How is my computer holding up?

demon8991 · 1 Dec 2015 at 21:40

Spec in signature.

The core of my PC will be coming up 3 years old in April with the only upgrade being a direct swap for 7990 from a 7970.

I just thought I would touch base and see what kind of performance boost I could expect from a complete upgrade?

I am in no real rush just interested to hear your thoughts.

teenwolf · 1 Dec 2015 at 21:42

Pc is still very capable, if you do need to scratch that itch though get a 980ti

setter · 1 Dec 2015 at 21:47

Cpu, board and ram are still very good. An upgrade of theese wont make a big difference tbh. What is the main use of the system though? If gaming is the priority a gpu upgrade could perhaps help.

demon8991 · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:05

teenwolf said:
Pc is still very capable, if you do need to scratch that itch though get a 980ti

Not being an AMD fanboy but I have never owned an NVIDIA card.

9800pro
X800XT PE
4870
7970
7990

This is the first time in my PC history that I think I will make the switch as up until this point I have always considered AMD to have the edge when compared to NVIDIA, not sure if this is true anymore if I am honest.

setter said:
Cpu, board and ram are still very good. An upgrade of theese wont make a big difference tbh. What is the main use of the system though? If gaming is the priority a gpu upgrade could perhaps help.

Cool, thanks for that.

Is Kaby Lake considered to be a major improvement over the current Skylake CPUs as I know it will be on the 10nm process?

I do play games although the last 10 months I haven't played as much due to renovating our house. Although I did complete GTAV and play a lot online too, which I loved, such an amazing game.

If I was to go for a 980TI would I see a big difference in frame rates and would my 3570k be a bottleneck at that point?

setter · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:12

Not a lot is known about kabylake at present. But, it will be basically a slightly improved version of skylake. Mostly integrated graphics performance enhancements. Similair to how devils canyon replaced first generation haswell chips.

The performance improvements per generation from ivybridge to skylake have been marginal tbh. Your 3570k will hold up fine for games even with a modern card like the 980ti.

teenwolf · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:12

980ti will be much smoother than the 7990, less on the eleccy too.
System will last for a few more years yet.

demon8991 · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:20

setter said:
Not a lot is known about kabylake at present. But, it will be basically a slightly improved version of skylake. Mostly integrated graphics performance enhancements. Similair to how devils canyon replaced first generation haswell chips.

The performance improvements per generation from ivybridge to skylake have been marginal tbh. Your 3570k will hold up fine for games even with a modern card like the 980ti.

Ok well that is good to know.

Such a shame AMD are no longer a player in the CPU space as Intel has really stagnated improvement gains.

teenwolf said:
980ti will be much smoother than the 7990, less on the eleccy too.
System will last for a few more years yet.

Cool, just not sure it is worth the huge price tag over what I have currently I guess it depends on what I can make back on the 7990.

Electricity isn't so much of an issue as I live in Queensland, Australia and have a 5KW solar system so electricity is pretty much always free anyway.

setter · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:30

Free leccy, nice un.

The 980ti will run cooler than a 7990, never a bad thing in a warm climate like yours.

demon8991 · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:33

setter said:
Free leccy, nice un.

The 980ti will run cooler than a 7990, never a bad thing in a warm climate like yours.

Yeah it is so good, one of the first things we did when we moved in.

Yeah that would be great as the 7990 hovers between 78-84 degrees during gaming!

I can get the MSI gaming for around $1050 so that isn't too bad and would hope to get $500 for my 7990.

setter · 1 Dec 2015 at 22:37

I have the msi here and can certainly reccomend it. On stock fan setting it gets to 75c. But with a 1-1 custom fan profile the max is 65c. Extremely quiet card too, practically inaudible upto 80% fan speed. But even if above this it certainly isnt what id call very loud.

Quartz · 1 Dec 2015 at 23:12

Nothing wrong there at all. You may find yourself VRAM-limited in certain games, in which case a 390X or a 980 Ti would be a good choice.

demon8991 · 1 Dec 2015 at 23:48

setter said:
I have the msi here and can certainly reccomend it. On stock fan setting it gets to 75c. But with a 1-1 custom fan profile the max is 65c. Extremely quiet card too, practically inaudible upto 80% fan speed. But even if above this it certainly isnt what id call very loud.

Wow that is awesome!

When you say 1-1 custom profile, does that mean for every degree the temperature increases the fan speed matches it e.g. 65 degrees = 65% fan speed?

Quartz said:
Nothing wrong there at all. You may find yourself VRAM-limited in certain games, in which case a 390X or a 980 Ti would be a good choice.

Yeah I have definitely hit the limit in GTAV and other Rockstar games. It would certainly be nice to have a full 6GB of usable VRAM.

setter · 2 Dec 2015 at 06:12

Yep 50% @50c, 60@60 etc. I use msi afterburner to set up the fan profile.