27
votes
Upgrading my Gaming PC or starting afresh
Hello everyone, my CPU died and I'm at a crossroads and hoping for some advice. I bought my rig 4 years ago second-hand. It was originally built in 2017 using high-end parts. It was not something I was looking for TBH, but at the time GPUs were hard to get and it was a crazy deal. Here is what's left of the rig:
- Motherboard - ASUS x99 Deluxe II, fits Intel i7 LGA2011-v3 CPU socket
- PSU - EVGA Supernova 850 T2
- RAM - 32GB, 4 sticks of G.Skill Trident Z 3200 DDR4
- GPU - EVGA 1080 Ti Founder's Edition 11 GB
- Case - In Win 904 plus - large and spacious case
- Storage - Couple of Samsung SSDs
- CPU Cooler - Have ditched the Corsair AIO, picked up a lowest tier fan for $10 to keep it booting while I figure out what to do
Options I'm floating.
- Get a compatible CPU, but that socket is harder to come by for my MOBO and likely to be second hand + get a new CPU cooler, and upgrade GPU.
- Replace MOBO, GPU, and get a new CPU and CPU cooler. The PSU is 6 years old but it's decent quality and 850 watts should be enough?
Price range/goals:
- Happy to spend a bit on something that is mid to slightly upper range, but not high end. Thinking $$ will go into the GPU and CPU (maybe $600-800 USD ea?), something reasonably good that's just before the latest gen to get a discounted price. If replacing MOBO, something simple and medium range would be ideal.
- Play some current AAA games like Baulder's Gate 3 and Elden Ring decently, at medium-high settings (not ultra), and don't need super high FPS.
- Ideally supports 4k resolution for desktop use but for gaming I'd be mostly sticking to 1440p/1080p.
- I don't want to overclock (those days are over)
- Likely to sell in 2ish years, don't need heaps of futureproofing
- If replacing MOBO, open to going to the AMD ecosystem for price/performance ratio. I've only ever used Intel so know less about AMD systems.
- Don't need raytracing, DDR5
- For CPU cooler I don't mind AIO but if anyone has any non-water cooled recommendations I'm all ears
I'm at a bit of a loss at what to do, and there are not many PC-building threads here on Tildes, so I thought I'd ask for some advice. Anyone have opinions on option 1 or 2 above, or is there a third option I'm not thinking of? And does anyone have part recommendations? Thanks in advance.
LGA2011-v3 is a very "niche" CPU socket, I'm not surprised that it'd be hard to find a compatible CPU for it. it's basically an architectural dead end for Intel - I doubt there's any fabs producing new chips for it.
the GPU is still functional, and will be forward-compatible with any new motherboard you plug it into.
in your shoes, I'd just get a new motherboard and CPU. you can upgrade the GPU at the same time, but it's strictly optional. you can also wait a few months if that's easier on your budget.
so you can upgrade the CPU / motherboard now, and then bide your time and wait for a well-priced GPU to come along. you should be able to pick up a used Nvidia 3xxx or 4xxx card for fairly cheap that will be a huge upgrade over your 1080 Ti.
850w should be plenty, except if you decided to upgrade to a very power-hungry GPU.
you want a Zen 3 Ryzen CPU, and matching socket AM4 motherboard.
AMD's latest CPUs are the Zen 4 (which uses socket AM5, and has 7xxx model numbers)
the previous-gen is Zen 3 (which uses socket AM4, and 5xxx model numbers...don't ask)
all the latest AM5 CPUs use DDR5 RAM, so if you went that route you'd need to upgrade the RAM as well. AM4 is that "just before the latest gen" sweet spot you're looking for.
here's some pcpartpicker links:
AM4 motherboards with at least 4 memory slots
Zen 3 AM4 CPUs
if you want a simple "just buy this" recommendation:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D ($350ish). you can get 59xx CPUs with higher core counts, but the 5800X3D has a monster L3 cache, and for your typical desktop/gaming workloads, more cache tends to help more than more cores. if you plan to sell it in a few years that CPU should also hold its value relatively well.
and an ASRock Pro4 in either B550 ($115) or X570 ($210) variations (this shows the difference between the chipsets - the main one is that X570 gets you PCIe 4.0 GPU support, which you may want for future GPU upgradeability)
you'll never go wrong buying a Noctua.
they have a very detailed compatibility checker. the RAM height is sometimes also a concern, though usually only if the sticks have a particularly tall heat-spreader.
if you want another "just buy this" recommendation - NH-D15 (assuming it will fit your case, motherboard, and RAM, but from what you've said it sounds like there shouldn't be any issues) or NH-D15S if the RAM is too high.
Adding on to this, I think waiting for GPUs is definitely the right choice at this moment, as long as it covers your requirements. Nvidia should ideally launch 50xx next year, which means you can get serious discounts on 30xx and 40xx. You will probably need to upgrade your PSU at that point as well, but spreading the cost out over a year should help even the budget.
All of this is contingent on the fact that the current GPU is sufficient for your requirements.
That existing GPU should be fine for many things, especially at 1080p. I'm still rolling with a 970GTX with 4GB of VRAM and it handles 4k desktop use fine. I'm finding I can still run high graphics on many games at 1080p, but the lack of VRAM is really starting to hurt.
I'm also still rocking a 970 too. The £950 that I spent on my old gaming computer in 2015 is equivalent to £1400 today once you adjust for inflation. For that price I can't get build anything remotely close in value to my 2015 computer.
