New motherboard and CPU?

[6954Dave]

Hello,

I have a 7 year old pc that’s starting to creak. I use it for high end GIS and CAD work, and it’s recently started freezing up for 10-15 seconds every 5-10 minutes, which is very annoying.

I have upgraded it over the years with some decent GPU, RAM and SDDs. Am I right in thinking I could update the motherboard and CPU and keep my existing components and still have a decent setup? What are your thoughts?

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz 4.20 GHz
OS Name: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
OS Version: 10.0.19045 N/A Build 19045
OS Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration: Member Workstation
OS Build Type: Multiprocessor Free
System Type: x64-based PC
Processor(s): 1 Processor(s) Installed.[01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 158 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~4200 Mhz
BIOS Version: American Megatrends Inc. 0904, 2017-03-16
Graphicw: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 64GB (2 x 32GB) 3200MHz Kit - PVS464G320C6K
Storage: Corsair MP400 2TB NVMe PCIe M.
Samsung Evo 3 TB SSD

 

[6954Dave]

Hi and welcome.

What's you budget for upgrades?

What PSU do you have and motherboard model?

Freezing up have you tested any components like the memory?

Budget is 3k but if just motherboard and cpu then ideally under 1k.

What is the PSU?

Motherboard is ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270H GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - 10-04-2017

 

[6954Dave]

Yeah, but the requirements for gaming are a different thing to your work, so hard to know where the performance is likely to come from primarily.

You'd be limited to 12th-14th gen too, if you plan to keep the memory.


How do you know a new CPU/motherboard will fix that? I just ask because, it sounds like it could be a different kind of problem than lacking CPU performance.

Quite possibly. My initial thought was to upgrade to windows 11. But my cpu isn't supported. So thought maybe an upgrade was due anyway.

 

[6954Dave]

Budget is 3k but if just motherboard and cpu then ideally under 1k.

What is the PSU?

Motherboard is ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270H GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - 10-04-2017

And how would I test memory?

 

[6954Dave]

T

7th gen CPUs run Windows 11 fine and can be installed without needing hacks (they even support all of the security features being enabled without losing much performance), but you might need to update the BIOS to expose the firmware TPM and secure boot options, or alternatively get a TPM 2.0 module for the TPM header.

That's too deep in the weeds for me. I just need to know if I can extend the life of my existing components without the freeze ups, but without hacking about

 

[6954Dave]

i ran memtest and got good results i think with no errors after 3 hours running. and ran crystal disk with good results too i think. (all above 90%)
funnily enough, the reason the samsung drive is 3TB is because it's a disk, not SSD ‍, so im thinking a switch to SSD and replacing this D drive would help a lot in this situation, at least in the medium term? it's had 24,000 hrs up time and 2000 bootups.

 

[6954Dave]

just checked and it's over its lifespan.

Life Expectancy	20,000 Power On Hours (POH) / 5 Years Component Design Life

[th]

Capacity​

[/th][th]

3 TB​

[/th]​

 

[6954Dave]

Is the work you're doing actually running from the HDD though?

Is the work you're doing actually running from the HDD though?

project work sits on the D: (HDD) and OS sits on the C: (SSD)