[SOLVED] Is it worth upgrading my current build or wait?

Mar 21, 2020
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Hello, i have a problem to decide if is it worth upgrading my current build to the following. Also i have two questions, what kind of boost i will see with this change and if i should wait for zen3 gen?

Current build:
i5 6400
z170-hd3 ddr3
16gb 1600mhz
rx480 8gb (i will change it when new amd and nvidia cards will be released)

Upgrade build:
ryzen 7 3800x
x570 aorus elite
32gb 3600mhz

I usually play games and doing multitasking, no productivity at all. But i want the future proof thing with this update. :)
 
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Because i'm not making changes often, i was thinking of going for 3800x to last at least 5-6 years or so in stock condition.
3800X won't last any longer than a 3700X would.
-consumes more power.
-doesn't overclock any better - overclocking these cpus is doing it wrong anyway.
-not even 1% faster.
-significant price premium over the latter.
3700X is good enough.

No one knows what will really happen in 5-6 years. We can only 2nd guess based on what's already happened.
So, unless either Intel or AMD drop out of the cpu market for a period of time, causing one or the other to monopolize it, these Ryzen chips will not age as well as Intel's older cpus did.

Phaaze88

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I see 3 questions...
1)No.
2)5-25% overall, depending on the game and in game settings.
3)Depends on a number of things. The answer isn't always yes or no.

No such thing as 'future proof', but that is it's own can of worms...

More worthwhile combo:
Cpu: Ryzen 3600 or 3700X
Motherboard: Msi B450 Tomahawk MAX
Memory: 2x 16GB 3200 or 3600, depending on primary timings and pricing at the time of purchase.
 
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3700X should offer ~98% of the 3800X's gaming performance....

The B450 route (over X570) should indeed save at least another $100 or more....but the X570 might offer better chances of drop-in compatibility with a hypothetical 4800X/4900X replacement later....

Decisions, decisions!
 
3)No. If you wait, you will wait forever. New hardware launches literally every year.
If current performance is still relatively fine for one's needs, then waiting can make sense. If one's system isn't exactly struggling now, and they want to wait for the next graphics cards to come out for potentially improved raytracing capabilities or whatever, then it might be worth waiting to upgrade the whole system at once. Pairing a 3700X or 3800X with 32GB of RAM and a somewhat higher-end motherboard, but sticking with an RX 480, seems a little imbalanced for gaming. The RX 480 is still a fine enough card for 1080p, but it might limit any gains seen from upgrading the other hardware in many titles.

Probably worth asking, is this for gaming at 1080p, and what refresh rate is your monitor? Are you typically running less-demanding games that might not require as much graphics performance, or graphically demanding new-releases that might see more gain from a faster graphics card?
 
Mar 21, 2020
5
0
10
If current performance is still relatively fine for one's needs, then waiting can make sense. If one's system isn't exactly struggling now, and they want to wait for the next graphics cards to come out for potentially improved raytracing capabilities or whatever, then it might be worth waiting to upgrade the whole system at once. Pairing a 3700X or 3800X with 32GB of RAM and a somewhat higher-end motherboard, but sticking with an RX 480, seems a little imbalanced for gaming. The RX 480 is still a fine enough card for 1080p, but it might limit any gains seen from upgrading the other hardware in many titles.

Probably worth asking, is this for gaming at 1080p, and what refresh rate is your monitor? Are you typically running less-demanding games that might not require as much graphics performance, or graphically demanding new-releases that might see more gain from a faster graphics card?
Im gaming at 1080p in 60fps monitor. I'm playing all the AAA games and multiplayer. As for gpu i will wait for high end in next gen.
 
Mar 21, 2020
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0
10
I see 3 questions...
1)No.
2)5-25% overall, depending on the game and in game settings.
3)Depends on a number of things. The answer isn't always yes or no.

No such thing as 'future proof', but that is it's own can of worms...

More worthwhile combo:
Cpu: Ryzen 3600 or 3700X
Motherboard: Msi B450 Tomahawk MAX
Memory: 2x 16GB 3200 or 3600, depending on primary timings and pricing at the time of purchase.
3700x is almost in same price with 3800x in my country. And i am of the philosophy of going to high end cpu-mobo-ram so as not to change them for like 5+ years and then with the new gen amd and nvidia cards i will go for high end there too.
 

Phaaze88

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3700x is almost in same price with 3800x in my country.
How much is 'almost'? Over here in the US, there's a 40USD difference, and that is too much for a cpu that isn't even 1% faster than the 3700X - it's a joke.
Same deal with Ryzen 3600 and 3600X - the latter is still not worth it unless the price is dropped closer to the former.

And i am of the philosophy of going to high end cpu-mobo-ram so as not to change them for like 5+ years and then with the new gen amd and nvidia cards i will go for high end there too.
Difficult to say with the cpu space currently. If AMD disappears like they did before, you could pull that off with the cpu.
Fat chance of going that long with the gpu as it currently stands, plus Intel is soon to enter the market.
There have been some anomalies though, like the 8800 GTX and the GTX 1080Ti...

'Futureproofing' falls flat on it's face because of the following:
1)New tech launches literally every year, downplaying what you have at the time by a little, or by a lot.

2)Competition promotes progress. When there is no competition, progress stagnates, all to maximize company profits.
Example: When AMD disappeared for almost 10 years and Intel monopolized the cpu market, launching cpus every year with single digit percentage performance bumps, giving people reason to hold onto their old cpus.
Because of that though, those same old Sandys, Ivys, Haswells, Broadwells, and 1st gen Skylakes AGED BETTER; they were still pretty relevant even after 3, 5, or 7 years later - at least the I7s were, anyway.
Now that AMD is back in the game and bringing actual competitive products against Intel, as long as no one 'disappears', the current line of products WILL NOT age as well as the ones during the monopoly.

