PC Upgrade in the wake of Cities Skylines 2

TechMinerUK · 25 Oct 2023 at 10:33

Hey all,

I'm thinking about upgrading some bits on PC (Or starting from scratch) as it has been a while and whilst attempting to play Cities Skylines 2 yesterday (Which doesn't seem to run "well" on any hardware at the moment) it definitely seemed far off the pace.

It's been 3 years since I have upgraded it to the following spec:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE
RAM: Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4B (2x 16GB)
GPU: NVidia GTX 1080 FE (With aftermarket cooler)
Storage: Samsung EVO 870 (500GB) SSD & WD Blue 500GB SSD
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1000W
Case: Be Quiet Pure Base 500DX
Monitor Some Acer Ultrawide curved Freesync monitor (I have no idea of the model but the serial is very long!)

In terms of gaming I'm not a huge gamer nowadays, mainly Battlefield 4, Titanfall 2, Cities Skylines, PS1/PS2 emulation and casual games. Potentially might look to play the newer CODs when they come out but recently not been a fan of the newer releases.

I might look into getting the new Forza Motorsport as well as the next Test Drive Unlimited game when its out.

I was thinking for the PC it deffinitely needs a bump on the GPU but might also need a CPU to go with:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
GPU: AMD 7800XT or NVidia RTX 4070 (Can't quite decide which one is better)
RAM: Same as now but with 2 extra 16GB DIMMs
Storage: Possibly get a 4TB SSD

I will be honest, it's been an age since I have looked into PC hardware as I mainly tinker around with servers and lab stuff, I've watched a few reviews and browsed various posts on the latest and greatest but I don't think I can stomach spending £1K+ on an upgrade mainly focussed around the GPU and the recent hardware releases seem a bit "pants" and expensive for lack of better phrasing

Does the above look okay or would I be better sourcing used parts or am I just throwing my money away?

Any help is greatly appreciated

EDIT: Realised this might be in the wrong place and need moving to the upgrade advice forum

mickyflinn · 25 Oct 2023 at 10:46

Tell me where your pc struggles ?

Most demanding task ?

TechMinerUK · 25 Oct 2023 at 10:49

mickyflinn said:
Tell me where your pc struggles ?

Most demanding task ?

At the moment when launching Cities Skylines 2 the GPU is pegged at 99%, CPU was around 30-60% utilisation depending on what was going on and RAM was around 16-24GB in use

Rest of the time it runs fairly smoothly, I haven't tried many newer titles but its definitely the GPU which seems to get more of a pasting than the other bits

mickyflinn · 25 Oct 2023 at 11:09

TechMinerUK said:
At the moment when launching Cities Skylines 2 the GPU is pegged at 99%, CPU was around 30-60% utilisation depending on what was going on and RAM was around 16-24GB in use

Rest of the time it runs fairly smoothly, I haven't tried many newer titles but its definitely the GPU which seems to get more of a pasting than the other bits

GPU then for sure just gotta decide but the 7800xt looks best out of the 2 ,if you like ray tracking then the 4070 mite be better option but check reviews .

The 5800x3d is a solid choice and selling your 3700x would offset costs, you will need to update bios for the 5800x3d to work.

Side note the 7600x Am5 performs simmlar to the 5800x3d but then you would need a new motherboard, and DDR5 .

Memory city skylines can eat that .

TechMinerUK · 25 Oct 2023 at 11:18

mickyflinn said:
GPU then for sure just gotta decide but the 7800xt looks best out of the 2 ,if you like ray tracking then the 4070 mite be better option but check reviews .

The 5800x3d is a solid choice and selling your 3700x would offset costs, you will need to update bios for the 5800x3d to work.

Side note the 7600x Am5 performs simmlar to the 5800x3d but then you would need a new motherboard, and DDR5 .

Memory city skylines can eat that .

Awesome thankyou!

I was thinking about the 7600X but wasn't sure if AM5 was worth the cost to get a new motherboard and potentially DDR5, I guess it gives me more expansion in the future but was hoping to squeeze some more years out of AM4

mickyflinn · 25 Oct 2023 at 11:28

TechMinerUK said:
Awesome thankyou!

I was thinking about the 7600X but wasn't sure if AM5 was worth the cost to get a new motherboard and potentially DDR5, I guess it gives me more expansion in the future but was hoping to squeeze some more years out of AM4

There's definitely more life in your AM4 platform but cost up against AM5, read reviews, benchmarks, but don't rush your decision.

I would upgrade your GPU first then see how you pc performs.

Tetras · 25 Oct 2023 at 15:37

TechMinerUK said:
GPU: NVidia GTX 1080 FE (With aftermarket cooler)

TechMinerUK said:
GPU: AMD 7800XT or NVidia RTX 4070 (Can't quite decide which one is better)

It's hard to recommend for a specific game when there aren't any performance reviews out yet (hopefully they'll come real soon, like they did for CS2 and BG3), but your graphics card is definitely behind the times, so a 4070 or 7800 XT sounds like a good move.

BUDFORCE · 26 Oct 2023 at 09:00

I wouldn't bother going am5 personally.

See how you get on with a new GPU first, but if you doubled up the RAM and put a 5800x3d in there you'd have a pretty solid build.

I reckon it would be good for a good few years at least, at the point there might be a next am5 (am6 or whatever).

I would also get a new SSD only as I'd struggle to manage on 500gb and they have come down in price significantly over the years.

Ch3m1c4L · 27 Oct 2023 at 20:30

New gpu. Test.
Get more ram while it's cheap, DDR4 will go up in price as production continues to switch to ddr5.

