[SOLVED] Finally upgrading from Sandy Bridge

Froberg

Distinguished
Jan 9, 2008
170
1
18,765
This is going to be a bit of a all-over-the-place post, so bear with me.

I'm currently running a Core i7 2600k, Geforce 1080 and SSD setup.
It's working fine, but I am sorely tempted to finally upgrade after seven years for a ryzen based platform, planning on giving the wife my old rig.
However, I can't see any reason to upgrade from a 1080, so I was considering buying a new card to give her, and carry the 1080 over with me. Thoughts on that? Any recommendations? It's not that money is an issue, but 2080Ti seems like the obvious upgrade, and I just don't think I'll get as much bang for my buck as I want. Frankly I think it's laughably expensive right now.
She just needs to play the sims, world of warcraft and other such titles, so I'm thinking it would be well within reason to buy a smaller GPU to sate her needs until I have a clear upgrade from the 1080, at which point she could get the 1080.

Secondly, before getting Ryzen, I need to know about the return of the motherboard fan cooling, which makes me shudder with the bad kind of nostalgia from times past.
I am very noise sensitive, day to day, which is why I'm using the Define R5 case to dampen as much as possible, and why I opt for large Noctua air coolers to reduse noise over all.
I don't mind spinning up during games, but I often do transcoding jobs and I don't want to sit next to something that'll make a ton of noise while doing transcoding for a few days non-stop. Any real-world experience in this arena I can draw on?
 
Solution
Is the wife intending on gaming? If not, does she need a video card at all? (integrated graphics is an option if not gaming, of course)

If pondering gaming, the RX580 is an excellent value at about $180-$185 last time I checked it's price, and it is plenty fast for 1080P and even 1440P in most games at pretty high settings. (faster than GTX1060)

From the OP.
She just needs to play the sims, world of warcraft and other such titles, so I'm thinking it would be well within reason to buy a smaller GPU to sate her needs until I have a clear upgrade from the 1080, at which point she could get the 1080.

I agree that the RX 580 is a great 1080p card. Sadly, WoW heavily favors Nvidia, and isn't the best choice, for that...
My first suggestion would be to give your wife the gtx 1080 and use the RTX 2080 ti for your new system. What is your monitor's resolution and refresh rate? This will determine what graphics card you should upgrade to because going with a RTX 2080 TI in a Sandybridge platform will most likely limit it's capabilities, therefore performance and money is wasted.

My second suggestion would be to wait until Q1 of 2020 because this will be Intel's first counter to legitimate Ryzen 3rd gen competition in over a decade. Rumor has it that 14nm Comet Lake LGA 1200 desktop processors will be releasing and Intel already cut prices by 50% on their x299x plaforms. This platform will still most likely be PCI-E 3.0 and will NOT need the chipset fan. Adversly Ryzen should be coming out with B550 motherboards soon and some may only have PCI-E 3.0 with out the chipset fan also.

However it is very understandable that you might need this upgrade sooner rather than later as you would most likely not be posting on this forum if that wasn't the case and that being said, Ryzen wouldn't be a poor decision by any means. I just wanted you to know where we stand over the course of a decade and how Ryzen's 3rd gen platform has forced team blue growth let alone team red.

My experience on noise when it comes to production is not to purchase a case with sound dampening material because often times air flow is restricted and internal components are compromised thermally as a result. It's best to purchase a case with front mesh that doubles as a dust filter (without a separate dust filter) for unobstructed air flow. Having the extra dust filter layer can in some circumstances cause a reduction in air pressure. Then focus on higher end fans (AKA Noctua, Be Quiet, Silent Wings) that not only reduce noise, but the pitch is less annoying and they move more air.
 
Last edited:

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
I have a mini-itx, x570 build, link in sig, and I have yet to notice the fan, on my motherboard, noise wise. If you want to hang on to your 1080, just pick her up a 1660/1660ti. I hear the rest of my fans, when I am gaming, to some degree, until I put my headset on.
 

King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
Who gets the 1080, and what the new card purchased should be, is heavily dependent on the following information about both your and your wife's monitors:
  • Resolution?
  • Refresh rate?
  • Does the monitor have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?
    • If FreeSync, what's the FreeSync range.
Then, on what the use cases are for both - particularly, is any gaming involved, and what games/types of games? On this question, we have the info for your wife's usage, but not yours.
 

Froberg

Distinguished
Jan 9, 2008
170
1
18,765
First of all, I truly appreciate all the input :) Thanks guys.

RTX 2080Ti is around 10.000 DKK, which is about 2000$US. That seems like a hefty price hike for marginally improved performance (prise to performance wise) and for some nicer lighting. I may opt for an upgrade in the next year or two, maybe prompted by new AMD offerings. (Here's hoping for some real competition there as well..!)

I'm getting a new monitor for my new setup, treating myself, as it were. It's looking like 144hz, gsync and UHD. From what I can source, it seems like high resolution, 240hz and larger than 27" displays are pretty much a non-starter. I'd prefer around 30 inches. I don't care much for ultrawide, either, since again getting anything larger than 1080p height seems to exclude a ton of other features. I don't really like 4k too much, as I don't want to force myself to have multiple GPU's to have a decent gaming experience and UHD and a large display suits my needs fine. Plus having a single GPU makes upgrading easier. I usually keep the main rig for a lot of years, upgrading the GPU at regular intervals when it becomes tenable to do so. She'll be on my current lovely 60hz Dell UHD 27" monitor. (Quick solution when my old one died..no judging, please.)
I could maybe hold on until Q1 of 2020, but being an old AMD fanboy, I'm sorely tempted by their resurgence. I really, really, worry about the motherboard fan though.
If you have any display suggestions, I'm all ears. Might just buy that immediately as I'm getting screen tears and it's just not nice to game on.

