CPU, RAM, Motherboard Upgrade

[Scotiax]

I'm mainly looking to upgrade so I'm not playing cat and mouse with Microsoft after bypassing the Windows 11 restrictions. If I can also reduce idle power usage and gain a bit more performance, even better.

Purchase Timeframe: - ASAP / Before October (Windows 10 EOL)

Budget: - £1000 (ish)

Usage:- All hobby / personal projects

- Gaming: Some "competitive" FPS and single-player titles. Primarily 1080p, but UWQHD where high FPS isn't essential

- Image Editing / Graphics Work: Affinity Suite

- Video Editing: Light editing using DaVinci Resolve

- 3D Modelling / CAD: Plasticity, Blender, ZBrush, Fusion 360

Preferences: - N/A

Current Hardware:

- Case: Corsair AIR 540 (keep)
- Processor: Intel Core i7-6800K
- Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 (keep, assuming a mounting kit is available)
- RAM: Corsair 32GB Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz
- Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX X99
- PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2 850W (keep)
- GPU: Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB (keep)
- SSD: Lexar NM790 4TB (primary) (keep)
- HDD: WD Red 4TB (local backup of primary) (keep)
- Monitors: Dell S3423DWC (primary) / Acer Predator XB241H (Rocket League)

Peripherals: - No peripherals needed

Special Needs / Requirements (inc Wi-Fi): - Wired connection (10Gbps would be ideal, but 2.5Gbps is sufficient)

 

[Quartz]

You could do worse than buy what I did: an Asus ProArt X670E-Creator WIFI (for the 10 Gb ethernet) and Ryzen 9800X3D, and add 32 GB or 64 GB RAM.

 

[Tetras]

Special Needs / Requirements (inc Wi-Fi): - Wired connection (10Gbps would be ideal, but 2.5Gbps is sufficient)

This board doesn't have 10Gb, but it does have 5Gb.

You could get the Taichi, which has 5Gb and 2.5Gb, or Asus ProArt Creator / Gigabyte Aorus Master, that both have 10Gb.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £289.99
• 1 x MSI Z890 GAMING PLUS WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03440) = £209.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C40 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MEM-TMG-03146) = £179.99
• 1 x Thermalright Peerless Assassin 140 Black Dual Tower CPU Air Cooler (SKU: COO-TLR-03288) = £39.95

Total: £719.92 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

- Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 (keep, assuming a mounting kit is available)

This one?

NM-M1-MP83 mounting kit

The NM-M1-MP83 is an enthusiast-grade, multi-socket SecuFirm2+™ mounting-kit that represents an ideal upgrade for users who want to migrate their Noctua CPU coolers to the new, Torx® based SecuFirm2+™ standard or to the latest sockets that their cooler did not yet support at the time of...

noctua.at

I'd recommend contact Noctua direct.

If I can also reduce idle power usage and gain a bit more performance, even better.

Idle power is very awkward to buy parts for.

CPU gens/architectures do have general trends (e.g. Core Ultra seems to be better than Ryzen 7000/9000), but it can vary A LOT based on the motherboard, the settings used (e.g. high speed memory), the other parts.

As someone that has done a lot of research on the topic, if it is important to you, you really need to choose everything based around it.

 

[Scotiax]

You could do worse than buy what I did: an Asus ProArt X670E-Creator WIFI (for the 10 Gb ethernet) and Ryzen 9800X3D, and add 32 GB or 64 GB RAM.

Asus ProArt X670E looks a little tricky to buy now but I see a newer version to buy, so I'll take a look and check CPU compatibility. Thanks for the response

 

[Scotiax]

This board doesn't have 10Gb, but it does have 5Gb.
I'd recommend contact Noctua direct.
Idle power is very awkward to buy parts for.
As someone that has done a lot of research on the topic, if it is important to you, you really need to choose everything based around it.

Sorry on mobile and not entirely sure how to multi quote the same comment.

10Gb isn’t a make or break requirement, but I’ve recently upgraded my home network and I’m in the early stages of looking at a NAS upgrade, so I figured it might be nice to have built in rather than dealing with expansion cards. Dual LAN ports are definitely a plus (direct to Nas / slower to network) I’ll take a look at the different motherboards you’ve recommended.

