[SOLVED] New cpu & motherboard, old RAM & GPU

[seanthered]

My Win10 desktop PC (for Zoom, teaching language classes, marking and light editing) is 7 years old now, and feeling sluggish, and I can’t upgrade to Win11.

I’d originally thought I’d be using it a lot for gaming, so it has 32 GB of HyperX DDR 4 2400 RAM in 4 sticks, a GTX 1080 GPU, an MSI Z170A SLI plus gaming motherboard, an i7 6700K CPU, and around 6 TB of storage on various SSDs and HDDs.

I was thinking of buying a new power supply, motherboard and CPU (open to Intel or AMD) and keeping my DDR4 RAM, but being able to upgrade to DDR5 in the future. And, continue to use my GTX 1080 for now, but maybe swap it out a couple of years down the road.

Any suggestions on a good Win11 motherboard and CPU combo that will pick up my system’s speed and allow me the flexibile upgrade path I’m thinking of?

Thanks very much

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

keeping my DDR4 RAM, but being able to upgrade to DDR5 in the future

you will not find a board that runs DDR4 but can also run DDR5 later.
it's one or the other.

suggestions on a good Win11 motherboard and CPU combo...
originally thought I’d be using it a lot for gaming

so you will not be using it for any kind of gaming?

it has 32 GB of HyperX DDR 4 2400 RAM in 4 sticks, a GTX 1080 GPU, an MSI Z170A SLI plus gaming motherboard, an i7 6700K CPU
(for Zoom, teaching language classes, marking and light editing)

if all you're using it for is the listed purposes you should still be fine with what you have.

maybe just overclock the CPU some and get some faster memory(≥3200MHz) but there's really nothing in the setup that should limit performance with these few listed tasks.

there's nothing that Windows 11 offers that should cause the want for an upgrade just to use it.

 

[geofelt]

Why do you think you need windows 11?

The psu wattage you need is mainly determined by your graphics card.
If it is ok for a gtx1080ti, then it is likely ok for any other upgrade:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm
Today, DDR5 performs no better than your ddr4 and keeping your ram will be vastly cheaper.

If you want a big cpu upgrade, look at a I5-12400 and a b660 based motherboard.

 

[seanthered]

Why do you think you need windows 11?

The psu wattage you need is mainly determined by your graphics card.
If it is ok for a gtx1080ti, then it is likely ok for any other upgrade:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm
Today, DDR5 performs no better than your ddr4 and keeping your ram will be vastly cheaper.

If you want a big cpu upgrade, look at a I5-12400 and a b660 based motherboard.

Thanks! I assume Win 10 will eventually stop getting updates, so figured I should upgrade. Much appreciated.

 

[seanthered]

you will not find a board that runs DDR4 but can also run DDR5 later.
it's one or the other.

so you will not be using it for any kind of gaming?

if all you're using it for is the listed purposes you should still be fine with what you have.

maybe just overclock the CPU some and get some faster memory(≥3200MHz) but there's really nothing in the setup that should limit performance with these few listed tasks.

there's nothing that Windows 11 offers that should cause the want for an upgrade just to use it.

Thanks! Yes, I've got a gaming laptop, so my desktop has become for work only. Much appreciated!

 

[geofelt]

Thanks! I assume Win 10 will eventually stop getting updates, so figured I should upgrade. Much appreciated.

You will be getting security updates for a long time.
Eventually, new features updates will only be available on W11.
At that time, you can decide if that feature is worth the upgrade.