Is it worth upgrading a i7 980x 2010 build advice please?

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 20:22

Hi,

Please can you give me any recommendations on if it's worth upgrading my pc;

I built my PC in 2010 and its been brilliant, I have had no problems with it and did a fresh install of windows 7 for the first time during the end of 2018. It's been fine since.

I mostly use it for CAD and 3D modelling (cinema 4D). Sometimes games, but very rarely. I spent quite a lot of money with the intention of upgrading, but I never got around to it and the pc specification today is as I built it in 2010.

My son was playing a game on steam (Hell let loose) and I decided to try it as it looked really good on his Ryzen CPU based pc that we built this year. But it was a bit of a shock to see how bad it looked on my pc as I could only run it on the lower settings (pretty obvious it was going to be like that really!). It didn't help that I have bad internet access I this room as well.

So I started to think that maybe it's time to upgrade but realise my options are limited due the age of the PC.

For what I use my pc for do you think it's worth upgrading or doing a new build? I can't really justify the price of a new build for what I use my pc for to be honest, but it's an option.

I thought about windows 10, but I don't think my motherboard will support it.

It takes a while to boot up, but after that everything opens up really fast. So I wasn't sure if a SDD would really be worth it to reduce the boot time mostly?

So, I think all I am really left with is perhaps changing the graphics card?

Most of the parts of my 2010 pc build:

Motherboard = Asus P6X58D-E
CPU = I7 980X 3.3ghz (not overclocked or want to do that)
RAM = 12gb Corsair Dominator
GPU = ATI Sapphire HD 6870 1gb
HDD = 1TB Seagate Barracuda
PSU = Enermax Revolution 85+ 850w Modular
OS = Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

Sorry about the long post as I was trying to explain it as best as I can.

Thank you

Squid Vicious · 10 Dec 2019 at 21:43

A SSD is one of the most worthwhile investments you can make.
It'll drastically decrease your boot times and improve application load times - any PC really should have at least an SSD as the boot drive.

A new gfx card - even a modest one like Nvidias 1650/1660 or AMDs new RX 5500/XT due in the very near future will give you a big improvement in performance with games and some plugins for cinema 4d may also benefit from gpu rendering.

Alternatively go crazy and get one of the new Ryzens with 16+ cores and build a new platform which will last another decade

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 21:58

Hi Squid Vicious,

Thank you.

I think a SSD would be a good, I had one installed by IT on my work PC and its been fast! On my son's pc we put the OS on the SSD and applications on the HDD, but he only plays games on it. For me, is that the best way to install? To have my software on the HHD and OS on the SSD, or will that defeat the object of the speed?

Graphics card sounds good as well, should help with the viewports on the CAD and C4D as well as games.

I am not 100% sure about windows 10 as I have read that my motherboard doesn't support it, however the ASUS website is showing driver for windows 10 64 bit?

I was thinking about a new build Ryzen, but not sure if I can justify it at the minute. But If I go for a new SSD and GPU at least I could add that to a new build at some point.

Quartz · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:01

The recommended specs for Hell Let Loose are

CPU: i5-7600 @ 3.5GHz or Ryzen 5 1600 @ 3.2GHz.
RAM: 16 GB.
OS: Win7 64bit.
VIDEO CARD: Nvidia GTX 1070 or AMD RX Vega 56.
FREE DISK SPACE: 20 GB.
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 8192 MB.

Your PC is far below that; complete replacement is in order.

Which software do you use?

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:17

Hi Quartz,

Thank you.

I use Cinema 4D (R11), recently Draftsight CAD, but now NanoCAD (5.0) and general everyday Windows programmes (word etc). Thinking of getting some powerlines as well to help with that.

I got hell let loose to run, but it was laggy because of my bad internet connection and had to lower the graphics settings. I think I would have had a better go of it if my connection was better.

Is my cpu not up to par with those you mentioned?

