looking for ugrade advice

Bengaz · 3 Mar 2019 at 16:30

Hi,
I have had my motherboard for 4 years now. It runs great and can play most games on high settings.
Its a micro ITX (as I didnt have space before) and have recently built my existing set up into a new case and would like a new motherboard as i have loads of free space.

This is my current set up: -

MSI Z97I Gaming ACK Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor
G.Skill TridentX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-2400C10D-16GTX)
Silverstone Strider Gold Series - 550 Watt (SST-ST55F-G)
Corsair twin 100mm CPU water cooler
Zotac Gforce GTX 1060 6gb

I would like recommendation for new mobo that will take the above set up but also I would like to add 2080 Nvidia card soon hopefully.

Can anyone help thanks?

Bengaz · 3 Mar 2019 at 18:44

Aretak said:
If I'm reading correctly, you want another board for the same CPU and RAM? The problem you're going to run into is that Z87/Z97 boards have officially reached gouging prices at this point. A couple of years ago you could still pick them up for next to nothing, but a quick look on Ebay suggests that you're now going to be paying the better part of £150 for anything decent, such as an Asus Deluxe/Maximus/Sabretooth board or one of the higher MSI Gaming [Number] efforts, and that's used. Even the low end Z87/297 boards seem to be creeping up towards the £100 mark. It just depends on whether you want to throw that kind of money at an old platform or not.

Personally, I'd consider cashing out yourself. DDR4 prices have collapsed and you can pick up a very good brand new board for the same money (heck, you can get perfectly good B450 boards for well under £100 if you went with Ryzen). You should get a decent price for your board and the 4790K sells for more than it's worth due to being the best CPU you can throw in that socket. Honestly, I doubt you'd come out far behind monetarily, and you'd have a brand new setup with an upgrade path.

This is sound advice I know, and thank you kindly, but wouldnt a new i7, mobo and memory run me into £500? I saw a few refurbished ATX Z97 mobos for around £100-150 mark.

I might get £100 for my mobo and how much would me memory and i7 chip fetch you think?

I would like an onboard USB C connector mind for video uploads etc.

Would a modern set up you mention be significantly faster than mine, as mine is quite fast?

Sorry for all the questions...

Bengaz · 3 Mar 2019 at 20:01

Aretak said:
Again, just looking at Ebay prices I'd think that £100 would be an absolute baseline for the motherboard if you sold it, 4790Ks go in the £170-190 range and you'd be looking at another £75-90 for a decent DDR3 kit like that. That's quite a lot of money to get back for such old components, though of course there's the hassle of the selling process to deal with. As for the new setup, it'd depend on your use case really. If you're just gaming then the 4790K still copes very well (especially overclocked), but if you're doing any tasks like video editing or such then a CPU like the 2600(X) would blow it out of the water for a very reasonable price. On the Intel side things get a little more pricey as you'd want to be looking at the 9600K and up (around £250). Intel motherboards with overclocking options also cost a bit more (whereas sub-£100 B450 boards allow overclocking with Ryzen). USB-C shouldn't be a problem to find, as most decent new motherboards have one. If you do decide to go down the new build route, I'd lay out your use case and gather some opinions from the CPU section too.

It's not like your current build is bad or anything though. Just getting another motherboard is a perfectly valid option. It's just a very good time to cut bait based on current prices (both selling and buying), where you can get yourself a modern system with warranty coverage and upgrade options for not much of an outlay, and you never know when people might wise up and stop paying far too much money for used parts.

Wow, good 2nd hand values!
I think going by the high used price they might get a new system looks more futureproof and not too expensive.
Can you recommend a decent mobo for the 9600k with USB C please and DDR4 memory (is it work going 32GB for video rendering etc)?

Bengaz · 3 Mar 2019 at 20:30

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM= £409.99
1 x Asus ROG Strix Z390-F Intel Z390 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £209.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD432G3= £188.99

Total: £819.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Bengaz · 4 Mar 2019 at 20:24

pastymuncher said:
Save your money as it simply isn't worth it. I went from a 4790k @4.6Ghz in a Asus Maximus VI Hero and 16Gb of Samsung Green clocked to 2133mhz c9 to the setup I have now (in siggy) and to say that I was disappointed with the "upgrade" is a understatement. I have thoroughly benched before and after the "upgrade" and the results are disappointing, just 411 point's extra in Timespy, 329 point's extra in Firestrike Extreme, 29 points extra in Heaven 4.0, 5 points extra in Valley, the list goes on. Even the addition of a NVME drive has only really made bootup a fraction quicker. Outside of benchmarks I can't tell any difference from the SSD's I was running before. I game at 1440p and have only seen a few fps difference in the games I play (mostly simulators). Do what I should have done and wait for the new Ryzen in the middle of the year, hopefully it will shake the cpu market up a bit.

I am leaning this way, My PC is (acceptably) very fast to me, its unclocked as of yet too. Maybe time to just by a mobo and overclock.
Just out of interest, regarding my mini ITX mobo, is it worth even changing it to an ATX just because I now have more room? It does look hellish lost in there though at the moment

Bengaz · 5 Jan 2020 at 13:47

Well I have decided to re-look at my PC since having added a 34" 22:9 monitor to my set up.
My gfx is a tad slow to run far cry etc in ultra wide screen.
I'm thinking just adding a 2070 super for just under £500.
Will this fit straight in and will it shake things up much more than my 1060GTX?
Is it worth doing just this and nothing else?
Happy new year!

Bengaz · 9 Jan 2020 at 19:50

pastymuncher said:
A 2070 Super is around twice as powerful (a little more in some games) as a 1060 so it would be a significant upgrade. Whether the 4790k will hold it back or not I am not sure. Did you overclock the 4790k in the end?

Thanks for that. No, didnt get rount to overclocking but was going to do with a refresh with new GFX card to get the most out of it. So do you think worth the £500 then?

Bengaz · 15 Jan 2020 at 18:59

Alan1969 said:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-super-turing-ray-tracing,6243-2.html

depending on your budget, a 2080 super gives about 105fps at 1440 on ultra for far cry and a RX5700xt gives 95 fps. the rx5700xt however is only about £375 whereas the 2080super is £700. is 10fps worth double? and will you notice it? It may be best to get the RX5700xt and put the money into a better monitor perhaps.

Forgive my ignorance but will a radeon card fit my mobo thx

Bengaz · 15 Jan 2020 at 19:24

pastymuncher said:
As long as it's pci-e (all current cards are) any card will fit your board. No need to stick with one make over another unless you have a G-Sync/Freesync monitor.

Ah yes it's Gsync. The monitor is the best thing I've ever bought for a pc.

Bengaz · 17 Jan 2020 at 09:16

Alan1969 said:
yes it will. however be aware that large video cards probably wont fit into small cases (usually their length is too long - like 330mm!). So determine what case you be using a get a video card that will fit the case (or buy the video card first and then make sure to get a case that will house that card).

Thanks I have already assembled into a large case that's why I was originally looking for a standard size mobo but it seems they run no faster.