Time to upgrade - Looking for advice

mark_htfc · 31 Aug 2023 at 22:08

Hi everyone,

My current build is coming up to being 5 years old and I'm now feeling that it's time to start looking at some upgrades as things are slowly starting to feel a little laggy with some games, MSFS being one of them. I want to be able to keep up with playing the latest games on the highest graphical settings etc. I do also like to dabble at trying to create music, and messing around with design software but the primarily use is for gaming, so that is the main thing I am aiming for. I currently have a Ryzen 7 2700x and RTX 2070. I don't see the worth in replacing my entire computer and spending £2k+, especially when upgrading a few parts should do the trick. Ideally I want to future proof myself for the next few years.

I am currently gaming on an Acer Predator XB271HUA @ 2560x1440, I do eventually want to upgrade my monitor for a 4k one, but that will come after the upgrades to my PC. So that is something I also want to bear in mind when upgrading.

Please note: I am looking for parts that will be a big improvement on what I currently have, rather than being a slightly better upgrade. Also note, that I don't have a set budget, I am reckoning the upgrade will be around the £1k mark. I could be underestimating that though. I do however not want to be spending around £2k as if I was to spend that, I would probably sell my PC and spend an extra £500-£1K and buy a new machine.

CPU: I have been looking around, and everyone seems to recommend the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, is this the best AM4 CPU to get for gaming, or is the Ryzen 9 5950X a better option? The 5800X3D is around £270 where as the 5950X is coming in at over £400, so the £100 quid saving seems to be winning at the moment providing the 5950X isn't a huge upgrade over the 5800X3D.

RAM: I currently have 16GB DDR4-2666 CL16 memory. I am looking at upgrading this to 32GB. Am I better off getting an extra 16GB of what I have for about £50 (will give me 4 sticks of RAM), or spending an extra £20 to get 3200 RAM (2X16) for £70? Or is it better to look at the highest speed that my motherboard can take?

GPU: Now this is the part that I am struggling with. I want a graphics card that will be a big improvement on the 2070 which has been a really great card, and also future proof me for a few years too with games on highest settings. The RTX 4090 & 4080 are out of the question (I think), as the price for those I am not sure I can warrant as I would probably be looking at buying a whole new machine with one of those put in. So that leaves me with the RTX 4070 or 4070ti. Is the TI a big improvement over the 4070, or are the results pretty similar? The 4070 is around £580 and the TI is about £820. Is the TI worth the extra £240? Especially if I am aiming for it to last another 3/4 years. Or do you recommend a different card entirely over the 4070?

Other than what is listed above, do you recommend any other parts of my PC that could do with being upgraded? Pease note that the case listed is not the exact case I have, it is however similar and from the same company.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte X470 AORUS GAMING 7 WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL16 Memory
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card
Case: GameMax Graphite ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair TX750M 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24D5MT DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit
Monitor: Acer Predator XB271HUA 27.0" 2560 x 1440 165 Hz Monitor

Thanks in advance
Mark

Tetras · 31 Aug 2023 at 22:21

mark_htfc said:
CPU: I have been looking around, and everyone seems to recommend the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, is this the best AM4 CPU to get for gaming, or is the Ryzen 9 5950X a better option? The 5800X3D is around £270 where as the 5950X is coming in at over £400, so the £100 quid saving seems to be winning at the moment providing the 5950X isn't a huge upgrade over the 5800X3D.

The 5800X3D is better for gaming than the 5900X/5950X, so I think your secondary music/design work would need to be pretty darn serious to justify not picking the 5800X3D.

An alternative is to buy the 5700X, which is still a big upgrade on the 2700X (for gaming and productivity) and then put the rest of your budget into the graphics card.

mark_htfc said:
GPU: Now this is the part that I am struggling with. I want a graphics card that will be a big improvement on the 2070 which has been a really great card, and also future proof me for a few years too with games on highest settings. The RTX 4090 & 4080 are out of the question (I think), as the price for those I am not sure I can warrant as I would probably be looking at buying a whole new machine with one of those put in. So that leaves me with the RTX 4070 or 4070ti. Is the TI a big improvement over the 4070, or are the results pretty similar? The 4070 is around £580 and the TI is about £820. Is the TI worth the extra £240? Especially if I am aiming for it to last another 3/4 years. Or do you recommend a different card entirely over the 4070?

The 4070 Ti is insanely expensive for a 12GB card, I couldn't stomach it. The 7900 XT is where I'd put my money, unless the music/design software you're using really needs nvidia.

mark_htfc said:
RAM: I currently have 16GB DDR4-2666 CL16 memory. I am looking at upgrading this to 32GB. Am I better off getting an extra 16GB of what I have for about £50 (will give me 4 sticks of RAM), or spending an extra £20 to get 3200 RAM (2X16) for £70? Or is it better to look at the highest speed that my motherboard can take?

I would take the opportunity to upgrade the memory to 3200 or 3600 and sell the old kit. The CPU will perform better and you're less likely to have problems with mix and match.

mark_htfc said:
Other than what is listed above, do you recommend any other parts of my PC that could do with being upgraded? Pease note that the case listed is not the exact case I have, it is however similar and from the same company.

Get a second M.2 drive while they're cheap, so that you can move your games and other software off the slow HDD. You could get something cheap like the WD SN570 1TB.

mark_htfc · 31 Aug 2023 at 22:34

The 5800X3D is better for gaming than the 5900X/5950X, so I think your secondary music/design work would need to be pretty darn serious to justify not picking the 5800X3D.

An alternative is to buy the 5700X, which is still a big upgrade on the 2700X (for gaming and productivity) and then put the rest of your budget into the graphics card.

The music / design work is nothing serious at all, it's mainly using free programs just to have a play around with when I fancy something to do, and want to try and be creative, so my decisions are mainly based around gaming, so it looks like it will be the 5800X3D. I will have a look at the 5700X, although it's only about £100 in it, so I might just go towards the 5800.

The 4070 Ti is insanely expensive for a 12GB card, I couldn't stomach it. The 7900 XT is where I'd put my money, unless the music/design software you're using really needs nvidia.

From when I built my machine in 2018, cards definitely seems to have shop through the roof. Although, when you see the 4090 is £1500+, I am not actually sure what the going rate is now. I will take a look at the 7900 XT, I must admit I hadn't considered anything other than Nvidia but it will be good to get recommendations on AMD cards too so I will have a look at the 7900.

I would take the opportunity to upgrade the memory to 3200 or 3600 and sell the old kit. The CPU will perform better and you're less likely to have problems with mix and match.

Yeah I was not planning on mixing the memory, it was either going to be buying another 16gb of what I already had, or taking that out and replacing it with a new set of 32gb.

Get a second M.2 drive while they're cheap, so that you can move your games and other software off the slow HDD. You could get something cheap like the WD SN570 1TB.

I haven't looked at storage prices, so that's probably a good shout. I am wanting to reformat my windows anyway and start a fresh, so I will look at getting a new drive before I do. A faster drive will certainly help with playing games. As I have started to notice that the drive seems to be running slower (although that's probably because games keeps getting more demanding).

mickyflinn · 31 Aug 2023 at 22:41

Just add further the 5800x3d you will get better 1% low FPS meaning less dips in frames therefore less stutter especially at 4k.

mark_htfc · 31 Aug 2023 at 22:49

mickyflinn said:
Just add further the 5800x3d you will get better 1% low FPS meaning less dips in frames therefore less stutter especially at 4k.

I have seen people mention the 1% low, but I'm not sure what it means. I'm guessing it's the percentage that the CPU will stutter during games? The lower the % the better? I'm guessing 1% is the best result you can get.

Tetras · 31 Aug 2023 at 23:04

mark_htfc said:
I am not actually sure what the going rate is now.

It is very hard to say, I mean..., you can look at $/£ per frame charts like near the end of this review (@ 22:00):

$600 Mid-Range Is Here! GeForce RTX 4070 Review & Benchmarks

Thermal Grizzly: https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/produkte/522-cpu-contact-frame-for-12th-gen-intel-by-der8auerSupport us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/...

www.youtube.com

But, ultimately, this is a personal choice (i.e. what is the FPS worth to YOU?).

Realistically, there are some boundaries, for example: if you buy a 6700 XT because it is good value choice, great! Except, a 6700 XT for 4K, over 5 years? Good luck with that! You'd have to make some big compromises in detail levels and the use of upscaling would be mandatory in the very latest/most demanding games. Is it doable? Yeah. How many gamers want to try it? I doubt that many do. That said, even if you buy a 6700 XT (and next-gen equivalent) 3x over the next 6 years, that's still cheaper than a 4090.

So, if you determine a 6700 XT isn't enough, where do you go from there? There's older cards like the RTX 3080 or 6800 XT, but you're buying into an older architecture with fewer features and higher power consumption, so that may have a longevity cost too.

Joxeon · 31 Aug 2023 at 23:13

A 5800X3D + 32gb 3600mhz ram + 2tb NVME for games + 7900XT or wait for the 7800XT which is releasing next week is what I'd be looking at.

decto · 31 Aug 2023 at 23:59

My primary recommendation is to forget 4k, I just don't think it's worth it due to the GPU requirements these days.
I'd stick with 1440P as I'd rather have 100 FPS than 4k 60FPS.

With the 5800X 3D memory speed is less of an issue so any 3200 CL14 / 3600 CL16 kit would be fine.
This CPU also a good option from MSFS which is CPU heavy.

7900XT also a good option, good performance and generous memory.

If you decide on Nvidia then I'd say 4070 or 4080.
Both 4070 and 4070TI are a little short on memory, the TI is a fair bit faster but just not sure I would pay ~ £800 for a 12GB card.
With the 4070 you would upgrade sooner, perhaps 2-3 years but you spent less upfront.

The 4080 dipped just under £1k a couple of weeks back on OCUK. I'd take that over a £800 4070TI if I was spending that much cash.

sx_turbo · 1 Sep 2023 at 00:14

As has been said the savings from purchasing the 7900xt over the 4070ti should be a no brainer, the 7900xt is slightly faster than the 4070ti especially at 4k, it is also significantly cheaper .

Ray tracing performance isn't as good, but tbh when playing games I'm not sure how noticeable it is depending on the game. I e not seen a benefit to it tbh

mickyflinn · 1 Sep 2023 at 09:55

mark_htfc said:
I have seen people mention the 1% low, but I'm not sure what it means. I'm guessing it's the percentage that the CPU will stutter during games? The lower the % the better? I'm guessing 1% is the best result you can get.

The 1% lows is the drops in FPS when game beciyme very demanding ,example average game FPS are at 60 but then drop to 25fps in most demanding situation.

Now if the drops in FPS are 40 not 25 the game will be smoother in the most demanding parts of the game.

Hope that makes sense.

mark_htfc · 2 Sep 2023 at 10:03

Thank you everyone for the responses.

It has definitely given me something to think about. I was looking into the sizes of the newer GPU's and they're a lot bigger than they used to be which means I might also need to replace my case as well.

So far the GPU/CPU/RAM upgrades is coming in at roughly £1150, and this doesn't include replacing my HDD to a faster SSD. (Prices based it from PC Part Picker as I've not shopped around yet). If I needed to add on a new case as well that's another £100 roughly. I need to have a think now and see whether I decide to not go down the upgrading route, and spend an extra £600-1k on top and purchase a whole new setup. Which if I was to do that, I'd probably go with the 7900XTX.

mark_htfc · 2 Sep 2023 at 15:33

So I have been having a think about it this morning, and I am just trying to weigh up my options.

I am now thinking about selling my current machine to my brother, and then buying a whole new setup. The new setup will be RGB again, and I will be gaming at 2560x1440 as per the above, until I eventually upgrade my monitor but that will probably be next year.

So far, I have the CPU, GPU, RAM & OS, which is coming in at £1559.17 (according to PC part picker). Realistically is getting the remaining parts to get the build in around £2k unrealistic? If so, what price am I most likely looking at? £2500 or under that? From the parts I need I will pop below.

Motherboard: This one I am really stuck with as their are way too many options. I was having a look around earlier and reading a couple of threads where people was asking for recommendations but these seemed to be a couple of months old. Since then, what is a decent motherboard to be look at? I did see people saying that prices for some boards seemed to be on the high side, so I definitely will be looking for a midrange one.

CPU Cooler: I don't even know where to begin with this one, so advice needed please.

PSU: I am assuming with the extra parts, I might needs a little bit more wattage than the 750w that is in my current build, so I am considering a gold 850W PSU. Unless I need to be looking for something better.

Storage: I want at least the same storage that I have now which is a 250gb and a 4tb drive, ideally more but again it depends on which areas I will have to sacrifice on with costs. Recommendations on what sort of speed type I should be looking at etc, is needed as I have no idea on this one.

Is there anything else that I am missing that I will need other than a case and fans?

This is currently what I have for my build, is 6000 CL40 ram excessive? Am I best of switching out for something else?

