Upgrade from old x58 system

[Abilio_KID]

It's been a while since I upgraded my PC, with a few parts added here and there.
I've been working from home for a few years now, doing AutoCAD drawings for survey. My current PC, even at its age, has been able to get the job done. However, lately I started using point clouds and AutoCAD struggles with anything 3D. It basically needs a CPU with good IPC and speed on a single core, because it doesn't care much for multicores.
Anyway, I'm not certain when and if I will get a new machine. It's just so confusing trying to get anything these days that could last for a few years. It's all "gaming this" and "gaming that", OS's that suck and spy on us... you get the idea.

So, this is my current machine (you can laugh if you want to):

PC:
- Asus P6T SE
- Intel Xeon X5650, @ 4Ghz all cores, stable, low temps
- Noctua NH-D14 (for socket LGA1366)
- 36GB RAM: 3x8GB + 3x48GB (without issues at all)
- MSI Geforce GTX 1070 Armor OC 8GB
- Corsair HX750
- Creative Sound Blaster Z
- USB 3 add-in card

Storage:
- SSD Crucial BX200 480 GB (Windows 7 Ultimate!!!)
- SSD OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB (oldest one I have, used for swap disk and a few other things)
- SSD Samsung 860 QVO 1TB (old games that I rarely play now)
- HDD Toshiba HDWD130 3TB (movies, TV series, backups)
- SSD Crucial MX500 2TB (personal drive, work, photos, etc.)

+ the basic peripherals, all inside a Fractal Design Arc Midi R2.

I know anything made in the last few years can beat this old trusty potato. Thing is, I'm not sure what to get. Everyone is talking AM5+x3d (gaming), Core Ultra 200s (produtivity)... Geez!
I need fast single core but not necessarily too many cores. Also I can't stay on Windows 7 so I'll be using Windows 10 LTSC (don't bother mentioning W11). I will focus on work and general use, with a bit of gaming now and then (older games).
I don't mind paying a bit more if the PC will last for a while. I will be buying to last for a lot of years. I don't intend to upgrade again any soon...

Things that bother me:
- Chiplet designs are confusing. Latency and scheduling issues. 3D vcache seems to only help in a few games, almost a waste of money, etc.
- My CPU, even overclocked, doesn't get more than low 70's in full load, on air! I do not want to use liquid cooling on a new PC.
- BIOS settings these days... I'm getting too old to deal with stability problems.
- I may need 64GB+ RAM. It's probably enough though.
- The OS could go into a NVME but I need to keep the other SATA drives.
- I don't want stupid RGB stuff, wireless, or anything useless.
- Motherboard needs to be good but not cost stupid amounts of money.

I may be forgetting something but I'd like your opinions on the matter, if you may.
Thanks in advance.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

You've held out this long If I were you I would wait for Nova Lake/Zen6 and just get what's better both Core ultra 200 and Zen5 will destroy what you have sure but they also were both very unimpressive imho. Although there is no guarantee those will work well with windows 10.


These are just the most interesting builds I can think of ATM from each platform both has pros and cons and if you want more than 4 sata ports on Intel you are going to spend an arm and a leg on a decent board. Maybe someone else knows of a decent 6 sata port intel board at a decent price but I could not find one.

The majority of boards over 200 are pretty solid so it basically just comes down to picking one with all the features you need.

Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

pcpartpicker.com

Part List - Intel Core Ultra 7 265K - PCPartPicker

Part List - Intel Core Ultra 7 265K

pcpartpicker.com

265k the last time W1z benched it was 6% slower in relative performance and 3% in games vs the 285K it's a bummer he left it out of his more recent testing.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review - The Best Gaming Processor

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D establishes AMD as the leader in gaming performance. This Zen 5-based X3D chip is not only fast, it also comes with full support for overclocking. Besides gaming, application performance is considerably improved over the 7800X3D, but that comes at a price.

www.techpowerup.com

The GPU market sucks the best two gpu's right now imho are the 9070XT and 5070ti both have pros and cons with the major con for the 5070ti being price.

5070 and below are meh AF if 40 series didn't make you want to upgrade 50 series below the 90 class is basically a refresh.

 

[A Computer Guy]

On the bright side literally anything modern within the last three years will be a significant improvement to what you have now. Since you use AutoCAD you might consider building your PC around compatibility for that. Research if certain GPU's or CPU's might be better suited for AutoCAD to help in your part selection.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

On the bright side literally anything modern within the last three years will be a significant improvement to what you have now. Since you use AutoCAD you might consider building your PC around compatibility for that. Research if certain GPU's or CPU's might be better suited for AutoCAD to help in your part selection.

