Upgrade in stages

Jayman · 12 Jan 2019 at 12:24

Hi all, Just after some advice on upgrade my near 6 year old setup. I'm thinking of doing this in stages CPU & bits first then down the line monitor and GFX card (not sure on order there). So some advice would be very much appreciated. Budget would be £650-700 for the cpu bits, Id estimate maybe £350'ish for the gfx card but that's down the line but I wouldn't be spending massively on it eg gtx 2080 is not happening.

Current kit to upgrade
I5 3750k
8gb RAM
mobo
550w PSU
Case

Gfx card is currently a GTX 1060 with a 24" 60hz iiyama monitor. Not sure where I am going with these but would need to run alongside stage 1 and then upgrade without breaking the bank.

This would be for general use and gaming, currently I like pubg, hitman, civ, the division, starcraft2.

Thanks in advance.

orbitalwalsh · 12 Jan 2019 at 14:57

Personally, might worth waiting for ryzen 3000 in June if you can .
At 1080p , you are CPU bound but mainly when you have a powerful GPU, currently system would do just fine .

Games like BFV playing with 63 others online will tax CPU to max but other recent AAA games your still in recommended specs , specially if you overclock the CPU

4K8KW10 · 12 Jan 2019 at 15:03

Jayman said:
Hi all, Just after some advice on upgrade my near 6 year old setup. I'm thinking of doing this in stages CPU & bits first then down the line monitor and GFX card (not sure on order there). So some advice would be very much appreciated. Budget would be £650-700 for the cpu bits, Id estimate maybe £350'ish for the gfx card but that's down the line but I wouldn't be spending massively on it eg gtx 2080 is not happening.

Current kit to upgrade
I5 3750k
8gb RAM
mobo
550w PSU
Case

Gfx card is currently a GTX 1060 with a 24" 60hz iiyama monitor. Not sure where I am going with these but would need to run alongside stage 1 and then upgrade without breaking the bank.

This would be for general use and gaming, currently I like pubg, hitman, civ, the division, starcraft2.

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Look at these for stage 1 of the upgrade process.
Stage 2 wait for further 7nm GPU releases.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 2700 4.10GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £269.99
1 x G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black= £139.99
1 x ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £119.99
1 x Cryorig M9 Plus CPU Heatsink with 2 x 92mm Fans= £25.99
1 x Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 500GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £119.99

Total: £687.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)

Quartz · 12 Jan 2019 at 15:21

What else do you have?

An immediate upgrade if you don't have one already would be a SSD. Next would be the GPU: AMD have announced their Radeon VII cards and Nvidia have launched the RTX 2060 so you should see how those fare against each other. You might also consider a monitor upgrade - higher Hz or higher resolution or both. Lastly there's your CPU. Really, it's still good, especially if overclocked.

Jayman · 12 Jan 2019 at 16:28

I have a 120gb SSD in there at the moment for Windows and apps then a 7200rpm 1tb drive for games, both could do with being bigger but they are hanging in there so not essential to do anything with those right now.

I figured it would be my cpu that would be holding things back as its 6yrs old. Not sure where to go monitor wise - obviously higher than 60hz but then we get into size, resolution and gsync/freesync.

Would the AMD Ryzen be better than an Intel I5 9600k?

Ive also just tried the RE2 demo which seemed to run fine 60fps 1080p, thing I dont get there is the minimum cpu is an i5 4460 yet mines a 3570k, am I missing something there?

Quartz · 12 Jan 2019 at 20:00

No, you're not missing anything. CPUs just haven't advanced that much.

4K8KW10 · 12 Jan 2019 at 22:20

Jayman said:
I have a 120gb SSD in there at the moment for Windows and apps then a 7200rpm 1tb drive for games, both could do with being bigger but they are hanging in there so not essential to do anything with those right now.

I figured it would be my cpu that would be holding things back as its 6yrs old. Not sure where to go monitor wise - obviously higher than 60hz but then we get into size, resolution and gsync/freesync.

Would the AMD Ryzen be better than an Intel I5 9600k?

