Upgrading my gaming PC or starting afresh

Eidolon
2023-09-28T05:53:20Z

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tech/1aue/upgrading_my_gaming_pc_or_starting_afresh

Votes: 27

Comments: 17