Puget recommends a core ultra 285k or a Ryzen 9000 CPU They did not specify the model but an RTX pro gpu lol. I did double check that briefly.

so 5060ti 16Gb or 5070ti would probably be the best gpu option at a sane price is my guess.

Hardware Recommendations

Our workstations for Autodesk AutoCAD are tested and optimized to give you the best performance and reliability. View our hardware recommendations.

www.pugetsystems.com

 

[freeagent]

If you are ok with your current power usage, my tuned 9900X system basically mimics my old x58 system at the wall.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Puget recommends a core ultra 285k or a Ryzen 9000 CPU They did not specify the model but an RTX pro gpu lol. I did double check that briefly.

so 5060ti 16Gb or 5070ti would probably be the best gpu option at a sane price is my guess.

Hardware Recommendations

Our workstations for Autodesk AutoCAD are tested and optimized to give you the best performance and reliability. View our hardware recommendations.

www.pugetsystems.com

Possibly used RTX pro options might be ok depending on the version of AutoCAD the OP decides to use which brings up another point. Will the OP also be needing to upgrade their version of AutoCAD for Windows 10/11 compatibility?

Probably best to consult the compatibility list.

https://www.autodesk.com/support/system-requirements/certified-graphics-hardware/autocad

As for used options for example they may be quite affordable:
Quadro RTX 4000 8GB can be had from ebay $200 to $250. I recently got one although not for any kind of CAD work.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

If you are ok with your current power usage, my tuned 9900X system basically mimics my old x58 system at the wall.

For 60 Bones I would go with the 9950X all day every day....

Possibly used RTX pro options might be ok depending on the version of AutoCAD the OP decides to use which brings up another point. Will the OP also be needing to upgrade their version of AutoCAD for Windows 10/11 compatibility?

Probably best to consult the compatibility list.

https://www.autodesk.com/support/system-requirements/certified-graphics-hardware/autocad

As for used options for example they may be quite affordable:
Quadro RTX 4000 8GB can be had from ebay $200 to $250. I recently got one although not for any kind of CAD work.

Yeah I wish puget had more information on that and as you say different version have different requirements but Core ultra 200 and Ryzen 9000 seem pretty good at it which leaves the gpu as the hard part but op has been using a 1070 so even a 5060ti 16GB should be a large uplift with maybe studio drivers. You would know more than me I guess.

Somthing esle for the OP to look at

Ryzen 9 9950X X3D Review - Is AMD finally closing the bag for this year? | igor´sLAB

AMD now has another ace up its sleeve with the Ryzen 9 9950 X3D, while Intel is stuck in a self-inflicted drought. The X3D technology, which comes with an additional 3D V-Cache, shows once again that…

www.igorslab.de

The main problem is no matter what you choose in 2025 there is going to be some downsides or something the CPU isn't great at.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's been a while since I upgraded my PC, with a few parts added here and there.
I've been working from home for a few years now, doing AutoCAD drawings for survey. My current PC, even at its age, has been able to get the job done. However, lately I started using point clouds and AutoCAD struggles with anything 3D. It basically needs a CPU with good IPC and speed on a single core, because it doesn't care much for multicores.
Anyway, I'm not certain when and if I will get a new machine. It's just so confusing trying to get anything these days that could last for a few years. It's all "gaming this" and "gaming that", OS's that suck and spy on us... you get the idea.

So, this is my current machine (you can laugh if you want to):

PC:
- Asus P6T SE
- Intel Xeon X5650, @ 4Ghz all cores, stable, low temps
- Noctua NH-D14 (for socket LGA1366)
- 36GB RAM: 3x8GB + 3x48GB (without issues at all)
- MSI Geforce GTX 1070 Armor OC 8GB
- Corsair HX750
- Creative Sound Blaster Z
- USB 3 add-in card

Storage:
- SSD Crucial BX200 480 GB (Windows 7 Ultimate!!!)
- SSD OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB (oldest one I have, used for swap disk and a few other things)
- SSD Samsung 860 QVO 1TB (old games that I rarely play now)
- HDD Toshiba HDWD130 3TB (movies, TV series, backups)
- SSD Crucial MX500 2TB (personal drive, work, photos, etc.)

+ the basic peripherals, all inside a Fractal Design Arc Midi R2.