Ive also just tried the RE2 demo which seemed to run fine 60fps 1080p, thing I dont get there is the minimum cpu is an i5 4460 yet mines a 3570k, am I missing something there?

Well, the Ryzen is 16 thread CPU, an i5 9600K is 6 thread CPU. Here, I can help you only with something of greatest value. If you prefer intel, then stick to it but it would be a strategic mistake.
Also, avoid old mechanical hard drives for anything. I gave you the fastest M.2 SSD currently available and you will be ahead of the curve. Just consider it seriously.

Jayman · 16 Jan 2019 at 14:14

Been looking in to the AMD option over an i5 9600k, the intel seems to get better fps but on the last video I watched the cpu was taking more of a pounding. Really not sure what this means in terms of whats best to get, the more I look the more confused I seem to get.

orbitalwalsh · 16 Jan 2019 at 14:46

Jayman said:
Been looking in to the AMD option over an i5 9600k, the intel seems to get better fps but on the last video I watched the cpu was taking more of a pounding. Really not sure what this means in terms of whats best to get, the more I look the more confused I seem to get.

if upgrading from 4 core intel, personally and naturally you'd want to double the core count . quick heads up, Hyper threading/SMT that doubled the thread counts normally add about 15% max to games. why you see benchmarks for games running flagship cards tested at 720p older i7's weren't double the performance of i5's etc. one of the main difference was clock speeds by default and overclock speeds.

currently your GPU should be fine at 1080p gameplay ! even with your i5. if its not overclocked then overclock it .

nvme over sats 3 ssd, you'll notice no difference in load times. if your doing heavy data work then night and day!

another way going around it , would be to grab rtx 2060 and freesync monitor thats G-sync enabled and run 144hz gamign at 1080p. still leaves £400-50 to upgrade in near future when ryzen 3000 comes along

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 WindForce OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £379.99
1 x AOC G2590FX 25" 1920x1080 FreeSync 144Hz LCD Gaming Monitor - HDMI, DP= £199.99

Total: £590.48 (includes shipping: £10.50)

or eating more into the Core budget for 1440p screen which would be more GPU bound and free up the CPU a little . still 144hz and g-sync compatible .

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 WindForce OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £379.99
1 x AOC AGON AG241QX 24" 2560x1440 TN FREESYNC/G-Sync 144Hz 1ms Widescreen LED Gaming Monitor= £299.99

Total: £691.68 (includes shipping: £11.70)

just another train of thought

Jayman · 16 Jan 2019 at 15:06

So is it worth holding on for the ryzen 3000 over the 2700 considering I am on the 3570k? Not sure when the new AMD chips are out or what price they may come in at.

slipperydave · 16 Jan 2019 at 15:08

Ryzen, surely?

orbitalwalsh · 16 Jan 2019 at 15:16

Jayman said:
So is it worth holding on for the ryzen 3000 over the 2700 considering I am on the 3570k? Not sure when the new AMD chips are out or what price they may come in at.

All depends on the games really to see any big gains . Assassins creed, BF4/V should see extra cores helping, specially with BFV in multiplayer .

ryzen 2700 floats around 3.8ghz all cores if it hasn't been overclocked, your i5 should do 4.3ghz with 4.5 max , old hitman used DX12 which was nice but latest doesn't and is a real CPU hog, again ryzen would help or 6 core intel

ryzen 3000 will be at computex with x570 boards, b550 boards or what ever they call is follow q3, expect it like current b450/350 to follow 2 months after so board vendors and reap some cash

Jayman · 16 Jan 2019 at 15:32

So autumn time for the ryzen 3000 then so maybe its best to take the plunge now. Hitman 2 is on my to get list, I'm still playing through the first, cpu seems to take a bit of a tonking.

Jayman · 22 Jan 2019 at 19:52

Been looking more at the ryzen 2700 seems good but yet slower on games than the i5 9600k so I'm not sure why the amd gets the nod, maybe its best to hold out and see what the next gen amd are coming in at price wise? Also a bit concerned about crazy price hikes with all the brexit bs.