Upgrading 10year old PC.. i5 750

MarcD3832

MarcD3832

MarcD3832

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Hello,

I’m planning on upgrading my 10year old PC for gaming.. I’ve stayed out of the loop for 8years so have no idea what’s decent except for graphics cards...

Here are the current specs.

Core i5 750 - stock clock.
Asus maximus III extreme.
4gb of Corsair RAM.
1000w Corsair PSU.

Cooling is no issue as I have a custom loop.
Hard drives are fine and I have a couple new 1TB 2.5” SSDs that I’ll use for OS and games.

At first I was going to just buy a RTX 2070 or 2080 but then thought about the memory and CPU.. the i5 is slow and old compared to current options and now I’m thinking if I got something like a 2060, new cpu and memory it would be more beneficial than sticking a powerful gfx card in and having it bottleneck.

I just want to do some gaming.. stuff that’s popular today mostly FPS games (Modern warfare/warzone) and certain horror game pc exclusives like the beast inside etc. I have a PS4 and Xbox that I use for most of my gaming I just wanted to play some of the stuff I can’t on console on PC.

Budget is say £1000.
Tia.
 
I would probably go for something like this, do you need a psu and case? if not then you could bump up to a 2070 super.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £910.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
 
Joxeon said:
I would probably go for something like this, do you need a psu and case? if not then you could bump up to a 2070 super.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £910.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
Click to expand...

‘I’ve heard quite a bit about AMD processors lately being very good for gaming.. are their graphics cards also good or an improved? Then again I haven’t really been keeping up to date with things and always see people building £10k 2080 pc’s.

I have a Corsair 800D case which I still like and the psu is a Corsair HX1000 which I think is still good but not sure on how eco friendly it is..

Is a 2070 super a lot better than the RX5700? I’ve always had AMD cards except two gtx480’s a long time ago.
Thank you btw.
 
MarcD3832 said:
have no idea what’s decent except for graphics cards...
Click to expand...
Really nothing decent in current graphics card situation.
In CPUs Ryzen 3700X gives more CPU power (higher clocks) than next-gen consoles and upgrade path to actually improved architecture and up to 16 core monsters beating whole lots of HEDT Intels.
But graphics card situation is literally historically bad, courtesy of even Intel almost white knight looking making Nvidia.
(though as much blame is really on sheeples)

Basically no matter how much you pay there's no future proofness, but only paying more and more for getting screwed into rear.
Just as an example GPU of next Xbox is fully at 2080 Super level in raw power and with tight optimization of everything in consoles likely performs better.
And in raytracing it might well be match for 2080 Ti, because major performance loss from it in RTX.
That architecture is likely AMD's GPU equivalent long term goal to Zen uarch in CPUs.
First cards with it are likely released with Zen3 architecture CPUs sometime late summer/fall.

Also Intel should be joining discrete GPU game with their raytracing architecture cards in this year.
Most likely first cards are't high end ones, though Intel sure has bank account size to try surprise with something more secret kept.

Until that time wouldn't buy anything more expensive than Radeon 5700 XT.
 
It’s started again.. this is why I stayed away from PC building and gaming..

Ryzen 7 3700x vs 3800x vs Ryzen 9 3900x? Is the Ryzen 9 worth the extra?

is 16GB enough RAM these days?
 
@Joxeon spec is as good as you'll get right now for 1K, consider it a massive upgrade. I'm surprised you got 10 years out of that rig, its had a good innings. 16GB is considered average for a rig these days. 3800x isnt worth the extra money over the 3700x. 3900x I'd only consider for Gaming & Streaming at the same time or Encoding/transcoding/video editing. The GFX card = Depends on the resolution you plan on playing games at. 5700XT should play the game you mentioned in the OP at 1440p quite comfortably.
 
MarcD3832 said:
It’s started again.. this is why I stayed away from PC building and gaming..

Ryzen 7 3700x vs 3800x vs Ryzen 9 3900x? Is the Ryzen 9 worth the extra?

is 16GB enough RAM these days?
Click to expand...
3800X is pointless CPU for its now £90 higher price than 3700X.
Difference is marginal (percent or two) and it still needs separate cooler to perform best.
3900X is the real step up from 3700X by having enough and some more of cores to handle heavy games without background tasks causing hiccups.
If wanting "one shot" CPU to last that whole decade that would be the choise.
Future of the games is heavily multihreaded and next-gen consoles bring clock speed capped variant of 3700X as base level for next-gen games.

But unlike greedy Intel just rebranding same old 2015's 6th gen Skylake on different sockets, AMD offers real upgrade path:
There's improved Zen3 architecture coming for AM4 socket with probably about 15%, max 20% performance increase.
Very well priced 3700X would stay high end untill those Zen3s go into discount around winter 22 and you could then grab 12 core Zen3 for decent improvement in single core performance and major boost for multicore.
Overall that would be the longest usage life from platform giving path.


16GB is well enough for majority of current games designed for cramming into antique consoles, but some heaviest and few modded games are definitely hammering their head against it.
Also doesn't need much of multi-tabbed browsing for browser to consume gigabytes and that 16GB starts fast shrinking toward 10GB.

As major variable new consoles have historically small generational memory increase by only doubling it from predecessors.
But they're going to use special techniques for compensating that by streaming some data "on the fly" just before use from SSD reduce need for RAM.
Very tight integration and optimizing of fixed hardware makes such band aids easier than in PC.
So for best running heavier future games are certainly going to need memory.

That means 16GB definitely isn't future proof for longer time.
Something like 24GB would be ideal to leave that 16+GB free even with background junk.
But that amount is harder/complex to achieve making 2x16GB kit as that choise for 5+ years.
Fortunately DRAM prices are now in wave bottom after absolutely ridiculous cartel pricing about 2 to 5 five years ago.
Good 2x16GB kits start from £150:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...dual-channel-kit-pvs432g320c6k-my-106-pa.html
And these Crucials with the second best of all Micron rev.E chips are known for consistently overclocking to 3600MHz CAS16:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...b-kit-2-x-16gb-ddr4-3200-udimm-my-20e-cr.html
 
That's the big issue right now. It's a good time to buy a CPU with the new Ryzen chips offering great performance for the money but with new consoles on the horizon and the price of graphics cards being ridiculous IMO nothing in the current market looks good in the longer term without spending crazy money

If it were me I'd buy a Ryzen motherboard, CPU and 16gb RAM (leaving space for upgrading to 32gb) then either stick with your current GPU or go for something cheaper which is good enough for now until the market settles next year when the new consoles are released.

I have a suspicion we'll see lower prices and/or substantially faster GPU's next year with the new consoles offering some much needed competition.

That's my plan! :cool:
 
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