Probably time to upgrade the gaming rig, what's going to hold me back?

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thedoublej

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With Fallout 76 and BFV coming out, I've decided that my 2011ish gaming rig is due for an upgrade. Here's what I've got:
i5-2500K @ 4.0 with a 212 on top of it
16gb of 1333 DDR3
Some Asus MB - P8Z68 V LX
DD R9-290x
PSU is a good 750
Evo 850

When I built this thing, no games used more than 2 cores, and no games used virtual cores. This can't be true anymore, as BF1 uses all 4 cores at 100% How about virtual cores, do they help?

Here's what I need:
4 cores @ 4.0, an i7 seems to be recommended across the board, not sure why
16gb of RAM, probably need faster than what I have now
RX 580, probably do a 590 if the price is right. I know Nvidia better, but I do AMD GPUs. Plan on 1440 ultrawide down the road
Do I need more PSU?
If I need more CPU, than I need more MoBo. Do I need to OC, or just buy a faster chip? What about some future proofing? I like ASUS MoBos.
What's the deal with audio? I'm running a 5.1 surround system, and I've always felt it's a bit weak for pushing 500 watts at me from 3 feet away, is this crap onboard sound?

I'll probably start with the 590 over the holidays and move forward from there, as my current mobo/cpu/ram currently meets the specs I'm after, but I can't imagine that just slapping a 590 in will make a 7 year old system current.

I'll be cooling the CPU with a Dark Rock Pro 4 because it looks cool. I'm considering water on the GPU, but my HAF XB isn't really a smart design for water cooling. The rad is mounted so that it pushes hot air into the case.
 

thedoublej

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I removed the cooler, gave everything a once over, and re-installed it. Install was cake, and nothing flexed, so my initial install was either off center or who knows what, but it was wrong. That actually appears to have been the problem. After the remount, I popped the gpu back in and slapped in another HDD with an old version of 7 on it, and it booted immediately. I put my USB and SSD, fired it back up, and it's tearing through the windows 10 install steps.

I'm still concerned that I may have damaged something, obviously my cooler install went poorly enough that it stopped the entire system from booting, but so far it seems to be running fine. I'll run some prime 95 to cure the thermal compound and then throw a half-gig into the chip and see what happens and I'll report back. Or I'll be back earlier if there are any RAM issues.

Got everything installed, ran P95 twice, didn't break 80 degrees. So far the system isn't acting up, so hopefully I didn't screw anything up and I'm good to go.
 


Did you reinstall the operating system for this motherboard? If not you are still using the drivers from the previous motherboard.
 


If you just installed the RAM and powered up the system the RAM will be operating at the default timings and operating frequency.

To get to the the timings and frequency on the label of the RAM. I would enter the BIOS (usually by repeatedly pressing the delete button during the startup). Then enable XMP and select the memory profile (if there is more than one). Then exit the BIOS saving your changes.
 
The F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM RAM that you mentioned earlier is

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM .

It's labeled operating frequency is 2133 MHz with 9-11-10-28-2N timings and CL9. It is guaranteed to operate at those specs.
 

thedoublej

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Not bad at all, $200 for RAM and a gigantic cooler, leaves me way under my original budget (which I see as the same as making money) so I can try out some of this RGB stuff. Also leaves me another mb, cpu, RAM, and GPU to build a gaming rig for when I visit family.

Just gotta figure out how to OC this thing now, first attempt gave me a failed boot.
 
If you have never overclocked a CPU before, I would suggest two things. The first is to try the automated overclock. Generally they give you three levels of overclock. Select the lowest one and then hit enter. It will automatically overclock the CPU that level. It will give you an idea of the performance. If everything the overclock works, then you can try a higher one.

If it fails or if you just want go back to the stock frequency, just reset the BIOS to the defaults or clear the CMOS (if it will not bot).

The next step is to watch some overclocking videos. They will show you the basics of overclocking and then running a stress test to show that the overclock is stable.

Here is one (from that time period).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcta3RStYSM

And here is a more modern version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJTH152HBTc
 

thedoublej

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Thanks, I'll check those out. I OCd my 2500, but that things runs so cool and was so popular it was cake to hit 4.0 with it on air. This mobo I have was pretty un popular, and it's my first gigabyte, so the bios is different. I'll give the 20% auto jobber a try and see where I land.
 

thedoublej

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I'm not sure how the percentages work, but 20% gave me 4.3ghz with no issues.

40% gives me 4.4ghz pulling 230 watts at 1.24 volts and I'm at 100 degrees on P95, did the 10 minute high heat (FFT or something) run and there was no throttling. I am seeing 10 degrees difference between cores though, that's bugging me.

60% gave me 4.5ghz, temps jumped over 100 degrees, and the cores throttled within the first minute, so I stopped the test.
The auto setting also pulled my RAM back to 1800 or so, so I put it back to 2133 manually.
During BFV, I see 59 degrees, 44.18ghz, 115 watts and 1.21 volts I think

What's it all mean? 3440 x 1440 with a mix of Med, High, and Ultra settings and I'm seeing framerates in the mid 90s, monitor tops out at 100, so I win.

Thanks for your help everyone, Terry especially.
 
What CPU cooler are you using? If the CPU temperatures are getting that high, then either the CPU cooler needs to be remounted with fresh thermal paste or you need a better CPU cooler.

Although thermal throttling doesn't occur until near 100 C. It isn't a good idea running it that hot. Until you have the CPU cooling under control, I would decrease overclock.

The stress tests aren't reality. Keep an eye on the CPU temperatures during gaming 70 - 80 C under load is acceptable.
 


That sounds like a good plan. That CPU cooler should provide enough cooling. And 59 C is a reasonable temperature under a real world load.