I know anything made in the last few years can beat this old trusty potato. Thing is, I'm not sure what to get. Everyone is talking AM5+x3d (gaming), Core Ultra 200s (produtivity)... Geez!
I need fast single core but not necessarily too many cores. Also I can't stay on Windows 7 so I'll be using Windows 10 LTSC (don't bother mentioning W11). I will focus on work and general use, with a bit of gaming now and then (older games).
I don't mind paying a bit more if the PC will last for a while. I will be buying to last for a lot of years. I don't intend to upgrade again any soon...

Things that bother me:
- Chiplet designs are confusing. Latency and scheduling issues. 3D vcache seems to only help in a few games, almost a waste of money, etc.
- My CPU, even overclocked, doesn't get more than low 70's in full load, on air! I do not want to use liquid cooling on a new PC.
- BIOS settings these days... I'm getting too old to deal with stability problems.
- I may need 64GB+ RAM. It's probably enough though.
- The OS could go into a NVME but I need to keep the other SATA drives.
- I don't want stupid RGB stuff, wireless, or anything useless.
- Motherboard needs to be good but not cost stupid amounts of money.

I may be forgetting something but I'd like your opinions on the matter, if you may.
Thanks in advance.

Honestly, that's a fairly nice setup! Not bad at all, even for it's age.

Your upgrade path has a LOT of options available. If you want solid but you don't need the absolute "latest & greatest", my recommendation is two-fold and as follows;

For Intel;
Core i7 12700 or 12700k
Matching LGA 1700 ATX motherboard, and there are a lot of affordable, yet very solid, options to choose from.

For AMD;
Ryzen 9 5900X
Matching ATX B550 or X570 motherboard. Again there are a lot of very affordable solid options.

For either setup;
64GB DDR4 3600
2TB NVMe TLC based SSD
Geforce RTX 4060 16GB or RTX 5060 16GB
850W PSU(trust me, you want to get a new one)

You can reuse your SBZ as there are current Win10+ drivers.
You can also reuse your USB3 card.
You might even be able to reuse your NH-D14 heatsink if you still have the mounting parts and you go AMD as the AM3 kit works perfectly for AM4 CPU's. If you go Intel, you'll need a new heatsink.
You can likely reuse your existing case as long as you like it and it's got all the standard ATX fittings.

If you'd like some specific recommendations for parts, chime in.

 

[Abilio_KID]

Thanks for replying so fast.

I've waited this long because, tbh, I was OK with what I got, for what I did. Then the OS changed (badly), hardware got worse and too expensive...
I could wait forever and never buy anything, lol. I am getting old and too stubborn to change.
I had already seen Puget recommendations before. They were right about more single core speed and not so much core number. Having more won't hurt, unless it brings more heat with it.
Xeons are not needed for this type of work. Any normal consumer CPU will do more and probably be cheaper. Recently tested a RTX 4000 on a Xeon from 2017 with Windows 11 (my employer let me try it for a bit). I felt my old potato was snappier on desktop and the GPU didn't seem to make much difference. Got a feeling Win11 was bloated as usual.

BTW, certified cards only mean they were tested with certain drivers on Autodesk's labs. AutoCAD doesn't use special Quadro features.
Here's an older video:

I could upgrade the GPU to a more recent one. Pitty they're too expensive. Will be something to consider later.

From what I have already seen, the main idea would be to get something like a 9950X or a 265k/285K. No need for anything X3D: extra heat/power, no real use, expensive.
Is the extra speed of the 285K worth it over the 265K? I need to check local prices between both (Portugal) and availability.

Doesn't the 9950X need more power, gets hotter faster? Do both lines of CPU require a special version of Windows to properly deal with the chiplets? What motherboards brands have less issues nowadays? Asus degrading Intel CPU's, Asrock killing 9***X3D's... should I go MSI then? What about RAM's limitations? Seems hard to get more than 2 DIMMS at the same time.
If someone has more info I should know, I'd apreciate your help.

I am still reading and researching. All while having to do work .

Edit: I was typing and didn't see lexluthermiester reply. I'll have a look at it. Thank you.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

From what I have already seen, the main idea would be to get something like a 9950X or a 265k/285K. No need for anything X3D: extra heat/power, no real use, expensive.
Is the extra speed of the 285K worth it over the 265K? I need to check local prices between both (Portugal) and availability.

