Question Advice pls...

[SPECOPS70]

Hello all.

My old gaming rig from years past has a i7 7700 paired with a 1060 6gb. I was thinking of maybe upgrading the cpu and gpu. I just bought my boys 2 6800 xt's. So I have a 2060 just sitting there. I will add the 2060 to this old gaming rig. IF i was going to upgrade my 7700 which cpu would yall recommend? Would it make a big difference in gaming? Monitor being used on this old gaming rig is 1440 at 144hz.

THx

 

[ThatVietGuy]

Are you looking to upgrade the motherboard too or just the CPU? The only CPU you can upgrade to is an i7 7700K but that is not a worthwhile upgrade.

 

[SorryBella]

Monitor being used on this old gaming rig is 1440 at 144hz.

You'll feel the cache and IPC choke on CPU bounded title but it'll be fine in other titles. But yeah, what's the intention here, you're looking for a platform to upgrade to? What's your budget going to be? What's the PSU and case?

 

[SPECOPS70]

No mobo upgrade. Just to give it a bump up in performance. But if the only cpu to fit is the K then all is good.

I thought there a lot more cpus that are compatible with this board/socket?

FCLGA1151

 

[SorryBella]

FCLGA1151

Yeah but Intel put a pretty huge asterisk on that. Theyre locked at microcode level so that only 2 CPU generation can go inside of them. It goes something like this:

1. 1xx and 2xx chipset for Intel Skylake and Kaby Lake (6th and 7th gen)
2. 3xx chipset for Intel Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh (8th and 9th gen)

So yeah, youre pretty much at the end of the line. 7700 is the most you can do.

 

[SPECOPS70]

THank you.

 

[Eximo]

People did successfully mod Coffeelake into older LGA1151 boards, but it meant custom BIOS and even covering pins on the bottom of the CPUs. Hyperthreading didn't work with all modified boards either, but that would mean that the i7-9700k without hyperthreading was an option.

I was tempted to try it, but never did.

How To Get Intel Coffee Lake CPUs Working On Skylake And Kaby Lake Motherboards

While you do need to upgrade your motherboard in order to get an Intel Coffee Lake CPU working on it, there are users that have been able to get these

segmentnext.com

Used to be a guy who built a whole automatic tool for it, but not sure that website/forum is still around.

 

[punkncat]

As an aside. Given the pricing on used 1060 it would be worth recommending you keep that around in the parts closet. It is always helpful to have a known working GPU on hand. I typically use a card that doesn't require additional power, but what you have on hand already is better than nothing.

Super cool of you to get the boys some nice cards like that.

 

[SPECOPS70]

Thank you. They were very happy.