Build Advice Considering Component Upgrades

BraxVitto

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Jun 18, 2015
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Hello everyone!

With being stuck in my home for what is likely an appreciable amount of time, I've begun looking at my gaming PC and thinking it may be time to upgrade a few components. I was playing games like Total War: Warhammer 2 and Jedi: The Fallen Order and seeing some pretty noticeable performance drops. Not unplayable by any means, but I'd like to smooth it out if I can. The machine itself is just under three years old and hasn't had any core components changed in its lifetime unless you consider a PSU swap core. Here's what we're working with

CPU: Intel i7-7700K
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080TI - EVGA FTW 3
MB: MSI z270 PC Mate
RAM: 8gb x2 Adata XPG DDR4 3000 Ram
PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 750w
Storage: 1TB NVME Samsung 970 Evo as my boot drive
x2 2TB Hard drives for storage

I'm fairly knowledgable about parts, but I really want to know what some of you have to say. I was considering finding a second 1080ti and running it SLI, but I don't know how well that fairs in terms of support or if that would be better or worse than just upgrading to an RTX card. On that topic, I'm not sure if my CPU is bottlenecking me, so would it be a better plan to upgrade the cpu?

Or do I just need to tear it down and start from scratch with a new build?

Any feedback would be awesome!

Thank You!

Edit: I think its worth mentioning my CPU can run quite hot under load, around 80c when playing games like Total War: Warhammer 2.
 
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Mrgr74

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Hello everyone!

With being stuck in my home for what is likely an appreciable amount of time, I've begun looking at my gaming PC and thinking it may be time to upgrade a few components. I was playing games like Total War: Warhammer 2 and Jedi: The Fallen Order and seeing some pretty noticeable performance drops. Not unplayable by any means, but I'd like to smooth it out if I can. The machine itself is just under three years old and hasn't had any core components changed in its lifetime unless you consider a PSU swap core. Here's what we're working with

CPU: Intel i7-7700K
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080TI - EVGA FTW 3
MB: MSI z270 PC Mate
RAM: 8gb x2 Adata XPG DDR4 3000 Ram
PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 750w
Storage: 1TB NVME Samsung 970 Evo as my boot drive
x2 2TB Hard drives for storage

I'm fairly knowledgable about parts, but I really want to know what some of you have to say. I was considering finding a second 1080ti and running it SLI, but I don't know how well that fairs in terms of support or if that would be better or worse than just upgrading to an RTX card. On that topic, I'm not sure if my CPU is bottlenecking me, so would it be a better plan to upgrade the cpu?

Or do I just need to tear it down and start from scratch with a new build?

Any feedback would be awesome!

Thank You!

Hi @BraxVitto

Your system now as-is is nice. What type of performance boost were you looking for? Whats your monitor and what settings do you typically play your games at? Last but not least, whats your budget?

The 1080Ti is still a beast of a card. In many cases trumping the 2070 Super.

EDIT:- Just looked and it seems the 7700 is the best CPU your mobo lists as officially supporting.

Do you prefer Intel or AMD?
 
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BraxVitto

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Jun 18, 2015
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Hello @Mrgr74

I'm looking mainly to get a boost in terms of more stable framerates. I tend to get dips below 60 when there are many things going on screen. I normally play on the highest possible settings, but will normally tinker if it gets too bad. My primary monitor is probably the weakest part of my setup right now, as it's only 75hz 1080, but that is definitely top on my list for set-up and will likely be swapped out for something better by next week.

One thing of note is that my CPU does tend to run a little hot under a lot of stress (which I probably should have said in the original post so I'll add that to it now) . Total War Warhammer 2 can bring it up to around 80c even with a fairly hefty corsair AIO on it.

If the thinking is a CPU swap may be the ticket, I'm definitely interested in what options exist there. I'd probably prefer to stick to intel because I believe I'd have to get a different MB to accommodate a Ryzen cpu correct? I'd say I could spend maybe 400-500 in upgrades right now. Another option would be selling the current computer and starting fresh depending on how much I could get for it.
 

Mrgr74

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Hello @Mrgr74

I'm looking mainly to get a boost in terms of more stable framerates. I tend to get dips below 60 when there are many things going on screen. I normally play on the highest possible settings, but will normally tinker if it gets too bad. My primary monitor is probably the weakest part of my setup right now, as it's only 75hz 1080, but that is definitely top on my list for set-up and will likely be swapped out for something better by next week.

One thing of note is that my CPU does tend to run a little hot under a lot of stress (which I probably should have said in the original post so I'll add that to it now) . Total War Warhammer 2 can bring it up to around 80c even with a fairly hefty corsair AIO on it.

If the thinking is a CPU swap may be the ticket, I'm definitely interested in what options exist there. I'd probably prefer to stick to intel because I believe I'd have to get a different MB to accommodate a Ryzen cpu correct? I'd say I could spend maybe 400-500 in upgrades right now. Another option would be selling the current computer and starting fresh depending on how much I could get for it.

Correct in having to get a new mobo if you went with an AMD based system. Everything else could be transferred over. That being said, $400-$500 would get you a beauty of a Ryzen + Mobo + RAM setup. (Minus a new monitor) I'd assume the same for Intel, though they tend to be pricier so I'd have to do some research before saying anything more. That being said, we do have several extremely knowledgeable Intel users here that I'm sure will be along soon to answer that better.

Have you played around with PC Parts Picker?
 

BraxVitto

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Jun 18, 2015
11
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4,510
Correct in having to get a new mobo if you went with an AMD based system. Everything else could be transferred over. That being said, $400-$500 would get you a beauty of a Ryzen + Mobo + RAM setup. (Minus a new monitor) I'd assume the same for Intel, though they tend to be pricier so I'd have to do some research before saying anything more. That being said, we do have several extremely knowledgeable Intel users here that I'm sure will be along soon to answer that better.

Have you played around with PC Parts Picker?

I have used PC Parts Picker before here is my build parted as best I could on there currently (they don't have a listing for my case so I went as close as I could)
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/braxvitto/saved/#view=JjYDcf

If I were to go ahead and swap out my current cpu-mobo-ram combo for an AMD setup, within around $400-500, what would you suggest?