Think it's time for an upgrade...

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

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I recently signed up to Xbox Game Pass (despite the name, it includes PC games) and have been playing new releases. For the first time I'm noticing stuttering, and Nvidia GeForce Experience even had the audacity to tell me my "system doesn't meet the minimum requirements for optimal settings" for The Ascent.

You know what that means... a legitimate excuse to buy some new hardware!

To my shame I haven't kept up-to-date with the world of PC hardware, so I'm turning to you Elders of the Internet for your suggestions on how best to upgrade my system:-

Mobo: Asus Z97-K Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G 8192MB GDDR5
RAM: Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit with DHX Pro Connector
Soundcard: Asus Xonar Essence STX II
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply
Various HDDs and SSDs of differing sizes and speeds
Current monitor is a standard ASUS (2560x1440, 60Hz) but plan to upgrade it in the near future​

I guess my main conundrum is: do I just replace the GPU, or should I be looking into a new mobo/CPU/RAM as well? From a money-saving perspective I'd rather just upgrade the GPU, but I don't know whether I'd still encounter issues with stuttering etc from bottlenecks - particularly once I get a better monitor.

Budget: under a grand
Preferences: Intel CPU, Nvidia GPU

All thoughts and suggestions welcomed and appreciated!
 
tbh I think the problem with this game is the high system requirements. Much cheaper to just not play it. Even the recommended system requirements are only for 1080p 60hz. You could try playing in a 1080p window on low settings, maybe that's good enough for now. You could spend 2k on hardware and still not get a good experience in this game.

Hardware-wise, it's your cpu that needs upgrading more than anything else. So you'd want a cpu, motherboard, ram, and nvme ssd. Be aware that Windows 11 is out now and it has weird system requirements.

Graphics card prices are insane still, and supply is limited, so now is really not the time to buy a new gpu. Maybe look again in a year or two.
 
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throwaway4372 said:
tbh I think the problem with this game is the high system requirements. Much cheaper to just not play it. Even the recommended system requirements are only for 1080p 60hz. You could try playing in a 1080p window on low settings, maybe that's good enough for now. You could spend 2k on hardware and still not get a good experience in this game.

Hardware-wise, it's your cpu that needs upgrading more than anything else. So you'd want a cpu, motherboard, ram, and nvme ssd. Be aware that Windows 11 is out now and it has weird system requirements.

Graphics card prices are insane still, and supply is limited, so now is really now the time to buy a new gpu. Maybe look again in a year or two.
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Appreciate the input, thanks. Let's ignore The Ascent and just think about modern games in general in that case. What kind of mobo/CPU/RAM bundle would you recommend? Doesn't need to be the latest and greatest, but something that's going to give a noticeable improvement on the current hardware.
 
With the way PC components are priced right now especially GPU's you'd be better just buying an Xbox series X and enjoying that for now then doing the PC in another year once things have settled down.

If you did want to refresh the PC then a i5 11400F + B560 with 16gb of 3600/16 ram would bring things up to a modern standard with a 3060ti.

Whether or not you get the GPU is up to you but personally I'd either leave it for now or try and get a founders edition card which are sold at MSRP.

1 X Crucial Ballistix 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - £79.99
SKU: MY-20Q-CR
1 X Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail - £149.99
SKU: CP-69D-IN
1 X MSI MAG B560 Torpedo (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard - £129.95
SKU: MB-35X-MS
1 X Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060Ti Gaming OC V2 LHR 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £668.99
SKU: GX-1CP-GI
Grand Total: £1,039.42

https://store.overclockers.co.uk/cart/restore/55858cd3af5c62008febba6ab806fe4a
 
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personally I'd go for the i7 11700k + Z590 + 32gb RAM + NVMe SSD
you could drop down to the i5 11600K and 16GB RAM
you could drop further to i5 1100F + B560
really just depends what it's worth to you.
AMD builds are also good, but I don't know about those.
plenty of example builds here: [rip, forum ate my link, guess I can't post it]
 
Just taken a look at GPU prices... ouch.

