Should I upgrade my PC?

[Wilson Chen]

Hey there all,

My current PC was last upgraded, in terms of specs, like in late 2014 and early 2015. I just upgraded my GPU from ASUS STRIX 970 to a EVGA 1070 and was wondering if I should upgrade the rest of my gear.. I'm quite envious of the new Skylakes and what not LOL.

My current rig:

CPU: i7 4790k not overclocked
GPU: EVGA GTX 1070 SC not clocked
MB: Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark 2
Ram: DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz
SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250 GB
HD: Caviar Blue&Black @ 1TB
PSU: Thermal Lake Bronze 850W
CPU Cooler: Corsair GTX 100i

I'm not really a tech person, so I'm not exactly sure how to overclock and what not..
Any advice would be awesome. Thanks~

 

[Aeacus]

For upgrade, composed a bench between your current build (base) and my suggestion (alternative). (Don't look the prices though).

Userbenchmark PC Build Comparison

Baseline Bench: Game 108%, Desk 92%, Work 62%
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K €280
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 €347
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB €89
HDD: WD Blue 1TB (2012) €44
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 C10 1x8GB €38
MBD: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 2 €266
Total: €1,065

Alternative Bench: Game 121%, Desk 122%, Work 89%
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K €266
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 €347
SSD: Samsung SM951 NVMe PCIe M.2 256GB €160
HDD: WD Blue 1TB (2012) €44
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4 3000 C15 2x8GB €78
MBD: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 (MS-7977) €151
Total: €1,048

 

[arlemedra]

Skylake will not provide significant enough performance increase to upgrade (it's around 5%). If you do want to upgrade then the area I see the most improvement would be getting 16 gb of ram.

 

[Aeacus]

Skylake will not provide significant enough performance increase to upgrade (it's around 5%). If you do want to upgrade then the area I see the most improvement would be getting 16 gb of ram.

It's true that Skylake provides only about 5% performance upgrade. But having LGA1151 socket MoBo sets one up for the future Kaby Lake and Cannonlake CPUs from Intel.

 

[George Mulligan]

With that rig, I would only upgrade to 16GB RAM and replace that PSU with a top tier one. Anything else is not worth the return...you're good for awhile.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

 

[Wilson Chen]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm still not sure if I want to spend a few hundred dollars for the extra gear just for a small slight boost in gaming.
I do not play any hard core games, just the casual like CSGO, LoL, Overwatch, H1Z1. Nothing too fancy haha.
If I am to keep my current build, how should i about to overclocking my current gear?

Here is my current UserBenchmarks. 😉

UserBenchmarks: Game 100%, Desk 74%, Work 52%
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K - 78.8%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 - 124.1%
SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB - 62.8%
HDD: WD Black 1TB (2010) - 70.1%
HDD: WD Blue 1TB (2012) - 99.6%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3 1866 C9 2x4GB - 40.5%
MBD: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 2

 

[Aeacus]

Your build is good as it sits. Wait for a few years and then make a complete overhaul.

For cheap upgrade, buy another set of Corsair 2x 4GB 1866 Mhz RAM to get 16GB of RAM.

 

[Wilson Chen]

Your build is good as it sits. Wait for a few years and then make a complete overhaul.

For cheap upgrade, buy another set of Corsair 2x 4GB 1866 Mhz RAM to get 16GB of RAM.

Would it be better to OC that too?

 

[Aeacus]

Your build is running fine without OC.
But if you want to, then you can do it. From your BIOS, OC your CPU and for GPU, use MSI Afterburner.
link: https://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner

Read OC tutorials before trying to OC.
Note: OC generates a lot of heat and there is always a risk that you break the component if you go too far.