Quartz · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:36

sparkyb said:
Is my cpu not up to par with those you mentioned?

Your CPU is 6 Intel generations behind. Your software is also old. I'm not familiar with Cinema4D but Google indicates it has been replaced by U-Render which demands a far better GPU:

AMD or NVIDIA GPU
OpenGL 4.5 capable
3 GB or more of graphics VRAM (8 GB or more recommended)

Take a look at the RX 590 or the upcoming RX 5500 if there are models with 8 GB VRAM.

sparkyb said:
But If I go for a new SSD and GPU at least I could add that to a new build at some point.

Good plan.

Joxeon · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:48

sparkyb said:
Hi Squid Vicious,

Thank you.

I think a SSD would be a good, I had one installed by IT on my work PC and its been fast! On my son's pc we put the OS on the SSD and applications on the HDD, but he only plays games on it. For me, is that the best way to install? To have my software on the HHD and OS on the SSD, or will that defeat the object of the speed?

Graphics card sounds good as well, should help with the viewports on the CAD and C4D as well as games.

I am not 100% sure about windows 10 as I have read that my motherboard doesn't support it, however the ASUS website is showing driver for windows 10 64 bit?

I was thinking about a new build Ryzen, but not sure if I can justify it at the minute. But If I go for a new SSD and GPU at least I could add that to a new build at some point.

Windows 10 should install just fine, I had it running recently on a asus p6t deluxe v2 which is very similar to your board. A good time to upgrade with support ending for win 7 very soon.

Quixote · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:55

"I'm not familiar with Cinema4D but Google indicates it has been replaced by U-Render which demands a far better GPU:

Lol, no.
U-Render is one of many optional 3rd party render engines that Cinema 4D can use, like Octane, Redshift, VRay etc - it's a very undemanding render engine mainly used for rapid previews, although you're right that it uses GPU more than CPU.
But it's a moot point, since Cinema 4D itself is now on R21 - R11 is now 11 years old & 10 versions out of date. It will benefit most from single core cpu speed for modelling & animation, multi-core cpu speed for rendering & GPU for handling high-polygon models in the viewport.
I'd also be crossing my fingers it will even work under Windows 10 but if it works under Windows 7, you might be OK.
Source - I use Cinema 4D for a living.

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:04

Quartz said:
Your CPU is 6 Intel generations behind. Your software is also old. I'm not familiar with Cinema4D but Google indicates it has been replaced by U-Render which demands a far better GPU:

AMD or NVIDIA GPU

OpenGL 4.5 capable

3 GB or more of graphics VRAM (8 GB or more recommended)

Take a look at the RX 590 or the upcoming RX 5500 if there are models with 8 GB VRAM.

Good plan.

Yes! My whole set up is old, time flies by and I just never got round to doing anything about it. I bought a perceptual licence for Cinema just before they changed the pricing plans. So never bothered to update after that. The version I have got is more than adequate for my usage.

I haven't heard of u render, looks like a plug-in, I don't think its in my version of C4D? So this shouldn't be a problem with the gpu.

My son has the RX 590 nitro, blue SE version and is a really nice card. I was hoping to get this one on overclockers, but they have recently sold out unfortunately

That was my thinking, get some upgrades now which I can use later on if I go for a new build

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:12

Joxeon said:
Windows 10 should install just fine, I had it running recently on a asus p6t deluxe v2 which is very similar to your board. A good time to upgrade with support ending for win 7 very soon.

Ok, thank you. I will keep that in mind. I prefer W7 but was looking at W10 to get up to date. Thanks for the advise about the possibility of it working with my motherboard.

Was a little worried though as there a few mixed reports online about it not being compatible with my motherboard. And thus some things not working with it. I haven't really looked into it in any depth though

Danny75 · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:12

Interesting vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtwejm1Yn1A

i7-980X doesn't do all that bad in games (for its age) compared to how it takes a beating in other applications.

