Looking for Upgrade Advice

[MarkMcG]

I built my existing system 10 years ago and have upgraded the GC, Monitor and case since the original build.
I’m contemplating upgrading it over the coming months but not sure where to begin and what could be re-used apart from the case and storage - although I would like to streamline some of my existing storage into larger SSD and maybe be able to put my HDD into a NAS at some point, but I don’t see that as important at the moment.

I’m not sure if I’d be better using my M4 MBA hooked up to my monitor for editing with DaVinci at the moment as I’m fairly new to video editing.

Purchase Timeframe: Within next 6 months.

Budget: £1500. Might be able to push £2000.

Usage: Photo (LR/Photoshop) Video Editing (DaVinci), Flight Simming (MS Flight Simulator / DCS). Monitor is also used to connect works laptop when WFH.

Preferences:

Current Hardware:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI (socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
CPU: Intel i5 6600K 3.9GHz Skylake
GC: MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 3X 12GB GDDR6 PCI-E
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4 PC4 2666Mhz (4x8GB)
PSU: BeQuiet! System Power 8 600W 80
Case: Lian Li LanCool II Mesh Performance MIDI-Tower case.
Storage: Mix of various SSD and Toshiba HDD.
Monitor: LG 32UN880 4K 60Hz Monitor.

Peripherals:
Not needed.
Special Needs/Requirements (inc Wi-Fi):

 

[Tetras]

Usage: Photo (LR/Photoshop) Video Editing (DaVinci), Flight Simming (MS Flight Simulator / DCS). Monitor is also used to connect works laptop when WFH.

Which of these things is more performance the most important to you?

 

[MarkMcG]

Which of these things is more performance the most important to you?

LR, Flight Simming, Video editing in that order I would say.

 

[Tetras]

LR, Flight Simming, Video editing in that order I would say.

The best gaming performance would be had from a X3D CPU.

The below is only 8 cores, but that's still a huge upgrade from the i5-6600K you own now.

AMD's B850 boards are enough for most people, but X870/X870E does have USB4, which almost all B850 boards lack.

Storage: Mix of various SSD and Toshiba HDD.

Note that some boards only have 2x SATA ports, which could be a problem for you. 4x SATA is the most common and even that could still be a problem?

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-03517) = £399.95

If you went with the 265K, you'd lose some future upgrade potential compared to AM5 and gaming performance in your flight sims, but you'd gain in multithreading. From what I can gather on Puget's guides, multithreading isn't that useful in your apps.

A 5070 Ti would be a large performance upgrade on what you have, but only a small VRAM bump.

Historically, AMD have not been great for workstation apps, but their 9070 XT actually does alright in Puget's benches for DaVinci, albeit slower than a regular 5070 and very poor (almost half a 5070) in the AI bench.

Memory is the biggest problem, hugely expensive right now.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £299.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z890 UD WIFI6E (LGA1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-GIG-03488) = £175.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C48 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01087) = £449.99
• 1 x Gainward GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Phoenix-S 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-GNW-05399) = £829.99
• 1 x MSI MPG A850G ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-00Y-MS) = £104.99
• 1 x Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 Dual Tower CPU Cooler -120mm (SKU: COO-TLR-02719) = £38.99

Total: £1,907.93 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

 

[MarkMcG]

Thanks Tetras,

Lots to ponder.

 

[MarkMcG]

I’m looking at this or a 9850X3D.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-07478) = £299.99
• 1 x MSI PRO Z890-S WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03442) = £199.99
• 2 x KLEVV FIT V 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz C30 DDR5 Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MEM-KLV-07036) = £299.99

Total: £1,107.95 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

 

[Tetras]

I’m looking at this or a 9850X3D.

They're both good, but I suspect pretty much the same argument as before. For Sims I'd expect the X3D is likely to be beneficial (haven't seen any direct comparisons with the 270K, unfortunately) but the 270K has much higher multithreading capability.

FYI: 96(2x48) and 128GB(2x64) kits exist. I'd expect the memory controller in the Intel CPU to be fairly good, but 2x sticks is preferable to avoid headaches.

 

[MarkMcG]

Thanks again for your help and input Tetras.

I had looked at the 2 x 32 GB sticks of DDR5 CL306000 MHz but could only see B grade in the same price range as the 4 sticks of 16GB Klevv Fit due to the offer that OC are running on it, and not knowing enough about RAM classed as B Grade, decided to pass.