Should I upgrade?

[archv]

Hey all!

I've been building my own PCs since a 386-25... It used to be obvious when it was time to upgrade, some game would come out that ran super slow, time to upgrade! But that's not so much the case anymore.

I have a system in which most components are from 2012... except the graphics card.

Here we go:
Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard
Core i7 3820, OC'ed stable to 4.5Ghz
Corsair liquid CPU cooler (forgot which one)
32 Gig DDR3
Samsung 750 SSD x 2 in Raid 0. (256G each)
Couple of WD Black mechanical drives for bulk storage
Monitor (Irrelevant, but...) Microboard 34" ultrawide 3440x1440 @ 100Hz
Geforce 1080 Founders Edition

This machine was about $3k in 2012... and it FEELS like it's still running fine today. Probably mostly due to the 1080 upgrade (it originally had a Radeon 7970 in it)

But, being from 2012, I can't help but wonder if I'm limited by some lower level stuff, like motherboard things, and the CPU. Is there a good way to tell if I'm CPU limited on games?

Also, is the 1080 being hindered in any way by the motherboard technology?

The disk access feels nice and snappy with SSDs in Raid 0... But I'm sure some M.2 NVME drives would be even faster; noticeably so? I'm not sure.

Like I said it still FEELS like fast machine, but I can't help but wonder if I'm just "used to it" and newer machines are actually much faster.

I'd appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!

 

[jay32267]

" Is there a good way to tell if I'm CPU limited on games?
"

Download Afterburner. It will show you GPU and CPU usage. If your CPU is riding around 100% you are CPU limited.

I don't think the 1080 is hindered by the MB technology. I'm running a 1060 on 2008 MB just fine.

From everything I've read NVMes aren't that much noticeably faster for what I do which is games which is why I don't have one.

I don't think your really "missing anything" by not upgrading. Your machine is a good machine. If it were me, I would definitely hang onto it because it would definitely do everything I would need it to do. That's basically what you have to ask yourself. Is it doing what you want?

 

[zyh1987]

unless you are going to the latest i7, i think you are not going to see huge performance jumps.

to tell bottleneck, you can look at cpu usage vs gpu usage during gaming, a balanced system should be able to keep the gpu usage in the high 80~90%. if not, then it's a sign of platform (CPU, ram, chipset) bottleneck.

max throughput for the ram is also lower than concurrent ddr4. in some game, you see upward of 10 fps going from 2400 ram to 3600 mhz ram.

 

[archv]

Yeah I'll start paying attention to CPU usage, but I don't THINK anything is pegging it at 100%.

Also, I think you're right. Its doing everything I need it to do.... I even do VR on the HTC Vive with it no problems.

It just feels awkward for someone that's used to "needing" to upgrade every year or two, to running the same machine for 6 years. I guess it goes to show that good money spent up front will buy a machine that has longer longevity.

Now, my laptop from 2012 is pretty much done for.... while it was also $3k at the time, its stuck with a Geforce 670M, which is NOT great now-a-days. I have to run games in 1380x768 on Low settings Time to get rid of that thing.

Thanks for the feedback!

" Is there a good way to tell if I'm CPU limited on games?
"

Download Afterburner. It will show you GPU and CPU usage. If your CPU is riding around 100% you are CPU limited.

I don't think the 1080 is hindered by the MB technology. I'm running a 1060 on 2008 MB just fine.

From everything I've read NVMes aren't that much noticeably faster for what I do which is games which is why I don't have one.

I don't think your really "missing anything" by not upgrading. Your machine is a good machine. If it were me, I would definitely hang onto it because it would definitely do everything I would need it to do. That's basically what you have to ask yourself. Is it doing what you want?

 

[archv]

I'd definitely go up to a Core i7 8700k if I upgraded... and probably a Samsung 960 EVO M.2... and ... I guess 16 Gig of ram.... 32 is just ridiculously expensive. I'd keep the 1080.

I'll watch the GPU usage pretty regularly, but I need to turn the Eye of Sauron over to the CPU usage.

unless you are going to the latest i7, i think you are not going to see huge performance jumps.

to tell bottleneck, you can look at cpu usage vs gpu usage during gaming, a balanced system should be able to keep the gpu usage in the high 80~90%. if not, then it's a sign of platform (CPU, ram, chipset) bottleneck.

max throughput for the ram is also lower than concurrent ddr4. in some game, you see upward of 10 fps going from 2400 ram to 3600 mhz ram.

 

[logainofhades]

Now, my laptop from 2012 is pretty much done for.... while it was also $3k at the time, its stuck with a Geforce 670M, which is NOT great now-a-days. I have to run games in 1380x768 on Low settings Time to get rid of that thing.

Yea, it sounds like a new laptop would be a better idea than a desktop upgrade.

 

[archv]

Man totally. I was just yesterday about to go get one.... Microcenter has the HP Omen 15 on sale for $999, and has a 1060 and a late model i7 in it... that's all I really need.

Now, my laptop from 2012 is pretty much done for.... while it was also $3k at the time, its stuck with a Geforce 670M, which is NOT great now-a-days. I have to run games in 1380x768 on Low settings Time to get rid of that thing.

Yea, it sounds like a new laptop would be a better idea than a desktop upgrade.

 

[jay32267]

I would probably wait until I felt the cpu was starting to limit me and then I would buy an i7-4960x from Ebay.

That will work with your motherboard.

With an i7-4960x you gain more than 50% processing power and get 6 cores instead or 4.

Right now they are $275 but they will probably drop.

I see that as an economical option that will gain you quite a bit of speed.

 

[logainofhades]

Man totally. I was just yesterday about to go get one.... Microcenter has the HP Omen 15 on sale for $999, and has a 1060 and a late model i7 in it... that's all I really need.

I bought a refurb acer predator, of newegg for a little over $900 with warranty, a few months back. i7, 16gb ram, GTX 1060 6gb, and a 256gb Nvme drive. Threw in an old 640gb HDD, to hold me over till I can get the wife talked into a 1tb SSD. I had to add the HDD cable for it, but overall I am really happy with it. Dell outlet often has some pretty good deals too.