So instead of replacing my computer I bought an Xbox Series X and maxed out years of Game Pass a couple of years ago. I recently topped up my Game Pass again to maximise the lower price from Xbox Gold conversion. I'm still very much a PC gamer at heart but nothing comes close to the value proposition of an Xbox and Game Pass right now.
To be fair, I think the Game pass can be extended on to PC as well? I'm not sure if there is a PC only version of it, but yeah Game Pass's value is quite phenomenal.
Game Pass Ultimate covers both PC and consoles. It's just that most of the newer games aren't worth playing on my aging PC versus an Xbox Series X. A lot of indie games and some big games (such as Age of Empires 4) do run well on older PCs though.
Great point. I think the GPU is sufficient for now, but it can be hit and miss. Some games it just hasn't been able to handle very well even at the lowest graphic settings. Tyranny (2016) is an example. I just stick to games that it can handle at comfortable temps at 1080p (60-85 degrees C).
Get a ryzen 5600 for $100-125 instead of a 5800x3d for $350. You're not gonna saturate a 5600 with a 1080, so there's no point in going bigger. (You can probably get a 5600 used for even less as people upgrade to 5800x3d). Even if you're going to sell the 5800x3d later you get nowhere near close to what you paid for it, so it doesn't matter how well it holds it's value. You're paying an extra $250 for performance you'll never use in hopes that you can sell it later.
If OP wants to future proof and plan for GPU upgrades, then maybe it will make sense to go for a 5800x3d to squeeze more performance out... but even then you're getting into new build price territory, and you still dont need to look at PCIE gen4 as only the super high even graphics cards go over the gen3 bandwidth threshold right now. Gen3 can get you to 120 FPS on high/ultra right now no problem.
Your suggestion is to spend ~$475 just on a new CPU and mobo. I'd say for the same amount of money they should:
I feel like this is spot on, if only to validate my recent choices. I upgraded from a 2600x to a 5600 recently, because it was damn cheap and I figure down the line, if I need some more horsepower, I can slap in a 5800X3D and get it second hand for cheap.
Yeah, my old machine as a 2600 with an rxt2070, then I built a new one in March 2022 with a 5600 and moved the video card over to the new machine.
In March this year I upgraded to a 5800x3d on the new machine, and slapped a 7900xt in it, then threw the 5600 in the old machine and put the rtx 2070 back in that I can use as my HTPC in the living room.
I've got practically the best AM4 PC you can buy which should last me 5 years easy, plus a fantastic mid range back up PC hanging out in the living room that I'm eventually going to strip and turn it into my plex server.
The 5600 is a fantastic CPU that's gonna last me well over half a decade in my home computer fleet.
Thank you for suggesting these alternatives - I'll price these up alongside the other options. I only play one very CPU-heavy game - X4 (space simulation sandbox). I'll think on this!
Generally not even an RTX 4080 needs anything above 850w. You may even get away with it on a 4090 in some cases.
PSU calculators tend to overrate by quite a margin. This one from Outervision has always served me well.
I'll advise going AM5, and doing the jump to DDR5. AMD tends to have longer cycles for mobo sockets. A high end AM5 CPU will hold value longer than an AM4 one since they're not making new AM4 chips.
It'll give the biggest amount of headroom for future upgrades and not needing to do the rebuy again in 2 years.
I will add this to the options. It's possible that I may have to sell the entire PC in 2 years so will weigh up depreciation on AM4 vs AM5.
If I may ask, why selling in 2 years?
Life stuff - likely big changes with career, family etc. Good chance I won't have time to game anymore.
Thanks so much, your advice is hugely helpful. I think it's time for a new MOBO and CPU, so holding off on the GPU for now. The Noctua also looks fantastic.
I forgot to mention case fans. As I didn't build my PC, I'm figuring things out as I go. I've got 2 corsair case fans that I was using previously and a couple sitting around unused. Any pointers on how I can find out if this is sufficient?
you're welcome!
the main thing you'll want with case fans is ones with 4-pin connectors, rather than 3-pin connectors. the extra pin allows them to run at a variable speed based on temperature sensors in the motherboard. the BIOS has options where you can tune this if you want, but usually the defaults work well enough.
the case fans should be fine as-is - looking at this list your old CPU probably had a max TDP of 140W. the 5800X3D draws 105W, and some other Zen 3 CPUs only draw 65W. the CPU industry has made a big shift in recent years from caring not just about raw performance, but about performance-per-watt, so all else being equal your new CPU should run cooler at 100% load than the old CPU did.
but if you want to test if the case fans are sufficient, it's a procedure you're probably familiar with from overclocking - run Prime95 or a similar stress-testing tool, and watch the reported temperatures. with 4-pin fans you'll also be able to hear them spinning up.
one other thing I didn't mention, the case you have right now is a beast - 19.3" x 7.6" x 19.3" (490mm x 192mm x 490mm) in dimensions and 27lbs / 12kg. if you want the option of downsizing to a smaller case, you may want to get a microATX motherboard instead of the ATX one you've got now. mini-ITX would be an option, except you've got 4 sticks of RAM already, and mini-ITX boards that have 4 DIMM slots are rare to non-existent.
if you went this route, my favorite case is the Cooler Master Masterbox Q500L or Q300L. I've built 3 PCs with the former, which has ATX motherboard support (though it's a tight squeeze); the latter only supports microATX.
Thanks again. And yes the case is way too big for my needs...I'll think on this!