[SOLVED] Is my system enough for 2020, 1080p high refresh?

[zevi230]

So I've had this system for 2 years, except for the drives and CPU which I've had for 5. I overhauled most of the system 2 years ago, but the only upgrades that actually lifted performance were the GPU and ram, which I changed from a 960 to a 1070Ti, which I feel was a mistake since I could have waited for the 20 series back then, and from 2400 vengeance lpx to 3000 vengeance pros. Anyways, I didn't really think it through since my GPU and CPU combo is starting to show some age. Here are the full specs, it is pushed to the absolute max I could achieve. I also elaborated a little bit on some key points to maybe get tips on improving what I currently have until I upgrade, if I even have to.

i7 6700k @ 4.7ghz 1.37v
2x8gb Corsair vengeance pro 3000 mhz xmp to 3200
GTX 1070Ti EVGA ftw2 +400mhz core and memory, 120% power limit using afterburner
H100i pro, front radiator using front case fans
Gigabyte Aorus z270x gaming 5
Corsair RM750x
Corsair 460x rgb (3 front sp120)
3 extra sp120 rgb fans as exhaust, 2 on top 1 back

For the usage, I aim at 1080p high refresh in games, and stable fps where it is not possible to play in high refresh like cyberpunk, where I currently suffer from drops at times and overall average at around 40-50 fps on highest settings. In the future, I might use this machine for game development, so that has to come into consideration. My storage wouldn't hurt to upgrade, too. I have two 1tb hdds, one's empty and the other half full, and a 128gb 850 evo boot drive, 15gb free. Might need an ssd for game storage and the aforementioned game development.

I use an Asus vg279qm as my main monitor @ 240hz, and a benq rl2455hm as a secondary monitor. My budget is no more than 1000$ for upgrades, but it'll actually need to be about 850$ because of import fees. It might be overkill, I know. I just need some help deciding on a direction to go to.

 

[CountMike]

So I've had this system for 2 years, except for the drives and CPU which I've had for 5. I overhauled most of the system 2 years ago, but the only upgrades that actually lifted performance were the GPU and ram, which I changed from a 960 to a 1070Ti, which I feel was a mistake since I could have waited for the 20 series back then, and from 2400 vengeance lpx to 3000 vengeance pros. Anyways, I didn't really think it through since my GPU and CPU combo is starting to show some age. Here are the full specs, it is pushed to the absolute max I could achieve. I also elaborated a little bit on some key points to maybe get tips on improving what I currently have until I upgrade, if I even have to.

i7 6700k @ 4.7ghz 1.37v
2x8gb Corsair vengeance pro 3000 mhz xmp to 3200
GTX 1070Ti EVGA ftw2 +400mhz core and memory, 120% power limit using afterburner
H100i pro, front radiator using front case fans
Gigabyte Aorus z270x gaming 5
Corsair RM750x
Corsair 460x rgb (3 front sp120)
3 extra sp120 rgb fans as exhaust, 2 on top 1 back

For the usage, I aim at 1080p high refresh in games, and stable fps where it is not possible to play in high refresh like cyberpunk, where I currently suffer from drops at times and overall average at around 40-50 fps on highest settings. In the future, I might use this machine for game development, so that has to come into consideration. My storage wouldn't hurt to upgrade, too. I have two 1tb hdds, one's empty and the other half full, and a 128gb 850 evo boot drive, 15gb free. Might need an ssd for game storage and the aforementioned game development.

I use an Asus vg279qm as my main monitor @ 240hz, and a benq rl2455hm as a secondary monitor. My budget is no more than 1000$ for upgrades, but it'll actually need to be about 850$ because of import fees. It might be overkill, I know. I just need some help deciding on a direction to go to.

Your CPU is badly behind times specially at 1080p where it counts most.

 

[zevi230]

Your CPU is badly behind times specially at 1080p where it counts most.

I am fully aware of this, yet I don't know what will benefit ne more, a cpu or gpu upgrade...

 

[CountMike]

I am fully aware of this, yet I don't know what will benefit ne more, a cpu or gpu upgrade...

CPU if only one component you want to change. New MB has to come too.

 

[zevi230]

CPU if only one component you want to change. New MB has to come too.

