900RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD
  • Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1080TI
Case/Power:
  • Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Glass Mid Tower Case (this is nice).
  • Be quiet AM4 Cooler Bracket
  • Super Flower Leadex II 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply
Displays:
  • Right: Asus ROG PG279Q (max 165 Hz)
  • Central :ASUS ROG Curved PG348Q (max 100hz)
  • Left (vertical mount) : ASUS VG236HE (I have another 2 but I don’t use them).
Main Usage:
  1. Gaming: Hunt Showdown, Apex, Takov (all on PG279Q) and occasional TableTopSimulator on (PG348Q). Maybe 10-20 hrs a week. No upcoming games of particular interest and running UberMax settings and 500Hz is not critical.
  2. Coding: 1 or 2 days a week (on PG348Q), but via Cyrix so PC not relevant here, only the display).
  3. General Admin & Web surfing etc.
This is now quite an old system, but it works well. I have been thinking of a component or new build upgrade for a while. But I am not one for opening the case. I can upgrade the CPU/GPU once, but I don’t like to tinker. Budget is not really an issue. 4K is manageable. But I haven’t because new GPUs are a bit of a rip-off, and I don’t think there are any good monitors to replace the PG348Q. A slightly bigger 120-160hz version would be nice. The new OLED monitors might get there in a year or so but currently there are too many teething problems and they aren’t great for text & coding.

What I’d like to gain by upgrading:
  1. Better performance for gaming. Things games like The Hunt only get stable 70 FPS on PG279Q and noticeably worse on PG348Q so I don’t use it (this is a problem).
  2. Use main monitor for gaming. I have had this setup for years and have noticed my neck is slightly strain from looking very slightly to the right due to gaming. I have tried rearranging monitors, it does not work for coding setup.
  3. Snappier general performance.
  4. Maybe replace the PG348Q and VG236HE with one larger main display (smaller than 40” as I tried a Samsung 40Ku6400 and that was too large) 4k is nice, but not necessary as Id’ rather have faster gaming performance. 4K for text/coding is nice, but not critical.
  5. No downgrade in text display quality.
So, because I want to address the issue with my neck I am about to upgrade just the CPU/GPU and use the PG348Q for gaming. For this I propose to get:

  • Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse 16GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card.
  • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3D Cache Eight Core 4.5GHz Processor (The classic).

The idea is to get two to three years more out of the current AM4 system so monitor tech can improve and GPU prices calm down (some hope). This is ~1K, but I can spend more if required.

Questions:
  1. Does this seem like a sane/good idea?
  2. Will it work? Are there compatibility issues with the cooler/memory for example. I have searched the web and cannot find an issues but that does not mean they don’t exist.
  3. Will the GPU be bottled necked by the PG348Q‘s 100Hz frame cap?
  4. Should I pull the trigger now or wait a few months or the next set of 40XXX GPU releases?
  5. While the case is open maybe an update to the main solid-state driver as well?
  6. Should not bother with a CPU/GPU upgrade and just get a fully new I9/AM5 system? I think not as GPU prices are mad and I cannot identify a suitable new main monitor.

Anyway thanks for anyone that takes a look. Sometimes these posts don’t include enough information. Hopefully this one doesn’t have too much!!

DUFF
 
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