Upgrading older PC - Worth it?

[mrt1988]

Hi all,


Just got my pc out of storage after a few years.
Built it with the help of everyone here (lost my old account) beginning of 2017.
Still to this day i love the way it looks, super clean in the enthoo evolv case.
With everything as it is in the world at the moment ( job security/bills etc) just wanted to ask if there is any point upgrading what i have or just setting money aside for a new build.

I basicaly just place call of duty on it and model with fusion 360.
Is it financuly worth it (if parts are cheap and still avilble) to get a few more years out of it. Or just stick the cash aside for the next build.


Specs :
asus 1151 socket Mb
Core i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
gtx 1070
16gb ddr4
fully watercooled - custom loop

Thanks all


T

 

[Tetras]

There was someone on here who upgraded only the graphics card on their 6700K and it did pretty well, better than I expected. But, it's actually still capable of playing games "as is" if you're comfortable with 1080p.

 

[Armageus]

As above - it's still a reasonably respectable setup.

You could drop in something like a 3060Ti. which is unlikely to be too heavily bottlenecked, but should still be a decent jump in performance.
~ £330


Depending on the Speed of your RAM and and compatibility of your Watercooling setup, you could change the Motherboard and CPU for a 12400F or similar, which would give you a decent jump in single threaded performance and multithreaded performance moving up to 6 cores. Again around the £300 mark


My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £154.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B760 DS3H DDR4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BX-GI) = £144.99

Total: £307.97 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

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[Noughtboy]

I have a different approach. Seeing as none of the graphics cards available in the current gen are at all inspiring and you game at 1080p (?) and want to run Fusion 360 (had to look it up), I would just upgrade the processor. Seeing as you are hoping to limit expenses, you can go about it four ways. The first option is the Intel system as above with the option to upgrade to Raptor Lake at some point in which case, I would look to a different MB.

The second option is AMD to just limit your expenses with a gain in performance on all counts (gaming and productivity). You can achieve this by getting the Gigabyte MB and the Ryzen 5500 (6 core/12 thread). Total cost is £190 assuming that you have decent DDR4 RAM (3200Mhz or 3600Mhz)

However, I think a more prudent option would be the 5600G for £25 more as when the inevitable happens with the 1070, you at least have a Vega APU as a backup whilst you source a discrete GPU. Total in this case is £225

The third approach is looking with one eye to the "future" to upgrade the CPU on the s/h market (think 5800X3D) or 5950X in which case spend the extra £30 on the MSI board. Total is still a max of £255

The fourth approach is to go "all out" and get the MSI board with a 5700G (8C/16T with Vega APU) with an eye to being able to drop in an upgrade later on if you really want to. You are still at £290.

Either way, apart from the 5500, you have faster single core clocks for Fusion, more cores for general productivity. I would recommend the £190 or £255 options really depending on whether you intend to upgrade the CPU or not.

My basket at OcUK:

 1 x Gigabyte B550M DS3H (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BR-GI) = £89.99
 1 x MSI B550M PRO-VDH WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-358-MS) = £119.99
 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5500 Six Core 4.2GHz  (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3D3-AM) = £99.94
 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Six Core 3.9GHz (Socket AM4) APU with RX Vega Graphics - Retail (SKU: CP-3CW-AM) = £125.00
 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Six Core 4.4GHz  (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3D2-AM) = £149.98
 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Eight Core 3.8GHz (Socket AM4) APU with RX Vega Graphics - Retail (SKU: CP-3CV-AM) = £170.00

Total: £762.89 (includes delivery: £7.99)​
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