Looking to upgrade a +- 6year old gaming PC - any advice please?

[SMR]

Greetings to anyone reading this.
This is my first post, I'm completely new on the thread, but these are my questions -

1. "Best" upgrade path for new gaming components (bang for buck wise)
2. Trying to maximize (reaching for an impossible achievement, I know) the shelf life of above mentioned components in point #1.
3. Working with (roughly) a budget of $1000 USD (maybe 1300 at an absolute squeeze, although I'm from South Africa, so saving that cash and keeping up with ever-changing hardware costs in today's market is daunting of course)!
4. End "goal" - to play AAA games going forward for at least 4-5 years @recommended specs and I'd prefer assuming 1440p res. (methinks 4k is far out of reach to be fair *any corrections?
5. I'm thinking of keeping the CASE, PSU, and SSD + HDD in my current setup, so only looking to upgrade rest (and possibly try sell off components too, to recoup a little).

My current system:

Cpu - Intel core i5 - 4690k Devil's canyon 3.5ghz O/C
MBoard - Msi gaming 5 DDR3 BOARD
RAM - Corsair vengeance 4gb x2 DDR3
GPU - MSI 970 gaming 4gb DDR5
PSU - COUGAR 700WATT PSU
SSD - OCZ ARC 100 SERIES 240GB 2.5
HDD - SEAGATE 2TB 7200RPM 64 MB
Case - Cooler Master Cosmos SE - ATX

I'd appreciate any helpful input from the TechPowerup community. Thanks in advance!

​

 

[Jetster]

Save your money and wait about 3-6 months for things to quiet down and supply to come back
But I don't know what the availability is in South Africa right now. You are in South Africa?

Or just update the platform Board, CPU, Memory Maybe a psu
IDK its a tough decision
Or drop $1000 on a GPU. Which would not be a best bang for buck

 

[AleXXX666]

Cpu - Intel core i5 - 10600k O/C.
MBoard - Z490 up to your design&IO ports.
RAM - 2 sticks of 16 gb each, 3200-3600 MHZ. even timings 3200.16-3600.18 are OK!
GPU - 2K RTX 3060 Ti/4K RTX 3070-3080. check gpu db here to see amd alternative, no fanboy, i'm just a bit lazy for this, sorry.
PSU - seasonic 650w gold minimum/750w gold best, again, you could choose EVGA/bequiet alternatives.
SSD - NVME, samsung evo (evo plus less preferred), kingston kc2000/kc2500, adata sx8200 pro, check Linus Tech Tips forum for good, NO AD HERE, it's just ADVISE!
HDD - i reco sata mid-end ssd, if you don't mind noise&vibes, get hdd.
case - up to you design. nzxt, corsair, fractal design. cheapos: deepcool, cooler master.
cooling: water for design, noctua/bequiet for good air. don't overpay for MONSTER-BIG coolers, you won't really need it.

 

[Melvis]

AMD 3600/5600
B550 Motherboard of some kind
2x8GB DDR4 3600MHz RAM
3060 Ti?

As a guess but see what you can find in your Country

 

[Hyderz]

Well i think in your case, you should upgrade bit by bit. Also gives you time to save more money.
With your specs id grab a Nvidia RTX3070 or AMD 6800 first - these 2 gpus are great at 1440p and 4k which your end goal is 1440p gaming.
See how the RTX3070 or 6800 performs with your system, if you find the cpu is really holding back the gpu on the games you play.
Then CPU/MOBO/RAM + Mobo is next option. I'd grab a 5600x/B550 or 11600k/Z590 when it comes out with 2x8 DDR4 3600mhz ram kit.
PSu - you'd want to get a good modular 650w with silver or gold ratings. My systems ive always used Corsair and Seasonic.
SSD/HDD/Case and monitor you can buy after.

 

[AleXXX666]

AMD 3600/5600
B550 Motherboard of some kind
2x8GB DDR4 3600MHz RAM
3060 Ti?

As a guess but see what you can find in your Country

For 5600 price you could get 10700 lol...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Save your money and wait about 3-6 months for things to quiet down and supply to come back

have to agree with this, market is sketchy atm for new builds.

 

[AleXXX666]

have to agree with this, market is sketchy atm for new builds.

Lol, GPU wise only.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

For 5600 price you could get 10700 lol...

but the 5600 is so much better than the 10700.

 

[AleXXX666]

but the 5600 is so much better than the 10700.