As far as temps go, I'd have to say that the Define R5 I'm using right now serves up great temps and I only really notice my rig when I start a game session. CPU is overclocked to 4.2GHz and is sitting at 37C right now, and the GPU is at 41C. (Both idle, of course..) Frankly the 1080 is the only audible part, so I may upgrade my cooling fans on the next build to see if I can provide it with more cool air. As I'm using a bracket for the case and it's hanging underneath the table, I think I will have intakes from the bottom and the front (140mm where possible) and 140/120 for rear exhaust. I'm hoping not having to use the top panel, as that would reduce the sound dampening. Bottom intake should be fine, as it's lifted of the ground and it won't be acting like a vacuum in that configuration.

Discreet looks and silence are important to me, I don't mind paying for them on thermals. Gonna slap the largest Noctua airblower available on the CPU.

As for my own games; Strategy and single player almost exclusively. Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed, Witcher and other RPG's. Some DOOM and I might pick up Counter-Strike again, if I can let go of my 1.6 love enough to give Go a proper shot.
 
Is the wife intending on gaming? If not, does she need a video card at all? (integrated graphics is an option if not gaming, of course)

If pondering gaming, the RX580 is an excellent value at about $180-$185 last time I checked it's price, and it is plenty fast for 1080P and even 1440P in most games at pretty high settings. (faster than GTX1060)
 

King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
First of all, I truly appreciate all the input :) Thanks guys.

RTX 2080Ti is around 10.000 DKK, which is about 2000$US. That seems like a hefty price hike for marginally improved performance (prise to performance wise) and for some nicer lighting. I may opt for an upgrade in the next year or two, maybe prompted by new AMD offerings. (Here's hoping for some real competition there as well..!)

I'm getting a new monitor for my new setup, treating myself, as it were. It's looking like 144hz, gsync and UHD. From what I can source, it seems like high resolution, 240hz and larger than 27" displays are pretty much a non-starter. I'd prefer around 30 inches. I don't care much for ultrawide, either, since again getting anything larger than 1080p height seems to exclude a ton of other features. I don't really like 4k too much, as I don't want to force myself to have multiple GPU's to have a decent gaming experience and UHD and a large display suits my needs fine. Plus having a single GPU makes upgrading easier. I usually keep the main rig for a lot of years, upgrading the GPU at regular intervals when it becomes tenable to do so. She'll be on my current lovely 60hz Dell UHD 27" monitor. (Quick solution when my old one died..no judging, please.)

Wait, I'm a little confused here. Isn't UHD the same as 4K, ie 3840x2160? But you don't want 4K?

I can say I am a fan of ultrawide, and, well, you can see mine and my son's monitors below. 2560x1080 is not too demanding on video cards, and while my own choice was made more for work purposes, I probably could've lived with 3440x1440 instead.

But I digress - are your current monitor and the monitor you're getting both UHD? ie: both 3840x2160?

(if it was an accidental wrong use of acronym, don't worry - I had to go look them up again, and can never keep them straight in my head, hence why I always refer directly to the resolution by numbers)
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Is the wife intending on gaming? If not, does she need a video card at all? (integrated graphics is an option if not gaming, of course)

If pondering gaming, the RX580 is an excellent value at about $180-$185 last time I checked it's price, and it is plenty fast for 1080P and even 1440P in most games at pretty high settings. (faster than GTX1060)

From the OP.
She just needs to play the sims, world of warcraft and other such titles, so I'm thinking it would be well within reason to buy a smaller GPU to sate her needs until I have a clear upgrade from the 1080, at which point she could get the 1080.

I agree that the RX 580 is a great 1080p card. Sadly, WoW heavily favors Nvidia, and isn't the best choice, for that particular title. Price/performance, the 1660 is a much better choice. As an example, a GTX 1050 getting higher minimum frames, than an RX 570. In most cases, the 1050 would get crushed, by an RX 570. Blizzard is kinda lazy, with AMD optimization.





DVyKPXzbor3y79fTMxbAMA-650-80.png
 
Solution

Froberg

Distinguished
Jan 9, 2008
170
1
18,765
2560x1440 appears to be the sweet spot for refresh rate, screen size and game performance on a single video card. By all means, correct me if I am wrong.
That resolution is referred to as UHD here.. but I kind of remember that it varies a bit these days. They really screwed up the naming system.
 

King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
2560x1440 appears to be the sweet spot for refresh rate, screen size and game performance on a single video card. By all means, correct me if I am wrong.
That resolution is referred to as UHD here.. but I kind of remember that it varies a bit these days. They really screwed up the naming system.

As I understand it (by cheating and looking things up, because I couldn't remember), the terminology is usually:
  • HD = 1280 x 720
  • FHD (full HD) = 1920 x 1080
  • QHD (quad HD) = 2560 x 1440 (because it's double the horizontal and double the vertical resolution of HD, thus four times the pixels)
  • UHD (Ultra HD) = 3840 x 2160 (double the horizontal and vertical resolution of FHD, thus four times the pixels, so, um, 4K? And because "ultra" sounds cool I guess?)
  • UHD 8K = 7680 x 4320 (double the horizontal and vertical resolution of UHD 4K, and they apparently ran out of ideas for names at this point)
... and there are a ton of other acronyms that stand for resolutions I can't remember. I know there was a site with a full list of them all somewhere. I just stick with the numbers, because the naming convention is slightly insane.