Consider a new cpu, although if you're playing 1440p or 4k, and at anything above low, you're likely not going to be cpu limited in much, so could wait longer for the 5800x3d to come down more/second hand it later.

TechMinerUK · 27 Oct 2023 at 20:34

Ch3m1c4L said:
New gpu. Test.
Get more ram while it's cheap, DDR4 will go up in price as production continues to switch to ddr5.

Consider a new cpu, although if you're playing 1440p or 4k, and at anything above low, you're likely not going to be cpu limited in much, so could wait longer for the 5800x3d to come down more/second hand it later.

Do you think it would be worth while going for the 7900XT rather than the 7800XT plus a CPU upgrade? The only reason I thought CPU upgrade might be necessary is CS:2 can be quite CPU intensive (Currently at 40% utilisation on a small city)

BUDFORCE · 27 Oct 2023 at 21:03

TechMinerUK said:
Do you think it would be worth while going for the 7900XT rather than the 7800XT

Specifically for CS2 maybe...I have a 7900xt, specifically the Sapphire Pulse and it is a great card, but importantly tons of VRAM, which CS2 likes, it'll also future proof it a bit more.

Depends what the price difference is I haven't looked for a couple of months.

It'll also play all the latest AAA titles obviously.

TechMinerUK · 27 Oct 2023 at 21:14

BUDFORCE said:
Specifically for CS2 maybe...I have a 7900xt, specifically the Sapphire Pulse and it is a great card, but importantly tons of VRAM, which CS2 likes, it'll also future proof it a bit more.

Depends what the price difference is I haven't looked for a couple of months.

It'll also play all the latest AAA titles obviously.

Between the ones I'm likely to buy around £290 at the moment

BUDFORCE · 27 Oct 2023 at 21:17

TechMinerUK said:
Between the ones I'm likely to buy around £290 at the moment

It depends on your budget etc.

But if you dropped another 32gb RAM, 5800X3d, 7900xt and a new SSD you'd have a pretty decent pc.

Basically the same as mine, all be it I have the non 3d version 5800x.

Grim5 · 27 Oct 2023 at 21:19

mickyflinn said:
GPU then for sure just gotta decide but the 7800xt looks best out of the 2 ,if you like ray tracking then the 4070 mite be better option but check reviews .

The 5800x3d is a solid choice and selling your 3700x would offset costs, you will need to update bios for the 5800x3d to work.

Side note the 7600x Am5 performs simmlar to the 5800x3d but then you would need a new motherboard, and DDR5 .

Memory city skylines can eat that .

During the new Linus video they tested out a 4090 and 14900k pc with the new cities game and it dropped frames like mad. And they were saying in the previous game you could get the game to even chew up 64gb ram

TechMinerUK · 27 Oct 2023 at 21:24

Grim5 said:
During the new Linus video they tested out a 4090 and 14900k pc with the new cities game and it dropped frames like mad. And they were saying in the previous game you could get the game to even chew up 64gb ram

The new game seems to be a resource hog, even those with high spec systems seem to be struggling with performance so I'm not expecting "perfection" but anything has to be better than my PC running it at the moment

lee32uk · 28 Oct 2023 at 00:16

Grim5 said:
During the new Linus video they tested out a 4090 and 14900k pc with the new cities game and it dropped frames like mad. And they were saying in the previous game you could get the game to even chew up 64gb ram

The high ram usage on the previous game happened when there was lots of mods installed and you had a large city. As long as you don't go overboard then 32GB should be enough. Also I wouldn't trust anything Linus tested especially after the whole Gamers Nexus incident.

sx_turbo · 28 Oct 2023 at 07:20

TechMinerUK said:
Awesome thankyou!

I was thinking about the 7600X but wasn't sure if AM5 was worth the cost to get a new motherboard and potentially DDR5, I guess it gives me more expansion in the future but was hoping to squeeze some more years out of AM4

With the 5800x3d am5 is not yet worth upgrading to. Maybe the 8000 series will be but probably best to upgrade yours now for another few years then plan to do a complete system build at the next upgrade point probably in 3-4, years

StarShock · 28 Oct 2023 at 07:33

I will say this close to launch we don't yet know what's ingrained in the game and what performance hiccups can be patched out. I suspect in the next few weeks it might improve a little or a lot. Or we might see some shifting if there's a specific hardware configuration that gets fixed. So the best cpu now might not be the best later. I'm thinking things like 3d vcashe or e.cores.on intel getting better usage.

Ch3m1c4L · 28 Oct 2023 at 19:19

TechMinerUK said:
Do you think it would be worth while going for the 7900XT rather than the 7800XT plus a CPU upgrade? The only reason I thought CPU upgrade might be necessary is CS:2 can be quite CPU intensive (Currently at 40% utilisation on a small city)

Unless you are getting a bundle, and saving money, I'd get the cpu afterwards.
But the gpu, and the ram if you fancy it, and see how well things run for you. CS2 does run fairly heavy right now, but it's gpu limited easily. It has a huge amount of options and some extremely high graphics options/settings for a city builder. I suspect they have allowed certain headroom on the settings knowing the game will be played for 10 years etc.

Cpu wise, up until the 5800x3d is end of life, you'll only save money by waiting. Only reason to buy it straight away/before you see yourself being cpu limited is because of an offer/deal.

TechMinerUK · 3 Nov 2023 at 19:43

Hey all,
Thank you all for your help, in the end I went for the RAM upgrade, 5800X3D and 7900XT to give my system a boost for the next few years (You only live once right?)

Fingers crossed that it'll keep up to things for another 3 years!