Time to rebuild? Or do I need a complete new system? Help needed

BlueLipBill · 18 Sep 2023 at 09:17

So I built my current machine back in 2017 and well I think it might just about be done in terms of running any new AAA titles at a good graphics quality.

Due to a lot of my friends owning consoles I have regrettably turned my back on my gaming pc and have been gaming a lot on my console over the last few years. However I feel that its time to jump back on my PC and pick up where I left off. However due to my neglection of PC gaming I have fell behind in terms of current PC hardware and I dont really know who or what are the stand out performers in todays component market. I only really know about Nvidia Graphics cards and the current and previous series of cards. (Im not that clued up on AMD)

So here is the current system I have.

- Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz (Coffee Lake)
- Corsair Hydro H100i GTX
- ASUS TUF Z370-Plus Gaming Intel Z370
- ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 AMP Edition 8192MB GDDR5X
- Team Group Dark Pro 16GB 3200MHz
- Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
- Samsung 960 EVO Polaris 250GB M.2 2280 Solid State Drive
- Seasonic Focus Plus 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply
- Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Glass Midi Tower Case
- Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

I Also have a BenQ EL2870UE 28" 1ms HDR 4K Gaming Monitor.

So where do i need to upgrade? Graphics card of course but where else could I really boost performance to get me back on top and playing those new AAA titles on high end/ultra settings? Is that possible or am I due a complete new system? please help!

(In terms of budget I was willing to spend around £1000-1500)

Noughtboy · 18 Sep 2023 at 10:55

Your CPU is unlikely to be the real bottleneck at 4k.

You will see the most benefit from a new GPU (Radeon 7900XT £800 or 7900XTX £950). Along with this, you would probably need to upgrade your PSU. 850W preferably and about £115

You could upgrade your RAM to 32GB or just run that system until it creaks and get something new.

I bigger SSD would also be useful.

But the basics are £915 to £1065 . The rest is nice to have

Tetras · 18 Sep 2023 at 14:48

BlueLipBill said:
So where do i need to upgrade? Graphics card of course but where else could I really boost performance to get me back on top and playing those new AAA titles on high end/ultra settings? Is that possible or am I due a complete new system? please help!

I would say that for 4K gaming there's two things that you need:
- A SSD, since games are being designed for these and even older games run much better.
- A new graphics card, since the 1080 isn't really suitable for 4K in the latest / AAA games.

The CPU may be a bottleneck in some games, but I agree with the above that at 4K, you should do the graphics card first and then go from there.

If you want to keep your PSU, you could consider a 4070 or 7800 XT, as this shouldn't be too different to your 1080, but if you're going with a 7900 XT, then I'd suggest something like the RM850e.

An alternative complete build for max budget (minus the case):

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-13600KF (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6B8-IN) = £269.99
1 x MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-37M-MS) = £149.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLBD532G5600HC36BDC01) (SKU: MY-0BB-TG) = £99.94
1 x AMD - Starfield Radeon Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00542) = £0.00
1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-3A7-SP) = £800.00
1 x WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) (SKU: HD-589-WD) = £39.95
1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99

Total: £1,492.85 (includes delivery: £7.99)

Cooler: Peerless Assassin (under £50).

Noughtboy · 19 Sep 2023 at 12:18

From an ability to upgrade, I tend to prefer AMD 7000 as you should get another 2 iterations of Ryzen on that platform (B650/X670) whilst Intel LGA 1700 is for all intents and purposes EOL (there is a 14th gen coming in a month or so but really seems to be mainly clocks going up a few %).

On that basis, I would swop out the 13600K/B760 for a Ryzen 7600/B650...The MSI Tomahawk ATX. Your overall cost will remain unchanged overall but with two Starfield codes, will likely be £40 cheaper when one is sold. You could put that in to either a larger SSD (Seagate Firecuda 2TB £94) or Kingston FURY Renegade 6000MHz C32 for £129

It is *possible* that the 7600 may bottleneck the 7900XT in certain games at 4K but it will not be all that common nor hugely detrimental (although this may apply to the 13600k as well). The bonus with AMD is that when you feel you want an upgrade, you can always buy the 8X00 or 9X00 and just drop it in