Time for an upgrade?

paradigm

paradigm

paradigm

Caporegime
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
37,508
Location
Leafy Cheshire
I’ve been out of the loop for a few years, having kids and a career move does wonders for your ability to focus on a hobby or even keep current with the news related to your hobby.

My current PC is an X299X based system, i9-10980XE, Gigabyte Aorus Master X299X, 32GB of DDR4 and a 2070 Super, all wrapped in an NZXT H440, with a custom hardline watercooling loop.

I’m not 100% sure if I even need to upgrade yet? If I did upgrade, what are my options? I’ve tended towards HEDT platforms for many generations (since the X58 days), and I prefer to use custom water to air or AIO, mainly for the quietness. Is Sapphire Rapids my best option, or one of the current generation AMD processors? (I’ve not had an AMD CPU as my main machine since the Athlon 64 days!).

Any ideas appreciated, and if you need more information to make a good judgement, I’m happy to oblige.
 
Gaming and running virtual lab environments for Microsoft technologies mainly. Games tend to be FPS, racing, puzzle (think superliminal and the like). I’ll also want whatever PC I have at the time to handle GTA6 (assuming it gets a PC launch). I also have a VR setup (Index) and wouldn’t be averse to getting a higher resolution headset.

My display is only a 120Hz panel, but it is 5120x1440, so maintaining decent frame rates for that resolution is paramount.

I’ve not yet struggled for frame rates on my existing setup, but I’ve also not bought a new game for a few years.

It also acts as my capture PC for when I’m capturing retro PC footage, but as that’s usually DOS resolutions up to 1024x768, the capture isn’t that demanding.
 
Last edited:
Interesting. So you don’t think I’d bottleneck a 4080 with my CPU?

Any suggestions for a card that has the option of a decent waterblock? As I said it would need to be brought into my custom loop. I’m fine fitting it myself, though I’m not sure these days if there are any GPU board manufacturers that are friendly to cooler changes?
 
Yes, I’ve looked at both Intel and AMD HEDT, and the prices for CPUs are insane. The motherboards are just about palatable, but my god the CPUs!

What would be a good top-end combo for Intel and AMD without leaping to HEDT? I’d probably go full build, case and all, only carrying over my peripherals and display.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom