Upgrade advice for gaming

Gamefreak501 · 21 Jan 2021 at 20:14

Good evening all,

My 3570K @4ghz is showing it's age in the latest AAA games i.e. Cyberpunk 2077, after 8-9 years of faithfulness.

I am setting aside a £600-£700 budget for CPU/motherboard/memory and leaning towards 8-core/16-thread for a little future-proofing and came up with these two builds, which will be paired with a 550W Corsair PSU and a 1660 GTX.

I will be upgrading to a 27" 1440p 144hz monitor and 10gb+ video card in a few months time, once GPU stock normalises again.

#1

Intel build at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i7-10700K 3.8GHz (Comet Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £338.99
1 x Gigabyte Z490 UD AC (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £149.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK32GX4M2B3= £158.99
1 x Noctua NH-D9L CPU Cooler - 92mm= £47.99

Total: £706.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)

#2

AMD build at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £299.99
1 x MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard= £159.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB) 3200 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit= £134.99

Total: £605.43 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated as always!

Gamefreak501 · 23 Jan 2021 at 19:10

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Mickyflinn - for the Intel build, the i7 is a strong CPU for Cyberpunk 2077, but I realised a few things - the fan is for a different type of Intel Xeon socket (oops!) but I can swap it out for a bequiet or an alternative Noctua, also the 32gb/3200 Ryzen-optimised DDR4 is actually cheaper than the 3000 speed at the moment, and works with that motherboard (with XMP support)

ScotchHop - thanks for your reply, AMD still holds the crown as an all rounder when compared with the Intel offerings which are slightly better overall for gaming, it's still a toughie, deciding between the two.

I'm leaning towards the i7 purely for outright gaming performance in Cyberpunk from the Toms Hardware CPU scaling benchmarks, especially at 1440p.

I wonder if it's worth waiting for Rocket Lake news before I pull the trigger?

Gamefreak501 · 29 Jan 2021 at 01:48

**Update***

So, with the lockdown not letting up just yet, I decided to preorder a Nintendo Switch to play with some friends, so my upgrade will probably happen in March time instead of February.

I am also now most likely to go for the 5600x because it's such a good overall CPU in comparison to Intel counterparts, plus when I learned that Intel are dropping the 1200 socket for 1700, I won't be going down the 1200 socket route anymore, maybe the 1700 socket CPUs will be great, but I already got burned when I bought into the 1155 socket all those years ago, which was also short lived and left me few upgrade options.

It also means, that I might have access to cards like the 3070ti or 3080, but regardless, my CPU is holding me back more than anything else at the moment and needs to get replaced first.

I'll post a build thread when it's all in

Gamefreak501 · 2 Feb 2021 at 19:48

Good evening all

Sorry for the bump, I received a bit more birthday money so I'm going to push ahead with the following upgrades after my night shift, could someone cast their eye over this:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...4-x570-chipset-atx-motherboard-mb-34h-ms.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...00c17-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-299-ks.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aero...ormance-cpu-water-cooler-120mm-hs-009-ae.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...hz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3cc-am.html

I'll be getting 2x 16gb kits as the MSI web site indicates its in the QVL for 4 slots, the only caveat is that there is no argb header on the MSI boards (Asus/Gigabyte boards have these but don't support CL17 ddr4).

Sorry for the link posting, I'm posting from my phone whilst I've a quiet moment on the graveyard.

Any advice appreciated!!