Looking for pgrade advice

Jed Shields

Jed Shields

Jed Shields

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Joined
23 Apr 2007
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Cardiff-ish, Wales
Hello all,

My son is looking to upgrade his GPU, he's struggling to play Elden Ring, Hell Divers 2 etc without reducing graphics to minimum.

He's got a 1660 Super GPU, AMD 1700X and 32Gb ram. Running at 1440p.

We're looking at something like a 4070, £500 ish budget. Any suggestions?

Is it also worth looking at refreshing the CPU? The motherboard is an MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, socket AM4.
 
Jed Shields said:
Is it also worth looking at refreshing the CPU?
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Definitely. 5700X3D is the optimal choice, but 5600/5600X would still be a nice upgrade for gaming.

Jed Shields said:
We're looking at something like a 4070, £500 ish budget. Any suggestions?
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Have a look for deals, but anything from: 7800 XT, 4070, 4070 Super and 7900 GRE are all good upgrades and at least twice as fast.
 
Tetras said:
Definitely. 5700X3D is the optimal choice, but 5600/5600X would still be a nice upgrade for gaming.


Have a look for deals, but anything from: 7800 XT, 4070, 4070 Super and 7900 GRE are all good upgrades and at least twice as fast.
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This is solid advice and exactly what I'm planning.

I'm on b450 board with 3600x +1070ti for example. GPU upgrade next and the 7800xt/6900xt are high on the list
 
Many thanks all. I'll keep an eye out for some decent deals. I think a CPU and GPU upgrade makes sense. The rest of his build is more than adequate to keep him going for a while.
 
Is £500 your total budget or just for the GPU?

EDIT

You could get a 6750XT and a 5700X3D for under £500

No idea how good the 6750XT is but apparently it's good for 1440p.
 
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That board with the right BIOS will let you run a 5700X3D (~£140)
Leaves £360 for a GPU, 7800XT might be a good balance and is at that price-ish
Also selling your old CPU (~£30) and GPU (~£90) would net a little money so you could offset/spend more
 
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Tetras said:
Definitely. 5700X3D is the optimal choice, but 5600/5600X would still be a nice upgrade for gaming.


Have a look for deals, but anything from: 7800 XT, 4070, 4070 Super and 7900 GRE are all good upgrades and at least twice as fast.
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Just echoing this point by Tetras and a couple others as the best solution.

No need to replace the whole machine - the 5700X3D is fantastic.

Update the BIOS first before you start doing any upgrades tho.
 
Budget for GPU £500 ish, maybe £550 max. I don't mind chipping in for a CPU on top of that. Particularly if I can sell the old card and chip.
 
Jed Shields said:
Budget for GPU £500 ish, maybe £550 max. I don't mind chipping in for a CPU on top of that. Particularly if I can sell the old card and chip.
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the 1660 super is still worth some money on the bay/member's market, 1700x not so much, but still can get some money from it
and you haven't told us what power supply you have, so a power supply upgrade may also be required
 
That's got to be about 10 years old now?
Id probably run a 5700x3d with a 4070 on it. I definitely wouldn't want to run it with a Radeon (possibly the 4070 super too)
 
tamzzy said:
That's got to be about 10 years old now?
Id probably run a 5700x3d with a 4070 on it. I definitely wouldn't want to run it with a Radeon (possibly the 4070 super too)
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It may be older than that! I'll see how it copes before buying a new one. I could swap it out with my current rig that's running an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and Vega 64, it's a Corsair AX860i. Would the HX620 be able to handle this? My current rig will be going to my youngest son and running at 1920x1200.
 
Jed Shields said:
Would the HX620 be able to handle this?
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Jed Shields said:
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and Vega 64
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hell no lol that vega 64 has crazy transient spikes i'd leave the AX860i in there

Jed Shields said:
It may be older than that!
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the hx620 was released in 2006 so could be up to 18 y/o, as much as i like to spec budget builds and reuse stuff...i think that is getting well long in the tooth
if you're desperate to reuse it, then i would suggest to download hardwaremonitor and see what the 12v line outputs under load
if it's less than 11.8v then i would suspect the ripple would be out of spec too
tl;dr i wouldn't trust that psu powering a new £500 upgrade
don't forget that the 4070 (and any other radeon/4070 super) is at least double the power draw of the 1660 super
 
i dont own those 2 games, so i dont know how cyberpunk 2077 would compare, but think cyber is the most demanding game i own and with a ryzen 1600 + 1070ti(a320 board so no OC) i can play on medium/high with good playable framerate, think thats at 1080p although with the 1070ti it seems rubbish under 1440 in games, so it would be worth keeping hold of the 1700x although used 2600/2700 or 3600 processors are rather cheap now. gpu side id probably say 2060-2080 or the 3000 series version if you stuck to nvidia. while there will be newer/better, if you dont want or need to spend a lot then either of those will be a good upgrade over the 1660.
 
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Yeah, 5700x3d can be had for around £130 if you look around and the rtx 4070 can be had for around £370 if you're wanting it second hand.

The 7800xt is an amazing buy, too and can be had quite regularly around £380 new with discount codes and often free games if you look around
 
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