The realistic part of me knows I’d probably be fine with a single 5Gb port, and I like the cart you uploaded, lazy me likes it too! That said, I only really dip into hardware every 10 years or so and tend to lose track, so I do wonder if I’d regret not going with at least two onboard network ports. Then again, expansion cards do exist. I’ll do a bit more reading.

Aye, I’ll check with Noctua before buying a mounting kit.

The comment about ideal power usage was probably a bit flippant. I’m not too concerned, so I might scrub that from my post if I can figure out how to edit it on my phone.

Thanks for the response, it’s really helping shape my thinking and pointing me in the right direction. I really appreciate everyone’s time on here helping people out.

 

[Tetras]

10Gb isn’t a make or break requirement, but I’ve recently upgraded my home network and I’m in the early stages of looking at a NAS upgrade, so I figured it might be nice to have built in rather than dealing with expansion cards. Dual LAN ports are definitely a plus (direct to Nas / slower to network) I’ll take a look at the different motherboards you’ve recommended.

The realistic part of me knows I’d probably be fine with a single 5Gb port, and I like the cart you uploaded, lazy me likes it too! That said, I only really dip into hardware every 10 years or so and tend to lose track, so I do wonder if I’d regret not going with at least two onboard network ports. Then again, expansion cards do exist. I’ll do a bit more reading.

The big bonus of 5Gb is that MSI include this on reasonably priced boards, so unlike most other manufacturers you don't need a high-end/premium model.

The Taichi Lite (with the 2x LAN) is more expensive, but not that expensive. A good pick if the extra utility suits you.

The Creator has an additional 2.5Gb LAN with the 10Gb, the Aorus Master only has the 10Gb.

Add-in cards are fine in theory, but you have to be careful with these modern boards, because they have so much lane sharing across PCIE slots/M.2 slots and graphics (and USB4, if present).

What appears to be available on the board, is rarely what is actually available, which can be a shock to old HEDT users like yourself.

Gaming: Some "competitive" FPS and single-player titles. Primarily 1080p, but UWQHD where high FPS isn't essential

The above motherboard comments applies mainly to the Z890 boards (the AMD ones do share a lot of the same features), but I must say that for high-FPS gaming at a low res/settings, the X3D CPUs (7800X3D/9800X3D) are the best choice.

They're also not bad at productivity, since they still have 8 fast cores, but if you're hammering the CPU (at 100% multithreaded load, i.e. outside of gaming) for long periods then they're not the optimal CPU.

 

[Scotiax]

The big bonus of 5Gb is that MSI include this on reasonably priced boards.

Aye, the price did catch my eye compared to some of the other recommendations.

Add-in cards are fine in theory, but you have to be careful with these modern boards, because they have so much lane sharing across PCIE slots/M.2 slots and graphics (and USB4, if present).

What appears to be available on the board, is rarely what is actually available, which can be a shock to old HEDT users like yourself.

It’s certainly something I’m aware of. So far, it’s never been an issue for me but it's good to know it's still something to wary of.

high-FPS gaming at a low res/settings, the X3D CPUs (7800X3D/9800X3D) are the best choice.

Gaming is more secondary for me these days due to family commitments. It’s part of the reason I wasn’t planning on upgrading my graphics card, and I do wonder if going for a CPU that’s best for gaming is a bit of a disservice, considering the card I’m currently using.

My biggest issue is I’ve always tended to go higher spec than I probably need (not just computers ). But since I don’t upgrade often, I think it’s worked out as good value (rightly or wrongly). Although, I do wonder if going more realistic and upgrading more frequently might serve me better. Nothing I use the computer for is particularly critical, it’s all hobby stuff, so while longer render times can be annoying, they’re not the end of the world.

The only areas I’ve really noticed a drop-off since building the last system are gaming (I bought the RX 6700 a few years ago to replace the 1060 6GB, which was meant to be a stopgap in itself – it helped a bit, but the processor is a bottleneck in some cases), and more recently with 4K video, editing can be very slow, but again, there are ways to mitigate that slightly.

 

[jigger]

So I’d personally forget chasing a board with 10 gigabit networking as the price of 10 gigabit NICs is so cheap today. Unless the board has other features, you’re usually better off buying separately. I recently picked up a load of OWC 1x cards for £40 a go plus VAT.

Ryzen 7950X

Pretty much any motherboard B650 B850 board. Even A620/B840 offer WiFi.