Really 6 vs 8 cores omfg

 

[jaggerwild]

Greetings to anyone reading this.
This is my first post, I'm completely new on the thread, but these are my questions -

1. "Best" upgrade path for new gaming components (bang for buck wise)
2. Trying to maximize (reaching for an impossible achievement, I know) the shelf life of above mentioned components in point #1.
3. Working with (roughly) a budget of $1000 USD (maybe 1300 at an absolute squeeze, although I'm from South Africa, so saving that cash and keeping up with ever-changing hardware costs in today's market is daunting of course)!
4. End "goal" - to play AAA games going forward for at least 4-5 years @recommended specs and I'd prefer assuming 1440p res. (methinks 4k is far out of reach to be fair *any corrections?
5. I'm thinking of keeping the CASE, PSU, and SSD + HDD in my current setup, so only looking to upgrade rest (and possibly try sell off components too, to recoup a little).

My current system:

Cpu - Intel core i5 - 4690k Devil's canyon 3.5ghz O/C
MBoard - Msi gaming 5 DDR3 BOARD
RAM - Corsair vengeance 4gb x2 DDR3
GPU - MSI 970 gaming 4gb DDR5
PSU - COUGAR 700WATT PSU
SSD - OCZ ARC 100 SERIES 240GB 2.5
HDD - SEAGATE 2TB 7200RPM 64 MB
Case - Cooler Master Cosmos SE - ATX

I'd appreciate any helpful input from the TechPowerup community. Thanks in advance!

​

For Now I'd double(or quad)you ram, basically you want matching same sticks or 16 or 32 GB of good quality memory. But your tossing money at a dead platform, also for now as said upgrade the GPU. In the future you can reuse your PSU, and HHD'S, n Case. Assuming that PSU is a good quality unit and not too old. OH, plus that CPU can be overclocked with a proper cooler, think about an upgrade there?

 

[Fourstaff]

I agree with most posters that you may need to be opportunistic about your upgrades to stretch your dollar. Processor wise, you will need to aim for something at least 3600/5600X/10400F . For 1440 gaming, I think my RTX2070 level just about cut it right now, so its not going to be enough in the coming years to max out any AAA title. That said, I will still be able to enjoy many AAA games at reduced quality.

 

[AleXXX666]

I agree with most posters that you may need to be opportunistic about your upgrades to stretch your dollar. Processor wise, you will need to aim for something at least 3600/5600X/10400F . For 1440 gaming, I think my RTX2070 level just about cut it right now, so its not going to be enough in the coming years to max out any AAA title. That said, I will still be able to enjoy many AAA games at reduced quality.

3600>10400F>10600K>5600x
10600K is best bang for the buck for game atm.

 

[Fourstaff]

3600>10400F>10600K>5600x
10600K is best bang for the buck for game atm.

Not always true for smaller markets like SA. I ended up with 10400F instead of 3600 because there were none at a good price in this part of the world.

 

[AleXXX666]

Not always true for smaller markets like SA. I ended up with 10400F instead of 3600 because there were none at a good price in this part of the world.

Ok, but 10400F is better both price Nd performance wise

 

[Super XP]

For 5600 price you could get 10700 lol...

The Ryzen 5600 is the better processor.

 

[oobymach]

Idk what your local markets are like right now but my suggestion also would be to go with a 3600x or 5600x and a full atx mobo, b550 or x570 (they have m2 ssd drive slots) brand doesn't really matter, and 16gb of ram (2x 8gb sticks) of 3600 or 3800mhz.

If you're going to be gaming at 1080p a gtx 1070 is a good gpu, if you want 4k you'll want a 3060ti. I would also recommend a 512gb m2 drive for windows and add another down the road for games.

 

[AleXXX666]

Idk what your local markets are like right now but my suggestion also would be to go with a 3600x or 5600x and a full atx mobo, b550 or x570 (they have m2 ssd drive slots) brand doesn't really matter, and 16gb of ram (2x 8gb sticks) of 3600 or 3800mhz.

If you're going to be gaming at 1080p a gtx 1070 is a good gpu, if you want 4k you'll want a 3060ti. I would also recommend a 512gb m2 drive for windows and add another down the road for games.

1070 s..s currently even at 1080p, 1070ti minimu from oldies lol
16 gb was good 6 years back lol.
Don’t stupid and get 2*16 or 2*4+2*8 if you think it will be “cheaper”, but if you don’t need “bling bling” rgb, 2*16 3000 or 3200 is cheap today.
X570 is for pcie 4.0, which isn’t REALLY a difference, except you need some SERVER-GRADE storage speeds.
Intel’s socket 1200 line also have M2 NVME slots, so you choose which is better.
3600X is never better than 10400F, latter is hell more cheap lol. 5600x stays for i7-10700 price which is idiotic to get less cores.