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£368.48)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL40 Memory (£106.70)
Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card (£949.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit (£134.99)
Total: £1559.17

Thanks again

Tetras · 2 Sep 2023 at 15:51

For a 2K build, I'd look at something like this:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x (unchanged) AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £368.99
1 x (unchanged) AMD - Starfield Ryzen Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00523) = £0.00
1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £199.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance RGB EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMH32GX5M2B5600Z36) (SKU: MY-4DT-CS) = £119.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-3A7-SP) = £749.98
1 x AMD - Starfield Radeon Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00542) = £0.00
1 x Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (ZP2000GM3A013) (SKU: HD-3DX-SE) = £109.99
2 x WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) (SKU: HD-589-WD) = £39.95
1 x Lian Li Lancool III RGB Full Tower PC Case - Black (SKU: CA-7AY-LL) = £154.99
1 x MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 UK PSU 1000W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-00W-MS) = £160.00
1 x (unchanged) Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-10528) (SKU: SW-18K-MS) = £149.99

Total: £2,093.82 (includes delivery: £0.00)

Cooler: this.

The Tomahawk is a similar price and has spdif, if you need it, but it does drop the PCI-E 5.0 SSD.

mark_htfc · 2 Sep 2023 at 16:05

Wow that was quick, thanks for that and it has everything I'm wanting too, minus the drop to the XT. Although I'm selling my machine to my brother for a couple of hundred so I will offset that against this and add back in the XTX.

I am not sure if I need a spdif, I think my current speakers uses it as they are a good 13 years old. I can always make do without speakers as I have a headset anyway. And then get new speakers in time.

Tetras · 2 Sep 2023 at 17:12

mark_htfc said:
Wow that was quick, thanks for that and it has everything I'm wanting too, minus the drop to the XT. Although I'm selling my machine to my brother for a couple of hundred so I will offset that against this and add back in the XTX.

The PSU is for the XT, for the XTX I'd swap to the Corsair RM1000x SHIFT (+£10), since I don't think this needs to be daisy chained with a 3x PCI-E 8 pin graphics card.

I did a quick look on reddit and the Lancool III appears to be compatible with the SHIFT's side mount cables, according to user comments.

mark_htfc · 3 Sep 2023 at 15:52

I just have one last question and then I think I am all set.

In regards to the 7900xtx, who are the brands to go for or avoid? The Sapphire is currently down to £900 on OCUK which seems like a good price. I have also seen the MSI card elsewhere for £900 but I can get £75 off that. Is the Sapphire card the best option of the two?

I was originally going for the Gigabyte model as I've never had issues with them in the past but the £50 saving seems like a no-brainer. Unless the cards at £950 are the best ones to go for.

Tetras · 3 Sep 2023 at 16:34

mark_htfc said:
Is the Sapphire card the best option of the two?

Sapphire rarely make a bad card, so I'm sure it would be fine.

You might want to have a look at this thread:

The Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) Owners Thread.

Ok guys thanks, purchased the Sapphire Pulse 7900XT at £749.99 which replaces my Powercolor 6800 which I bought for £599 from here back in Dec.2020? the 6800 will now go to my son which replaces the Nvidia 2070 I gave him when I got the 6800 and so on. He will be delighted as the 6800 range is...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

sx_turbo · 3 Sep 2023 at 22:26

Pretty certain I read that ocuk handle the sapphire warranty if you buy the card from them and they slap on a 3 year warranty, which means any warranty issues are dealt with int he UK and likely can be sorted within a few days rather than months to which imo is worth it over the additional £75 saving you can get on the msi elsewhere.

mark_htfc · 3 Sep 2023 at 22:47

sx_turbo said:
Pretty certain I read that ocuk handle the sapphire warranty if you buy the card from them and they slap on a 3 year warranty, which means any warranty issues are dealt with int he UK and likely can be sorted within a few days rather than months to which imo is worth it over the additional £75 saving you can get on the msi elsewhere.

I've decided to get the ASRock card, as it has the RGB. Only £50 more than the sapphire and has better speeds too.

mark_htfc · 4 Sep 2023 at 15:07

Sorry, I keep getting random questions popping into my head. This should hopefully be my last question before I place the order this evening.

As my PC will not be coming with a CD/DVD drive (this will be my first ever machine without one as I normally do like to have one), if I was to buy an external CD drive, will my computer automatically pick this up before installing any drivers? I am getting windows 11 so I obviously need to install that during the first boot of the PC but without a CD drive I need an external one. Not sure how it all works with an external drive.