Choosing an upgrade path - GPU or CPU+MOBO+RAM?

[Recca29]

If you want to use for long term go with a Ryzen 1700 or 1600x with a decent X370 board. AMD will use the same socket till 2020, so future upgrade will be easy.
Moderate OC will get you on par with Intel processors for anything above 1080p.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

Unfortunately for me, no matter what I do, my 2500k will not run stable at anything above 4.5ghz I've tried numerous times since first getting it.

The 2500k does still have some life in it.. but how long? It's hard to deny the fact that it is starting to show its age. Mine has had a good run for 5 years, but i think now is a good time to look to upgrading.
An 8 series chip appeals to me - overclocks well, 6 cores, newer platform and will provide a noticable increase in performance (when paired with the 1080).
It will also suit my needs - which have changed since I first got my 2500k. Before it was just for gaming, but now i do a lot of big simulations etc, so the extra cores will be a useful addition.

I have decided on a new GPU for the meantime though. A 1080 will be a good addition and a small motivation to renew the other parts of my system. It wont be fully utilized in the beginning, but will offer a nice boost. Ill be able to get everything cranked up, with an acceptable framerate.

Saving for the rest of the parts will hopefully coincide with drops in price for each, which will give better value. In the past i have been in a position where value mattered and i needed a good price/perf and very carefully watch what i spent, but now I can get some really nice hardware, that will also last a while (probably longer) and not have to matter about it so much - so why not?

It's your money, spend it how you want. But to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't expect any major price drops in the future. https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/gx648d,yzGj4D,dQM323/

 

[theonek]

Deffinetely a modern GPU is a must today. Went from 780 to a 1080Ti and no more lag even on an old amd platform.

 

[Tomgang]

Agreed with GPU. Its your biggest bottleneck in your setup right now.

GTX 1070 Ti good choise. If lucky you can get GTX 1080 performance out of it with overclock. Dont waste money on GTX 1080 or TI as long you have that 21" Samsung 205BW monitor.

Besides that, if you want to. You cut swap that I5 2500K out with an I7 2600K/2700K/3770K cpu and oc the crap out of it. That shut give you a bit more performance in games as well. Cause not only does you get hyper threading but also more L3 cashe from 6 to 8 MB and if you swap in a I7 3770K a bit better IPC as well but nothing ground breaking throw + better support for faster memory.

Get 8 GB more ram or 16 GB in total.

Heck if you are up to it, asrock has throw out a NVMe SSD support bios. Update to that and NVMe SSD shut work on your system or there is another solution. Find a used Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe, this ssd has a legacy mode build in so that it can boot from it with out propper NVMe support. I am doing so on my even older X58 motherboard with a Samsung 950 PRO 256 GB and its a blast, Lightning fast response even over my sata SSD´s.

Se bios her, if interested. But be sure you know what you are doing. A failed bios update, can result in useless motherboard or a motherboard with bugs. Dont update from windows but directly from bios itself.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z77 extreme4/#BIOS

Remember if you want to take full advantage over Nvidia 1000 series card like DX12 you will need to upgrade to windows 10. DX12 is not supported by windows 7, 8 or 8.1. Dont worry win 10 works great on older pc´s. Been running Win 10 on my old X58 pc for over 2 years now also remenber with nvidia 900 and 1000 serie card you can simulate higher resolution on your screen with nvidia DSR and it works and you can deffently se the difference. have done my self and yes you can see difference from 1920 x1200 to 4K on my native 1920 x 1200 monitor.

So that your system would maybe look some thing like this.

Processor: I7 2600K or I7 3770K
Motherboard: AsRock z77 Extreme4 with new NVMe bios?
Memory: 2 x 8gb Corsair vengeance @ 1866mhz
Video Card(s): GTX 1070 or GTX 1070 Ti? your choise
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO maybe? 1x Samsung 850 Evo 256GB SSD 1x 140gb 7200rpm Seagate HDD
Power Supply: 650W XFX PSU
OS: Windows 10 home 64 bits

If you do all these things, that pc shut last you 2 or 3 more years i think.

I dit something simular this year to my X58 pc. swapped out CPU from I7 920 @ 4 GHz to a I7 980X @ 4.25 Ghz + second gen X58 mobo so i got sata 3 and USB 3.0, from GTX 970 to a GTX 1080 TI and from a sata SSD to a used Samsung 950 PRO. Bedst choise i ever made this year. Only GPU is new so cost me a bit while CPU, mobo and SSD is used so that whas a rather cheap upgrade. This combo of new and old runs great and my point is that if you do the same with your system or something simular. Your pc will be great again

Or you can just smash your piggy bank and bay new. Your choise and also remember by selling your old parts can extend your budget if you are on a tight budget.

 

[eidairaman1]

Only upgrade the gpu now, don't bother upgrading the rest, February 2017 is approx for Ryzen+, wait till then

 

[Rezza]

Only upgrade the gpu now, don't bother upgrading the rest, February 2017 is approx for Ryzen+, wait till then

Cheers, Ill be doing that for the time being. Just keeping my eye out for some decent deals on the Palit Jetstream 1080. Ill also keep an eye on the 1070ti to see if some really good deals materialize.

It will probably be Feb/March ill be upgrading the cpu, mobo, ram. Although I doubt ill be going to Ryzen... Its not my cup of tea. The overclocking is limited and I don't like that.
I'm pretty sure that the 8600k setup I have in mind will have dropped a little by then. If not, oh well! I don't want to keep waiting for the next big release - ill be waiting forever. Also, whilst i appreciate the advice of upgrading with older tech, I adamantly believe these incremental upgrades with older tech is a waste of money and very short lived. I WANT something new.

 

[eidairaman1]

Cheers, Ill be doing that for the time being. Just keeping my eye out for some decent deals on the Palit Jetstream 1080. Ill also keep an eye on the 1070ti to see if some really good deals materialize.

It will probably be Feb/March ill be upgrading the cpu, mobo, ram. Although I doubt ill be going to Ryzen... Its not my cup of tea. The overclocking is limited and I don't like that.
I'm pretty sure that the 8600k setup I have in mind will have dropped a little by then. If not, oh well! I don't want to keep waiting for the next big release - ill be waiting forever. Also, whilst i appreciate the advice of upgrading with older tech, I adamantly believe these incremental upgrades with older tech is a waste of money and very short lived. I WANT something new.

You want something now, Go Threadripper.
By the way good luck with intel abandoning it after a cpu refresh...

 

[Rezza]

You want something now, Go Threadripper.
By the way good luck with intel abandoning it after a cpu refresh...

This isn't constructive. A threadripper build will be way out of my budget.

 

[eidairaman1]

This isn't constructive. A threadripper build will be way out of my budget.

Save for it, won't have to do any upgrades other than a gpu here and there.