Doesn't the 9950X need more power, gets hotter faster? Do both lines of CPU require a special version of Windows to properly deal with the chiplets? What motherboards brands have less issues nowadays? Asus degrading Intel CPU's, Asrock killing 9***X3D's... should I go MSI then? What about RAM's limitations? Seems hard to get more than 2 DIMMS at the same time.
If someone has more info I should know, I'd apreciate your help.

Motherboard just comes down to bios preference and features you need MSI is super solid on both platforms. Asus is fine now afaik just used them on two builds both have been rock solid, Asrock not a huge fan but the tachi lite has a lot for what it cost look into if the latest bios fixed their issues, most people don't like gigabyte but I have been using their boards for decades on both AMD and intel without issues.

You can run 4 dimm but at really slow speeds better to go 2x48GB if you need more than 64GB of ram imho. A 285k system I did recently needed to run at 4400mhz for 192 and 5000 for 128 to be stable with a 1000 usd motherboard although a 300 usd one would likely have been the same.

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-flare-x5-96gb-ddr5-5200-cas-latency-cl40-desktop-memory-black/p/N82E16820374537

At current pricing I would say no on the 285k is not worth 89% more money last I checked.

The best bang for you buck right now is the 265k if you have amazon prime or can get it at the amazon prime price of $259

The 9950X uses more power and runs hotter if that is important to you the 265k is the better option but it can be set to a more reasonable power level and is still quite fast.

around 200w for the 9950x, 155w for the 265k, and 229w for the 285k but if you use a similar quality tower heatsink none are hard to maintain proper performance. Most cpu are going to boost based on available cooling so temps aren't as relevant as long as they are not throttling. IF you are concerned about the amount of heat they put off the is solely dictated by the power consumption which again would make the 265K the best option.


Both should be fine on windows 10 any modern high core count cpu is going to have situation where it doesn't behave but the 9950X uses all the same core type vs on the 265k you get 8P+12E but there are programs like process lasso which I use for my 7950X3D and it works fantastic and you do not have to rely on the scheduler it does not work in some MP games but in every MP game I play the performance even without it is good.

12th,13th,14th, and Core ultra all use the P+E layout

Ryzen uses dual CCD on all the 12/16 core chips from 3000-9000

so honestly they all should behave similarly on windows 10 in applications.

The dual CCD thing is more of a gaming thing if a game bounces between them I never had this issue with a 5950X on W10 but that was the last cpu I used on that OS.


If you do look at AM4 look at the 5900XT it's basically a 5950X and usually 210 new but the 265k is much better at everything and not that much more expensive.

 

[A Computer Guy]

So, this is my current machine (you can laugh if you want to):

It looks like you had a really great workstation class motherboard there for it's time. When picking motherboards I would keep that experience in mind if that is important to you.

One of my big disappointments with AM5 has been with their motherboard designs with expansion slot offerings. Not saying the platform is bad but it was a bit disappointing from that standpoint when looking across the price range and I don't feel there is a motherboard that really stands out as a workstation with good expandability at a good price point. I ended up picking something at the lower end and affordable B650 that had an x16(cpu), x4(cpu), x4(chipset) configuration and decided that was enough to run my dual Intel Optane's in my x16 slot while wasting 2 x4 lanes, run my GPU gimped at x4, and leave one x4 slot at the bottom for a future 10Gbps NIC. It works as a build but some satisfaction is lacking. The highlight of that setup was I snagged a new 7950x at a heavy discounted price which ended up being the primary reason I jumped to AM5 at all. I like it in terms of performance, not so much in terms of configuration.

Things that bother me:
- Chiplet designs are confusing. Latency and scheduling issues.

When going with the uniform (non-X3D) chiplet CPU's such as 3950x, 5950x, 7950x, etc... latency and scheduling it's not much of an issue for day to day work, at least it hasn't been for what I do. For gaming I've used 5950x for quite awhile now but I'm at a lower tier of gaming limited at 60fps with my monitors, using 4060LP / rx6700XT. No complaints that I can attribute to latency or scheduling but I'm not gaming higher than 60fps so perhaps it's a non-issue at my level.

3D vcache seems to only help in a few games, almost a waste of money, etc.
- My CPU, even overclocked, doesn't get more than low 70's in full load, on air! I do not want to use liquid cooling on a new PC.

AM5 will come with a big surprise for you then as higher CPU temps are the new normal but you can mitigate that if you are concerned by dialing in temp limits, power limits, and curve optimizer. Chip die density makes it harder to dissipate the heat and the thicker IHS is also blamed often but these newer chips are quite efficient when being utilized. Overall a good air cooler is just fine with AM5. Just keep in mind 142w at 90c isn't the same as 300w at 90c.