3)One of, and probably the greatest dis-credibility to 'futureproofing', is the bottleneck known as software development.
It costs more money and takes time for devs to adapt their software to, which, by the way, hardware development far outpaces. A 9900K or 3950X will become 'obsolete' long before games can adapt to using 16-32 threads.
 
There have been some anomalies though, like the 8800 GTX and the GTX 1080Ti...
While the 1080 Ti has held up reasonably well since it came out 3 years ago, I'm not sure it is going to hold up particularly well for 5+ years unless one is okay with running new games at "medium" settings. We have already been seeing a number of games where the card can't handle "true" ultra settings, aka with raytraced lighting effects enabled, even at 1080p. With games designed for the next generation of consoles, raytracing will likely become the norm, not the exception. With raytracing enabled, a 1080 Ti drops to below the performance of a $300 RTX 2060, in some cases getting as little as half the performance of that card. Of course, it's also questionable how well first-generation RTX cards will be handling raytracing in future games, particularly at resolutions above 1080p.
 

Zoel.fahmi

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Dec 27, 2019
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Hello, i have a problem to decide if is it worth upgrading my current build to the following. Also i have two questions, what kind of boost i will see with this change and if i should wait for zen3 gen?

Current build:
i5 6400
z170-hd3 ddr3
16gb 1600mhz
rx480 8gb (i will change it when new amd and nvidia cards will be released)

Upgrade build:
ryzen 7 3800x
x570 aorus elite
32gb 3600mhz

I usually play games and doing multitasking, no productivity at all. But i want the future proof thing with this update. :)
If only game and multitasking a Ryzen 5 3600 or 3600x will have enough power for those activities
Also you can use cheaper motherboard like B450 Tomahawk
It'll save you some money to enjoy cup of coffee
 
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Mar 21, 2020
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If only game and multitasking a Ryzen 5 3600 or 3600x will have enough power for those activities
Also you can use cheaper motherboard like B450 Tomahawk
It'll save you some money to enjoy cup of coffee
3600 will be enough to handle the "heavy" games for the next 5+ years without problem?
 

Phaaze88

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While the 1080 Ti has held up reasonably well since it came out 3 years ago, I'm not sure it is going to hold up particularly well for 5+ years unless one is okay with running new games at "medium" settings. We have already been seeing a number of games where the card can't handle "true" ultra settings, aka with raytraced lighting effects enabled, even at 1080p. With games designed for the next generation of consoles, raytracing will likely become the norm, not the exception. With raytracing enabled, a 1080 Ti drops to below the performance of a $300 RTX 2060, in some cases getting as little as half the performance of that card. Of course, it's also questionable how well first-generation RTX cards will be handling raytracing in future games, particularly at resolutions above 1080p.
🤷‍♂️

The 20 series was intended for RT and equipped with the necessary hardware and drivers to run it.
1080Ti was not intended, nor equipped for that and just has patch drivers to go on, and is expected to be as smooth or something compared to the 'RTX series'? Real nice what you did there...

RT is a niche area currently, and one I sure don't care about right now. A 1440p non-RT image looks better to me than a 1080p RT one.
I, at least, am not missing anything with that currently niche feature right now, nor do I have to concern myself with the performance impact or the issues with RT software development; time and money.
Until software development fully supports RT, it's going to be niche for awhile yet... Wow, I said it 3 times already.

Many times console progression has been behind that of PC hardware, yet the latter is held back by the former because the pacing of software appears to revolve around it.
 
The 20 series was intended for RT and equipped with the necessary hardware and drivers to run it.
1080Ti was not intended, nor equipped for that and just has patch drivers to go on, and is expected to be as smooth or something compared to the 'RTX series'? Real nice what you did there...
My point was more that you were implying the GTX 1080 Ti to have been an exception to your suggestion of future-proofing being futile. Sure, it might be plenty usable for 5+ years, but that could be said of just about any mid-range or better graphics card, provided one is willing to reduce settings accordingly in demanding titles. Whether it's turning down lighting effects, or reducing resolution, there are going to be some concessions made after owning a card for a few years or so.

And I acknowledged that raytracing performance is a bit questionable on the current 20-series cards, but it could be notably better on the next generation of graphics hardware, and perhaps better on the upcoming consoles as well. With all of those supporting raytracing, it seems likely that raytraced effects will become standard for ultra settings relatively soon. I don't see the option for traditional lighting effects getting dropped entirely for quite a while, due to the prevalence of non-DXR cards still in the market, but we will undoubtedly see more of a shift toward raytraced lighting, and perhaps more focus on optimizing visuals for that. And there are also things like raytraced audio, that might cause a performance hit when dedicated hardware isn't available, though I would assume that's probably not nearly as demanding.
 
Mar 21, 2020
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10
I'm not saying 5 years
Based on most game requirements right now it'll do the job.
3 years maybe , 5 years if you're willing to lower the game quality or have better gpu
Because i'm not making changes often, i was thinking of going for 3800x to last at least 5-6 years or so in stock condition.
 

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
Because i'm not making changes often, i was thinking of going for 3800x to last at least 5-6 years or so in stock condition.
3800X won't last any longer than a 3700X would.
-consumes more power.
-doesn't overclock any better - overclocking these cpus is doing it wrong anyway.
-not even 1% faster.
-significant price premium over the latter.
3700X is good enough.

No one knows what will really happen in 5-6 years. We can only 2nd guess based on what's already happened.
So, unless either Intel or AMD drop out of the cpu market for a period of time, causing one or the other to monopolize it, these Ryzen chips will not age as well as Intel's older cpus did.
 
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Solution