Look at the 1660 Supers, good value for money as well and a bit faster than 590s.

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:16

Quixote said:
Lol, no.
U-Render is one of many optional 3rd party render engines that Cinema 4D can use, like Octane, Redshift, VRay etc - it's a very undemanding render engine mainly used for rapid previews, although you're right that it uses GPU more than CPU.
But it's a moot point, since Cinema 4D itself is now on R21 - R11 is now 11 years old & 10 versions out of date. It will benefit most from single core cpu speed for modelling & animation, multi-core cpu speed for rendering & GPU for handling high-polygon models in the viewport.
I'd also be crossing my fingers it will even work under Windows 10 but if it works under Windows 7, you might be OK.
Source - I use Cinema 4D for a living.

Thank you. I use Cinema 4D as a hobby, so its nice to talk to somebody who uses it for a living. That was also in the back of my mind about windows 10. The last thing I wanted was to run the risk if C4D not working and then end up spending a bomb upgrading that.

Joxeon · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:23

Danny75 said:
Interesting vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtwejm1Yn1A

i7-980X doesn't do all that bad in games (for its age) compared to how it takes a beating in other applications.

Overclocked to 4.6ghz and it almost matches a ryzen 5 1600.

Quixote · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:26

sparkyb said:
Thank you. I use Cinema 4D as a hobby, so its nice to talk to somebody who uses it for a living. That was also in the back of my mind about windows 10. The last thing I wanted was to run the risk if C4D not working and then end up spending a bomb upgrading that.

OK, so I downloaded Cinebench R11.5 - I can confirm that both the Open GL & CPU tests ran without a problem on my windows 10.
Now Cinebench is a stripped-down benchmarking program based on Cinema 4D, so it doesn't gaurantee the full program will be problem free, but it does bode well.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have my old R11 discs any more, so not sure I can test the full program.

wedrum · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:29

Whack in a x5650 6 core 12 thread cpu can be picked up for a tenner.

Then a ssd and something like a used gtx 980ti which can be had for around £150.

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:30

Quixote said:
OK, so I downloaded Cinebench R11.5 - I can confirm that both the Open GL & CPU tests ran without a problem on my windows 10.
Now Cinebench is a stripped-down benchmarking program based on Cinema 4D, so it doesn't gaurantee the full program will be problem free, but it does bode well.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have my old R11 discs any more, so not sure I can test the full program.

Thank you for doing that, much appreciated

and will help me to decide if I want W10 or not

sparkyb · 10 Dec 2019 at 23:32

Danny75 said:
Interesting vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtwejm1Yn1A

i7-980X doesn't do all that bad in games (for its age) compared to how it takes a beating in other applications.

Look at the 1660 Supers, good value for money as well and a bit faster than 590s.

Thanks, will have a look at that. Think I've seen similar videos where the I7 does quite well against modern CPU's

Joxeon · 11 Dec 2019 at 00:13

wedrum said:
Whack in a x5650 6 core 12 thread cpu can be picked up for a tenner.

Then a ssd and something like a used gtx 980ti which can be had for around £150.

The i7 980x is already a 6 core and likely a better bin than a x5650

wazza300 · 11 Dec 2019 at 14:47

Remember youll only get sata 2 ssd speeds on that board(intel) ports
The marvell sata 3 ports are slightly faster but tend to be problematic

Still worth getting an ssd though

sparkyb · 11 Dec 2019 at 18:51

wazza300 said:
Remember youll only get sata 2 ssd speeds on that board(intel) ports
The marvell sata 3 ports are slightly faster but tend to be problematic

Still worth getting an ssd though

Thanks. Just had a look at the motherboard manual and you are right, it has two marvel sata 6.0 gb/s ports.

What is the problem with the marvel ports and will I notice a difference in speed if I have my hdd and planned ssd on both sata 2 ports?

Starting to wonder if it might be better to consider a new build rather than put good money into old?