[SOLVED] €1000 Gaming upgrade, CPU/GPU/MOBO

vanGenne

Honorable
Dec 8, 2013
21
1
10,515
Hey,

Recently I upgraded my monitor from a 1080p 21inch model, to a 34inch 1440p ultrawide. The screen is excellent, but it does have a couple more pixels that need powering by my poor 5year-old system. It's used for video games, I primarily play either strategic/management type games (Total war, Civilization, Planet Coaster), or fantasy RPGs (The Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition).

Here is my current system:
CPU: I5-4670k overlocked to 3,7 GHz (with cooler master Hyper 212 EVO cooler)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780
mobo: AsRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX
PS: Corsair CSM 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
RAM: 16GB (4x4) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz
SSD: Kingston HyperX 3k 120 GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM

List from the sticky is below:

Approximate Purchase Date: not for a while, I'm still doubting whether I need to upgrade.

Budget Range: max €1000

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, watching movies, working on word/excel documents.

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Whatever is necessary, probably CPU+GPU+mobo, maybe RAM? Power supply = Corsair CSM 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

Do you need to buy OS: Probably (a CPU upgrade will likely mean I need a new mobo, meaning new windows license)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Azerty.nl

Location: Groningen, The Netherlands

Parts Preferences: Monitor has FreeSync, so perhaps AMD GPU? Although I understood that Nvidia is playing nice these days, and will also work with FreeSync.

Overclocking: Sure

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 3440x1440

Additional Comments: It's used for video games, I primarily play either strategic/management type games (Total war, Civilization, Planet Coaster), or fantasy RPGs (The Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition).

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Currently, I can't play with Ultra settings anymore with the more recent games, which is not terrible in and of itself. There are some upcoming games I'd like to be able to play in Ultra though, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Planet Zoo. Also, my monitor has FreeSync, and I am currently not able to use this feature.
 
Solution
This is how I'd do it:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€208.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (€116.90 @ Megekko)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.95 @ Megekko)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€75.00 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card (€493.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Total: €992.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-21 18:38 CEST+0200


This one also includes a 500GB NVMe SSD. It's much...
When you move up in resolution, such as 3440x1440, then you push the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU. You would actually probably be just fine by upgrade the GPU and holding off on the CPU upgrade for now because you will need a new platform to upgrade.

You could get a 5700xt for around the 400 range or a 2070 S for around the 500 range. Both would be a significant upgrade over your 780 and could drop right into your current system. They would really make your monitor shine.

Then later, you could look at getting a new platform, but for now, I would hold off.
 
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For gaming at 1440 ultrawide via the latest triple A titles, you'll have to allocate most of your budget to the graphics card. The i5 4670k will not meet minimum system requirements for modern triple A titles, however the R5 2600 more than meets recommended system requirements for these titles and will allow for future CPU upgrades that will yield a significant performance uplift. A new platform upgrade is necessary to meet system requirements for modern triple A gaming titles and will allow the $700+ graphics card to be used to it's full potential.

PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (€131.45 @ Megekko)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (€91.95 @ Megekko)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€89.00 @ Megekko)
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB DUKE Video Card (€745.00 @ Megekko)
Total: €1057.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-21 17:44 CEST+0200
 
Last edited:
PCPartPicker Part List: https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/L9FQjy

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€205.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard (€210.90) Memory: G.Skill Trident Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€89.50)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 8 GB PULSE Video Card (€425.05)
Total: €930.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-21 17:44 CEST+0200
From your retailer, you wish to purchase from and should power your system for quite a while tho cyberpunk 2077 looks like a very powerful game so you may need to play around with some settings to play a mix ultra-high, I chose an RX 5700 instead of RTX card because you have a free sync panel depending on what monitor you have it'll either work great or work horribly with an RTX card, I chose the brand new Ryzen 3600 CPU as it should be powerful to last a lot longer than the 2000 series from the looks of things at least.
 
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This is how I'd do it:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€208.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (€116.90 @ Megekko)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.95 @ Megekko)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€75.00 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card (€493.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Total: €992.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-21 18:38 CEST+0200


This one also includes a 500GB NVMe SSD. It's much faster and much larger than your current, it should make a nice upgrade, especially so since it's still in budget.
As for the rest:
• Ryzen 3600 and MSI b450 Tomahawk. A nice match. The motherboard supports MSI Flashback, meaning you can upgrade the BIOS to support Ryzen 3000 without a compatible CPU.
• 2×8GB DDR4-3200. Pretty standard nowadays. This is what most recommended.
• RX 5700 XT. I'd recommend to wait until the custom cooled ones come out. They will be cooler and quieter than the current blower style ones. They are already listed on most websites, and are just waiting to be stocked.
 
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Solution

vanGenne

Honorable
Dec 8, 2013
21
1
10,515
This is how I'd do it:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€208.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (€116.90 @ Megekko)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.95 @ Megekko)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€75.00 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card (€493.95 @ CD-ROM-LAND)
Total: €992.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-21 18:38 CEST+0200


This one also includes a 500GB NVMe SSD. It's much faster and much larger than your current, it should make a nice upgrade, especially so since it's still in budget.
As for the rest:
• Ryzen 3600 and MSI b450 Tomahawk. A nice match. The motherboard supports MSI Flashback, meaning you can upgrade the BIOS to support Ryzen 3000 without a compatible CPU.
• 2×8GB DDR4-3200. Pretty standard nowadays. This is what most recommended.
• RX 5700 XT. I'd recommend to wait until the custom cooled ones come out. They will be cooler and quieter than the current blower style ones. They are already listed on most websites, and are just waiting to be stocked.

Decided to wait a couple days for the 3rd party RX 5700 XT cards come out and grab one of those :) Thanks for the info! I will upgrade the rest of the system later, maybe next year. And I'll also look at an NVMe SSD dedicated to holding my games ;)
 
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