Time for a new PC or is it worth upgrading?

ElliotHand · 23 Jul 2020 at 14:48

I've been happy chuggling along for years with my i3570k cpu, 390 gpu, asus ROG gene v motherboard, few ssds and 8gb ram but recently I've started using Adobe Premier / After Effects which have had pretty insane encoding times for relatively short 8 min clips. It's also starting to struggle in many games which is noticeable now I've finally managed to kick my DOTA addiction.

Is it worth upgrading to an i7 / buying more ram as a temporary solution (pending future amd on the horizon) or should I bit the bullet as it's time for a new pc?

benjii · 23 Jul 2020 at 15:05

If I were in your shoes, I would wait a few more months and upgrade to Zen 3 (AMDs upcoming CPU line) and the new AMD or Nvidia GPU, depending on which you prefer.

Journey · 23 Jul 2020 at 15:12

Depends if you are making money from the work, or if it is just as a hobby.

Premier/After Effects need RAM + cores/threads these days. You could probably sell your whole machine for a decent amount (£225-300) as an entry level gaming system on Gumtree/eBay, and put that towards a new system. What would you want to spend in total if you did start fresh?

ElliotHand · 23 Jul 2020 at 15:24

Journey said:
Depends if you are making money from the work, or if it is just as a hobby.

Premier/After Effects need RAM + cores/threads these days. You could probably sell your whole machine for a decent amount (£225-300) as an entry level gaming system on Gumtree/eBay, and put that towards a new system. What would you want to spend in total if you did start fresh?

Well, it's a pseudo hobby - essentially I made a couple of internal videos for work which they liked and now I've been asked to produce more. It's a bit of added value / helping me to get noticed but it's not my main job so I'm not in any rush.

Hadn't considered that'd mine would be worth anything at all second hand tbh so is a good thought but if new CPU and GPU releases are pending then I'll probably be best to hold on for a few more months rather than buying some used components as a stop gap.

EsaT · 23 Jul 2020 at 20:08

ElliotHand said:
Hadn't considered that'd mine would be worth anything at all second hand tbh so is a good thought but if new CPU and GPU releases are pending then I'll probably be best to hold on for a few more months rather than buying some used components as a stop gap.

On CPU side new releases won't be any dramatic.
And depending on budget aiming for AM4's upgradability would be one path.
But on GPU side we should be getting major jump and and finally competition on high end...
Well, possibly not so much:
With cultists bending over with face in dirt and rear up since winter Nvidia probably continues rape&robbery pricing and AMD likely wants to be carefull in how much they push prices down.