Upgrade advice please!

Spoony96 · 23 Nov 2021 at 14:45

Hi friends. I'm looking to upgrade my part-dated PC rig - I'm unsure where to start really so would love some advice.

I primarily use the PC for work nowadays, I work in television broadcasting so do a fair amount of encoding (primarily in Premiere Pro). However, I still game from time to time and I want to obviously have the best experience when doing that.

I got my hands on a 3080 at retail price a few months ago, but am unsure on what CPU/mobo to pair with it and would mainly be focusing on upgrading these 2 units.

Budget isn't too much of an issue; the best bang for my buck would be good to know.

Thanks, dudes.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 CL9 Memory
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB Founders Edition Video Card
Monitor: Dell S2721DGF 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

JollyJamma · 23 Nov 2021 at 18:20

You do offload your encoding onto your GPU?

I can imagine you do which is way your system is so imbalanced.

if you could use more ram, you’d need to upgrade to a new rig. DDR3 just isn’t worth investing in.

would you consider DDR5? It would allow you to upgrade to much larger and faster modules down the road but the immediate purchase would be expensive.

What are the size of your video projects that you work on and how much RAM would be ideal? 32 or 64gigs?

Joxeon · 23 Nov 2021 at 18:40

I'd go for a 12700K, Z690 + DDR4 as DDR5 is hard to come by right now and the performance don't really justify the extra price.

Quartz · 23 Nov 2021 at 19:01

Spoony96 said:
Budget isn't too much of an issue;

If you're serious about that, read this Puget Systems article and look into Threadripper Pro solutions, though it predates the latest Intel CPUs. (TLDR: get the 3975WX.)

Spoony96 · 23 Nov 2021 at 19:17

JollyJamma said:
You do offload your encoding onto your GPU?

I can imagine you do which is way your system is so imbalanced.

if you could use more ram, you’d need to upgrade to a new rig. DDR3 just isn’t worth investing in.

would you consider DDR5? It would allow you to upgrade to much larger and faster modules down the road but the immediate purchase would be expensive.

What are the size of your video projects that you work on and how much RAM would be ideal? 32 or 64gigs?

This system isn't my primary work machine. I use an iMac mainly but I want to be able to handle work on both really.

I think DDR4 is my best bet at the moment and 32GB of RAM is fine for my workload.

Joxeon said:
I'd go for a 12700K, Z690 + DDR4 as DDR5 is hard to come by right now and the performance don't really justify the extra price.

Thanks for the recommendation. Is that one of Intel's new chips then? I haven't really looked into them.

Joxeon · 23 Nov 2021 at 20:47

Spoony96 said:
Thanks for the recommendation. Is that one of Intel's new chips then? I haven't really looked into them.

They are very good in gaming and premier pro.

JollyJamma · 24 Nov 2021 at 09:14

Spoony96 said:
This system isn't my primary work machine. I use an iMac mainly but I want to be able to handle work on both really.

I think DDR4 is my best bet at the moment and 32GB of RAM is fine for my workload.

Thanks for the recommendation. Is that one of Intel's new chips then? I haven't really looked into them.

here’s a review of the 12700K. TLDR; It’s very very fast. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/intel-core-i7-12700k-review