Yeah, no upgrading on this motherboard, 7700k is not an upgrade at all... is getting a new cpu+mobo the upgrade to do right now, and not GPU? and if so, what should I get? should I wait for rocket lake, or get zen 3?

 

[CountMike]

Yeah, no upgrading on this motherboard, 7700k is not an upgrade at all... is getting a new cpu+mobo the upgrade to do right now, and not GPU? and if so, what should I get? should I wait for rocket lake, or get zen 3?

Give Ryzen R5 5600x some thought, it's predecessor, 3600(x) was voted as best gaming deal this and last year and 5600x is 15-20% even better. That plus half decent b550 MB should leave you bellow stated budget giving you leeway for faster RAM (3600MHz+) but 3200MHz should also be fine. Corsair can also be overclocked if needed.
Or maybe some NVME SSD just for OS and essential programs (240GB would be enough) as that would make it look and boot much faster with less overhead for OS.

 

[zevi230]

Give Ryzen R5 5600x some thought, it's predecessor, 3600(x) was voted as best gaming deal this and last year and 5600x is 15-20% even better. That plus half decent b550 MB should leave you bellow stated budget giving you leeway for faster RAM (3600MHz+) but 3200MHz should also be fine. Corsair can also be overclocked if needed.
Or maybe some NVME SSD just for OS and essential programs (240GB would be enough) as that would make it look and boot much faster with less overhead for OS.

The 5600x currently costs 450$ where I'm at, as for the motherboard I'll have to get a white one like the vision d since my PC is white themed, so that will cost me another 350$... these 800$ could instead get me (when it's available) an rtx 3070 for about 700$ (550$ base price, 17% import fees, shipping) to replace my 1070Ti. I'm really not sure what to do...

 

[CountMike]

The 5600x currently costs 450$ where I'm at, as for the motherboard I'll have to get a white one like the vision d since my PC is white themed, so that will cost me another 350$... these 800$ could instead get me (when it's available) an rtx 3070 for about 700$ (550$ base price, 17% import fees, shipping) to replace my 1070Ti. I'm really not sure what to do...

Like I said, at 1080p CPU is the one to look after as overpowered GPU will not bring much gain, so called bottleneck.
As for white MB, well, it's up to you, do you prefer looks over price and performance ? I certainly don't.

 

[zevi230]

Like I said, at 1080p CPU is the one to look after as overpowered GPU will not bring much gain, so called bottleneck.
As for white MB, well, it's up to you, do you prefer looks over price and performance ? I certainly don't.

Is the b550 vision d a bad motherboard? From what I can see, there really isn't much of a difference between it and the best b550 board that I could find, the b550-f strix
There's also the b550-a strix which looks to be kind of the same board but white...

 

[CountMike]

Is the b550 vision d a bad motherboard? From what I can see, there really isn't much of a difference between it and the best b550 board that I could find, the b550-f strix
There's also the b550-a strix which looks to be kind of the same board but white...

Up to 8 cores all b550 are just about same. I would give Asus slight edge on account of better BIOS.
If important, Vision seem to have WiFi and Thunderbolt

 

[zevi230]

Up to 8 cores all b550 are just about same. I would give Asus slight edge on account of better BIOS.
If important, Vision seem to have WiFi and Thunderbolt

I think I'll go with the b550-a strix, as it really does seem to have the edge, I don't need wifi or thunderbolt (might add a bluetooth&wifi expansion card) and I am familiar with the b550-f strix and I know it is a great board, built a pc for a friend with it and a 5600x a month ago. Did a quick comparison. the b550-a strix is basically the same motherboard with a different color scheme that suits me. For some reason the only difference is that it lacks crossfire support, but who cares about that?
Anyways, just have to wait for 5600x stock. Unfortunately, the only local store that sells it and has a supply of it only takes orders that are above 800$ in price, so guess I'd have to wait on that stock to normalize or try and snatch one... Now, for a storage upgrade, I was looking for something to replace my trusty 128gb 850 evo, 500gb will suffice, think the 970 evo would do?