64gb. Any DDR5 around 6000 cas 32.

You should be able to upgrade to something like that for £750-£800. You could possibly even use a 9950X within budget.

 

[Tetras]

The only areas I’ve really noticed a drop-off since building the last system are gaming (I bought the RX 6700 a few years ago to replace the 1060 6GB, which was meant to be a stopgap in itself – it helped a bit, but the processor is a bottleneck in some cases), and more recently with 4K video, editing can be very slow, but again, there are ways to mitigate that slightly.

When you're experiencing the slow downs, is your CPU at 100% (single thread? multi thread?), or something else?

A lot more work is being pushed onto the graphics card lately.

Gaming is more secondary for me these days due to family commitments. It’s part of the reason I wasn’t planning on upgrading my graphics card, and I do wonder if going for a CPU that’s best for gaming is a bit of a disservice, considering the card I’m currently using.

The 9800X3D would still be one heck of a lot faster than your current CPU (both single and multithread), especially if you're running it at stock.

You can see from TPU's 720p and 1080p benchmarks (here) how much they (the X3Ds) pull ahead when you're CPU bottlenecked (relevant to competitive FPS gaming).

In the same review, the 265K also does very well in e.g. rendering benchmarks, considering what Intel want for it, but performs relatively poorly in those same CPU bottlenecked gaming benchmarks.

My biggest issue is I’ve always tended to go higher spec than I probably need (not just computers ). But since I don’t upgrade often, I think it’s worked out as good value (rightly or wrongly). Although, I do wonder if going more realistic and upgrading more frequently might serve me better. Nothing I use the computer for is particularly critical, it’s all hobby stuff, so while longer render times can be annoying, they’re not the end of the world.

It is awkward, platform longevity is unlikely to be that great with anything out now. AM5 should have at least one more CPU generation, but it might stop there. Intel's platform is already believed to be dead.

Dumping a lot of money into the motherboard only makes sense to me if you're going to stay with that platform, though if you invested in a separate 10Gb card, you could take it with you.

The higher-end spec would be just dumping your budget on a 9950X3D, for the best of every world. A compromise might be buying a 7800X3D, seeing how that goes and then upgrading to a 10950X3D (rumoured to have 24 cores) if you really want the top-end performance for gaming and multithreading.

 

[Scotiax]

So I’d personally forget chasing a board with 10 gigabit networking as the price of 10 gigabit NICs is so cheap today. Unless the board has other features, you’re usually better off buying separately. I recently picked up a load of OWC 1x cards for £40 a go plus VAT.

Originally, this was going to be my plan, but as I don’t really keep up to date with hardware, I wondered if the reduced cost would make them more common on motherboards. It’s definitely better than I expected, but I agree it certainly wouldn’t be the deciding factor.

You could possibly even use a 9950X within budget

don't tempt me.

When you're experiencing the slow downs, is your CPU at 100% (single thread? multi thread?), or something else?

I haven't done detailed monitoring, but on the odd check while gaming my CPU utilisation is very high and will hit 100% in certain titles while my GPU utilisation will be much lower. Video editing is a newer endeavour and although a lot will be to do with my graphics card when scrubbing / exporting videos CPU usage also peaks. I probably should do a bit more monitoring / diagnostics.

The 9800X3D would still be one heck of a lot faster than your current CPU

Oh for sure, the developments since 2016 are wild. My four year old work laptop has similar performance on paper, and the whole laptop cost less than the processor did back then. That’s why part of me thinks I could get away with going “cheaper”, as I’m not quite the power user I used to be / or want to be.

It is awkward, platform longevity is unlikely to be that great with anything out now.

I’ve only had two primary “workstations” / two processors: the QX6700, which lasted me until 2016 (although I mainly console gamed), and then the 6800K, which is technically still working fine. I think it’s unlikely I’d be hoping to reuse the same motherboard or components the next time I upgrade but I do always fear the next leap being a few months after I buy but then again there is never the perfect time to buy.

I really appreciate everyone’s responses, it’s given me plenty to think about and plenty of reading to do. I’m slightly back on the fence and might just upgrade to Windows 11 for now, then wait and see what Microsoft does about the hardware restrictions. That said, I know I’d see a big jump in performance, and the 9950X has definitely piqued my interest. Thanks again, this has been really helpful and has given me a much clearer directions.