 

[Super XP]

* AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
* ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming Mobo
* G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 (F4-3200C16D-32GVK)
* Corsair CX750F 750W Power Supply Modular ATX
* Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
* Fractal Design Fogus G Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, FD-CA-FOCUS-BK-W
-----------------
Graphics Cards? Worse time to buy them now. They are ALL Over-Priced & a Rip-Off at the moment.

1070 s..s currently even at 1080p, 1070ti minimu from oldies lol
16 gb was good 6 years back lol.
Don’t stupid and get 2*16 or 2*4+2*8 if you think it will be “cheaper”, but if you don’t need “bling bling” rgb, 2*16 3000 or 3200 is cheap today.
X570 is for pcie 4.0, which isn’t REALLY a difference, except you need some SERVER-GRADE storage speeds.
Intel’s socket 1200 line also have M2 NVME slots, so you choose which is better.
3600X is never better than 10400F, latter is hell more cheap lol. 5600x stays for i7-10700 price which is idiotic to get less cores.

Key Differences​

What are the key differences between 5600X and 10700
Advantages of Intel Core i7 10700

• Has 2 more physical cores
• Includes an integrated GPU Intel UHD Graphics 630
• 4% higher Turbo Boost frequency (4.8 GHz vs 4.6 GHz)

Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

• Newer - released 5-months later
• More modern manufacturing process – 7 versus 14 nanometers
• Has 16 MB larger L3 cache size
• Unlocked multiplier
• Newer PCI Express version – 4.0
• 29% faster in a single-core Geekbench v5 test - 1614 vs 1253 points
• Around 1.88 GB/s (4%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth....

 

[AleXXX666]

* AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
* ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming Mobo
* G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 (F4-3200C16D-32GVK)
* Corsair CX750F 750W Power Supply Modular ATX
* Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
* Fractal Design Fogus G Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, FD-CA-FOCUS-BK-W
-----------------
Graphics Cards? Worse time to buy them now. They are ALL Over-Priced & a Rip-Off at the moment.

Key Differences​

What are the key differences between 5600X and 10700
Advantages of Intel Core i7 10700

• Has 2 more physical cores
• Includes an integrated GPU Intel UHD Graphics 630
• 4% higher Turbo Boost frequency (4.8 GHz vs 4.6 GHz)

Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

• Newer - released 5-months later
• More modern manufacturing process – 7 versus 14 nanometers
• Has 16 MB larger L3 cache size
• Unlocked multiplier
• Newer PCI Express version – 4.0
• 29% faster in a single-core Geekbench v5 test - 1614 vs 1253 points
• Around 1.88 GB/s (4%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth....

manufacturing process - not a great deal, as you may know, Intel’s 14 are pretty close to AMD’s 7.

L3 cache - good.

Mem bandwidth - put more and OC it and you got it, not a great deal lol

single core - OC 10700KF (still same price, bare 10700F are cheaper than 5600x!) to 5+ ghz on single core and let’s see how amd 5600x clocks too

pci-e - cool, but not so important.

 

[qubit]

I can give you some general advice on this.

You can't truly future proof a PC, as that would mean that there are no advancements in the future, which would make life very boring. However, you can increase its useful life by making it "overpowered" as it were, ie a "better" spec than it needs to be.

The main component that needs to be reasonably up to date and fairly high end is the graphics card. In my case, I'm still rocking a 10 year old 2700K (see specs, bought it new) yet I can play the latest games, including CoD:MW at well above 60fps. This is because I bought the top end CPU at the time and Sandy Bridge was a gaming monster then, so the performance is still reasonable nowadays.

Also, I've been making incremental graphics card upgrades throughout the years and currently have a 2080 SUPER. I'd have bought the 3080 by now if it hadn't been sold out everywhere and I'm looking to upgrade to Rocket Lake for those really high framerates in the latest games, or maybe AMD when RL comes out and I can compare gaming performances. I'm still likely to go Intel though, as I have more confidence in the system working smoothly.

It looks like money is tight for you over there and/or things are very expensive, so the good news, is that the only real upgrades you need to make are the GPU and the RAM. rather than replacing everything. 16GB is best nowadays and shouldn't cost too much to upgrade, just buy another two 4GB sticks of the same speed.

If you can somehow get hold of it at a reasonable price, then I recommend a 3080 of some kind, don't bother with AMD. Also, 4K 60Hz monitors are not so expensive nowadays, even FreeSync ones, which I recommend. Your CPU is a bit faster than mine, so will easily run your games at more than 60fps and hence paired with a 3080 and 4K60 monitor will give you perfectly fluid framerates. Alternatively, buy a high framerate 144Hz or more monitor with FreeSync, which is better for twitch shooters. Even if your CPU/GPU can't hit 144Hz all the time, you'll still experience lower lag, less motion blur and will be better able to hit your enemy target. The lower lag is a biggie, really noticeable, even though it's only a few milliseconds difference.