- BIOS settings these days... I'm getting too old to deal with stability problems.

AMD's approach to long term socket support on AM4/AM5 I think has been a bit of a double edge sword. When it came to BIOS/UEFI I came from a vantage point where if it ain't broke don't fix it and BIOS updates were a rare thing. Long term socket support however changes the landscape and now more frequent UEFI updates are the new normal especially now if you want to keep up with updates for compatibility and security vulnerabilities. You can still choose not to but...

- I may need 64GB+ RAM. It's probably enough though.

I have another grip again with AM5 on this but perhaps it's just a DDR5 thing. AM5 offers dual channel 4 slots but you can get penalized heavy on RAM speed if you populate all 4. As DDR5 and AM5 UEFI matures I'm hoping this situation can improve but only time will tell. A plus for DDR5 is they will support higher capacities per DIMM so you can get around the speed sacrifice by sticking to 2 high capacity DIMMS in dual channel mode. DDR5 UDIMM ECC is still quite expensive compared to it's DDR4 counterpart. Depending on motherboard AM5 (opposed to AM4) acknowledges official ECC RAM support now for consumer models except for G model CPU's.

- The OS could go into a NVME but I need to keep the other SATA drives.

If choosing an AM5 board you will need to look out for lane sharing on the motherboard to see where tradeoffs might be in play between NVMe slots, PCIe slots, and SATA.

- I don't want stupid RGB stuff, wireless, or anything useless.
- Motherboard needs to be good but not cost stupid amounts of money.

What would be your price range for non-stupid motherboard cost? For me is used to be $150-$200 during AM4's reign. It wasn't until I had a chance to get an X570 motherboard I realized $200-$250 was pretty reasonable for the quality and features and that was after a few years already where price drops eventually happened. When looking at AM5 I wasn't about to drop $400 for a motherboard that still didn't have what I wanted and ended up spending $150 instead.

I may be forgetting something but I'd like your opinions on the matter, if you may.
Thanks in advance.

I have a few opinions from my journey coming from a Asus P5E-WS X38 Q6600 platform to AM4 to AM5. What I love about AM5 is the good price/performance on the dual CCD CPU's variants with core uniformity (ignoring X3D). iGPU and ECC RAM support is a plus. Decent VRM's across the majority of the motherboard offerings (much better compared to AM4) is a plus. Pricing on non-X3D CPU's is quite competitive right now and in the used market. What I don't like about AM5 are the limited PCIe slot configurations, lane sharing issues, DDR5 speed reduction when populating all 4 ram slots, and motherboard pricing at the higher end.

For 60 Bones I would go with the 9950X all day every day....

I just missed out on a possible $260 used deal for 9950x. I'm kinda miffed about it but on the other hand the seller didn't have any reputation and didn't reply to my questions. It was a sweet thought to snag a deal like that.

Yeah I wish puget had more information on that and as you say different version have different requirements but Core ultra 200 and Ryzen 9000 seem pretty good at it which leaves the gpu as the hard part but op has been using a 1070 so even a 5060ti 16GB should be a large uplift with maybe studio drivers. You would know more than me I guess.

I have no expertise in CAD but some software can be quite picky. They have these compatibility lists for good reason. It's a good idea to consult with the vendor in cases where they have specific compatibility lists when going off the reservation. A 5060ti could be just fine or a dumpster fire I have no idea.

 

[QuietBob]

For AutoCAD you'll want a CPU with high single threaded performance and eight cores. In general, the newer the architecture, the faster ST. A Ryzen 7 9700X or a Core Ultra 7 265 will fit the bill nicely.

In terms of RAM, depending on the size of your projects 32 GB may be enough, but I'd consider 64 GB for futureproofing.

The graphics card must support DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_0, and have 12 GB VRAM with at least 106 GB/s bandwidth. Nvidia cards are better supported in productivity apps, so I'd recommened an RTX 3060 12 GB at minimum.

You can find official hardware requirements for Auto CAD here.

 

[Abilio_KID]

Once more, a big thanks to everyone who's helping me in this quest.
The limiting factor here is the fact we can't simply pick "the best" and just buy it. There are cons that may or may not affect us in the long run.
I just checked (online) a couple of the most known PC stores here in Portugal. Prices are more or less like this (VAT included):
- 265K : 329.90€
- 285K : 619.00€
- 9900X : 459.90€ (6+6 cores?)
- 9950X : 599.90€

Harder to pick is the motherboard...