Upgrade vs New Build: Old and older m-ITX!

[Jake_UK]

Hi folks,

I'm looking to upgrade or replace two m-ITX PCs in a few months time (as the weather starts to turn bad) so right now I'm looking for high level advice to set budget requirements/expectations or perhaps to keep an eye out for 2nd hand parts for the older machine... if that's worthwhile!

Use-case: I'm looking to upgrade or build for gaming at 3440x1440 with settings on max. quality. I don't feel the need for FPS >60. Examples of games currently in Steam wishlist or regularly played: RDR/RDR2, Atomfall, HoI4, TW series, OMD3/4, KCD1/2. My intention, after dual booting for >10 years, is to finally ditch Windows completely and solely use Linux (thanks to what seem to be really solid advances driven by Valve and others). Perhaps this means a little more grunt is asked of the system though for some games?

Machine 1: B550M-ITX/ac mobo with Ryzen 7 3700X, 16GB RAM and RTX 2060 SUPER. Housed in NXZT H1 with a 650W PSU.
Machine 2: i5-3570K, 8GB RAM and GTX 670 FTW. Housed in a Shuttle FZ77 (SZ77R5) with a 500W PSU.

Both systems have (SATA) SSD for OS and HDD for games.

Perhaps an M.2 SSD for Machine 2? Would I see a worthwhile difference if dropped ~£250 on a replacement GPU for this?

What are folks thoughts on Machine 1 - simply too old to upgrade to perform the use case described or is there life in the old dog yet?

TIA

 

[Jake_UK]

Do you know the exact models of the PSU's? The wattage alone doesn't tell us much as quality between units can vary greatly, your overall budget would be helpful too.

Thanks Gray.

The PSUs both came with the cases. Machine 1 is 650W 80 Plus Gold, Machine 2 is 500W 80 Plus - some more description on links but no brand name or anything like that.

Historically I'd probably spend something like £1-1.2k on a new build, e.g. to replace #1 (just the machine, no monitor/peripherals) and am essentially I'm wondering if it's worth spending a few hundred on upgrades to delay that for Machine 2 or whether it's better to start from scratch with both machines. A 5700X3D plus a 9060XT 16GB look like they'd be around £500-550.... consideration is best bang for buck more than actual number of bucks.

 

[Jake_UK]

Thanks for the advice so far folks.

In looking at the card Gray found (looks like a good price with the discount on it right now) I noticed that the link to the H1 case is for the v2 whereas I have the v1. I found a review of the v1 here but also dug out the leaflet that came with it and:

• The 650W PSU is correct for my v1 (the v2 has 750W). Mine has model info NZXT NP-S650M.
• The max. GPU size is different for v1 and v2 though, with a max. length of 302mm for mine. Doing a quick search this shorter length restriction pushes the price for that 5070 Ti right up!

There seem to be a few more options for the 5060 Ti though... e.g. this one for £400 vs the 5070Ti for £680... is the performance change really as dramatic as that price drop?

 

[Jake_UK]

Thanks again for all your inputs. I'm thinking I'll do a few things across multiple steps over the coming few months:

1) Next week/10 days upgrade Machine 1's GPU to a 5060 Ti (looks like best bang for the buck, lower power draw/heat than £500 9070s). The Asus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Prime 16GB is £430 at oc.uk and looks like it'll just fit and with 3 fans will hopefully be quieter than the 2 fan stubby cards. I'll then put the existing 2060 Super into Machine 2 to replace the GTX 670. Also add a 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe to Machine 2 (Mobo has a heatsink waiting for it).
2) See how that works out but plan to put a 5700X3D into Machine 2 in a month or two to complete that upgrade.
3) In the late autumn/early winter do a complete new build that will replace Machine 2. Already eyeing up the Louqe Raw S1 as the starting point for that

 

[Jake_UK]

2) See how that works out but plan to put a 5700X3D into Machine 2 in a month or two to complete that upgrade.

So, here I am a few months later thinking about the above and I am reconsidering a bit... given that the new GFX card I put in is PCIe 5 and my current mobo is gen 4 and my riser cable is even only gen 3, what are folks opinions on performance and bang for buck impact of:

a) Spending ~£300 to replace the riser cable to enable the current mobo's PCIe4 (~£55) and adding the 5700X3D as discussed above (~£240)
versus
b) Spending ~£600 on replacing riser cable (~£55), changing the mobo to an ASRock B650i Lightning (giving PCIe 5 and AM5 at ~£200) and putting an 7800X3D ~£350 in there.

Is twice the spend justifiable for (AIUI ~20% CPU speed increase plus going to PCIe 5)... my wallet is telling me Option A is better and my gut is saying I might not see much real world experience difference.

Is even the £300 option going to make that much difference to my day to day experience (I finally ended up with a 9060XT as the GFX upgrade due to Nvidia's shocking Linux drivers for the 5060Ti I originally bought)?

FYI, this kind of cost/performance tradeoff is also likely to be relevant to the replacement for the other, older machine (seems likely I'd use the same mobo/CPU/gfx combination).

Thoughts?

TIA

 

[Jake_UK]

Thanks Tetras - no, it's a typo in my OP, this machine is running 32GB of system RAM not 16GB.

My reasoning for the upgrade is two-fold, but as per my posts I'm not fully convinced I'm going to get vale for money/bang for buck. The two thinks making me think about the upgrade is that I'm going to replace the older PC completely and so having the retained machine plus the new build at pretty much the same level would be nice and that I wonder whether the CPU and/or PCIe bus has become a bottleneck.

General feeling is that upgrades are generally more hassle and cost than they're worth and it's better to hold out a little longer with an existing machine and then do a complete new build to get best value for money and optimum compatibility between components (as all the same 'generation'). It's only really because I'm now running two gaming-spec machines in the house that I'm giving serious though to an upgrade as, to answer your question, I'm not unhappy with the rig's performance today.

However, another way to look at it perhaps is that it's better to stagger/separate the new builds (cost of, particularly) rather than actively try and align them (even if that might feel better from e.g. a co-op gaming perspective).

 

[Jake_UK]

a 7800X3D would offer you at least one, probably two GPU upgrades on the 9060 XT before the CPU needs replacing, so if it were me, I'd weigh whatever limited benefits you get from it now, alongside the upgrade path.

Thanks for your thoughts Tetras - your thinking seems to align with mine (not worth the upgrade) and your point above makes me think best value from an upgrade to this machine now is likely to be had by doing CPU and GPU together at some point in the future.