Finally, ensure that you have the latest BIOS flashed on your mobo and all Windows patches and latest drivers to maximise reliability.

 

[Super XP]

manufacturing process - not a great deal, as you may know, Intel’s 14 are pretty close to AMD’s 7.

L3 cache - good.

Mem bandwidth - put more and OC it and you got it, not a great deal lol

single core - OC 10700KF (still same price, bare 10700F are cheaper than 5600x!) to 5+ ghz on single core and let’s see how amd 5600x clocks too

pci-e - cool, but not so important.

The PCIe 3x4 coupled with a fast M.2 drive will be a massive improvement on game load times and OS load times. It will also make the system a lot more snappy. That's why I recommend 1TB for the OS and to install games on. He can use his existing 2TB for back up and to install more games on it.
For example, I have 2 seperate Steam Folders with a mix of games on them.

AMD when RL comes out and I can compare gaming performances. I'm still likely to go Intel though, as I have more confidence in the system working smoothly.

I've always ran AMD CPUs and NEVER had a problem and always Ran quite Smooth. Not sure what you mean by Intel working smoothly, that's a very subjective opinion.
I've had Intel laptops that ran horribly and others that ran great.
Even my 1700X runs smooth as silk. Both companies have a great selection on CPUs, it's the overall configuration you choose that will determine instability or not. Like Overclocking and pushing the hardware way too much.

Keep everything on Stock and let the Boost Clocks work. That way you have a smooth and stable experience regardless of choice.

Side Note: You will have to manually set your Ram timings and speed, no matter what Ram make you buy.

 

[freeagent]

3600 is not that bad.. I see a lot of nice Intel CPU's under mine in Aida64.

This system is as smooth, or smoother than any Intel I have used before..

Fucking fast is what it is lol.

 

[AleXXX666]

The PCIe 3x4 coupled with a fast M.2 drive will be a massive improvement on game load times and OS load times. It will also make the system a lot more snappy. That's why I recommend 1TB for the OS and to install games on. He can use his existing 2TB for back up and to install more games on it.
For example, I have 2 seperate Steam Folders with a mix of games on them.


I've always ran AMD CPUs and NEVER had a problem and always Ran quite Smooth. Not sure what you mean by Intel working smoothly, that's a very subjective opinion.
I've had Intel laptops that ran horribly and others that ran great.
Even my 1700X runs smooth as silk. Both companies have a great selection on CPUs, it's the overall configuration you choose that will determine instability or not. Like Overclocking and pushing the hardware way too much.

Keep everything on Stock and let the Boost Clocks work. That way you have a smooth and stable experience regardless of choice.

Side Note: You will have to manually set your Ram timings and speed, no matter what Ram make you buy.

I don’t know about LATEST and greates AMD cpus, but, I can tell you very realistically, STOCK clocks of, for example, non-X ryzens really NOT FOR GAMES. Let’s say, I have 2700. It does 3.4 ghz all-core. I can manually put it to 3.9, rock-stable, and it will give me MASSIVE improvement in GAMING terms, as there IPC matters before core count!

side note: my 2700 has troubles with my Corsair kit running native XMP 3200 mhz. I must WASTE MY TIME really much to make it AT LEAST WORK. I’ve replaced to newer Ryzen 3100, and wow, the magic, it works with my ram. So, if you have Ryzen 3000-5000 series, chances are good you won’t have to mess with MANUAL ram tweaking besides XMP.

3600 is not that bad.. I see a lot of nice Intel CPU's under mine in Aida64.

This system is as smooth, or smoother than any Intel I have used before..

Fucking fast is what it is lol.

Yeah, I’ve enjoyed mine at 4.2 ghz. Though I enjoy more 3100, because it clocks 4.4 stable. Now that is what I call f. fast for AMD Ryzens (my main is 10600K, the 3100 build is kids one)

 

[qubit]

I've always ran AMD CPUs and NEVER had a problem and always Ran quite Smooth. Not sure what you mean by Intel working smoothly, that's a very subjective opinion.

Yes, it's a partially subjective opinion, but also drawn from experience and issues I've read about in forums and news articles over the years, eg memory compatibility. AMD has/had more of these issues than Intel as far as I can see. It's not make or break though, not the kind of thing that I'd strongly recommend Intel over AMD, but nothing wrong with giving my thoughts on it, either and the reader can make up their own minds about it.