 

[CountMike]

I think I'll go with the b550-a strix, as it really does seem to have the edge, I don't need wifi or thunderbolt (might add a bluetooth&wifi expansion card) and I am familiar with the b550-f strix and I know it is a great board, built a pc for a friend with it and a 5600x a month ago. Did a quick comparison. the b550-a strix is basically the same motherboard with a different color scheme that suits me. For some reason the only difference is that it lacks crossfire support, but who cares about that?
Anyways, just have to wait for 5600x stock. Unfortunately, the only local store that sells it and has a supply of it only takes orders that are above 800$ in price, so guess I'd have to wait on that stock to normalize or try and snatch one... Now, for a storage upgrade, I was looking for something to replace my trusty 128gb 850 evo, 500gb will suffice, think the 970 evo would do?

Yes Samsung 970 would do fine although there's much faster ones for PCIe v4, like 980 but I doubt you'd see any difference.
Yes, multi GPU is out for few years now, very few titles for it.

 

[zevi230]

Yes Samsung 970 would do fine although there's much faster ones for PCIe v4, like 980 but I doubt you'd see any difference.
Yes, multi GPU is out for few years now, very few titles for it.

PCIe 4.0 drives are hella expensive right now, and yeah, as you said, there really isn't a big noticeable difference. The real difference for me is coming from a sata ssd to basically any nvme ssd which isn't trash.
Anyways, thanks a lot for the help. Just went to see a CPU comparison for cyberpunk, the 3300x which is basically identical to my 6700k is at the very bottom of the list, 5600x at the top, Upgrade is way overdue.

 

[sizzling]

PCIe 4.0 drives are hella expensive right now, and yeah, as you said, there really isn't a big noticeable difference. The real difference for me is coming from a sata ssd to basically any nvme ssd which isn't trash.
Anyways, thanks a lot for the help. Just went to see a CPU comparison for cyberpunk, the 3300x which is basically identical to my 6700k is at the very bottom of the list, 5600x at the top, Upgrade is way overdue.

For gaming there is virtually no benefit from NVMe over a good SATA drive. I have games on both types of drives and cannot tell the difference and reviews say the same. I feel it makes sense to have Windows on NVMe if you have the budget but even then the gains are tiny.

 

[CountMike]

PCIe 4.0 drives are hella expensive right now, and yeah, as you said, there really isn't a big noticeable difference. The real difference for me is coming from a sata ssd to basically any nvme ssd which isn't trash.
Anyways, thanks a lot for the help. Just went to see a CPU comparison for cyberpunk, the 3300x which is basically identical to my 6700k is at the very bottom of the list, 5600x at the top, Upgrade is way overdue.

I have W10 on 960 evo and another W10 (insider version) on relatively slow SATA SSD (Kingston) and difference is visible, not so much when reading/writing but it goes have influence on other functions because of less used system resources. At for instance windows update 960 uses only 20-30% of it's speed and only maybe 1 or 2% of CPU and RAM resources. while with SATA one it's almost constant 100% disk and 10-15% of RAM and CPU. That's where difference is most visible.

 

[zevi230]

One way or another, I have to replace my boot drive with something bigger to store games on it, seeing how my friends run their games from their SSDs makes me want to move them from my HDD ASAP. 128gb won't cut it anymore for me, and when NVME has become mainstream, there's no reason not to buy one. Not a pcie gen 4, but a good 3.0 like the 970 will do the job for years to come. My 850 evo is also aging, and it's basically at half of its lifetime right now and prone for problems.

 

[CountMike]

For gaming there is virtually no benefit from NVMe over a good SATA drive. I have games on both types of drives and cannot tell the difference and reviews say the same. I feel it makes sense to have Windows on NVMe if you have the budget but even then the gains are tiny.

It's other resources that most suffer with slower drives, best seen in lesser systems, not so much in better ones. If disk writing or reading occurs during a game it may make game hiccup a bit.

 

[zevi230]

It's other resources that most suffer with slower drives, best seen in lesser systems, not so much in better ones. If disk writing or reading occurs during a game it may make game hiccup a bit.

Cyberpunk 2077 seems to run very badly on HDDs. I suppose that the bug where the NPC and car models don't fully load quickly enough is because of the slow write and reads.

 

[CountMike]

Cyberpunk 2077 seems to run very badly on HDDs. I suppose that the bug where the NPC and car models don't fully load quickly enough is because of the slow write and reads.

Cyberpunk 2077 runs badly anywhere, there's an update but version for consoles are pulled back, it's a mess of a game.