Assuming my current card is compatible with Joxeon's list above, keeping my present GPU but getting the rest of that list would bring things down to a much more comfortable price of £370. This opens the door to throwaway's top suggestion without totally breaking the bank.
 
The FE cards are much better prices, the easiest of the cheaper ones to get is the RTX 3070ti FE which is usually in stock for up to 45 mins after a drop as its less desirable for crypto mining.

Prices for the founders cards are

3060ti £369
3070 £469
3070ti £529
3080 649

To get one you need to install telegram and join channel FE PartAlert then wait for drops which usually happen every couple of weeks.
 
Craig_d1 said:
If going Intel, I'd wait for alderlake release in a months time. See how that effects pricing for other lines etc
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Good shout, appreciate it.

From a purely gaming perspective (and assuming I don't change my GPU) how significant is the difference between the i5-11400F, i5-11600K and i7-11700K? I don't want to be kicking myself for not having spent that extra and really missing it, but conversely I don't want to be kicking myself for having blown money on the i7 but not seeing much of an improvement over the i5.
 
For gaming, the i5-11600K and i7-11700K are almost identical. The point of the i7-11700K is it has more cores so should be better over the long term, if you're unsure about the extra money being worth it then it probably isn't.

The i5-11400F and i5-11600K have the same core/thread counts, but the K is overclocked, so each core is faster, which does matter in gaming. It's about 10% more performance.

The F means the cpu doesn't have graphics capability, which can be useful if you run into issues or want to repurpose the pc down the line. There is an i5-11400, 500, and 600, which do have graphics, but they cost more.

Buying a cpu that isn't overclocked allows you to buy cheaper motherboards (B560 instead of Z590), although the price difference isn't massive. It also has a 65W TDP instead of 125W, which means it's easier to cool and cheaper to run. Quite a big price difference between modest coolers and high-end ones now.

Realistically, all of these are fine, and a massive upgrade for you, there are no bad choices.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ8I-osPN2o&t=234s&ab_channel=PCCentric

to to 11.47 onwards for conclusion

shows diff between 11400/11700, 5600x and 5800x...he used 3080ti with them so as not to have gpu doing bottle neck. At 4k, they were all the same as limiting factor gpu, 1440 saw diff and most at 1080..some games like apex legends no diff as they're all 300fps so doesn't matter..
So COD warfare @1440, 11400 130 fps, 11700 150fps(5600X/5800X 140/157 respectively)
Anyway, as a quick preview of a couple of the intel, worth a look to give you an idea
 
nogoodreason said:
Good shout, appreciate it.

From a purely gaming perspective (and assuming I don't change my GPU) how significant is the difference between the i5-11400F, i5-11600K and i7-11700K? I don't want to be kicking myself for not having spent that extra and really missing it, but conversely I don't want to be kicking myself for having blown money on the i7 but not seeing much of an improvement over the i5.
Click to expand...
If you don't change the GPU there will be absolutely no difference between the CPUs above.

To get the 10% difference that @throwaway4372 mentions you need to spend £1500+ on a RTX 3090

 
throwaway4372 said:
Those videos are misleading. The first one isn't even about these cpus. The second is being run with the power limit turned off.
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Why wouldn't you turn the power limit off though and gain free extra performance?, it takes like 1 minute and isn't anymore differcult than setting XMP.
 
throwaway4372 said:
You wouldn't do it if you wanted the thermals/efficiency as advertised.
Nothing against presenting that option, just needs to be clear what's going on.
Click to expand...

It's no different to the 11600k / 11700k advertising as 125w yet PL2 is 250w, the 11400F is a 65w with a PL2 of 158w although in gaming your probably not going to pull more than 100w for any length of time.

If thermals and efficiency are a concern then it's probably better to just go Ryzen anyway.
 
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