[SOLVED] Thinking About An Upgrade

[Kurt D]

My current build, which has run very well for the last 5+ years, is currently configured with an Asrock Fatalaty X99 Professional motherboard, I7 6850, GTX 1080ti video and 64GB ram spread over 8 slots. I boot from a Samsung drive in the Ultra M.2 slot and have all SSD storage. Over the years my upgrades have consisted of adding RAM, water cooling (just because), video card, PSU and moving from mechanical drives to SSD's, so I am not shy about upgrading where necessary the increase in performance justifies the cost. The system runs fine, but I know the CPU/MB is getting "long in the tooth". This configuration has been very reliable, so there is no urgency. Not much headroom for overclocking, so have not gone down that road at all. I used to build a new system every couple of years, but did not see any giant performance benefits in the years since I put this thing together. However, I am so disconnected from hardware developments over the last couple of years, I am not sure that is the case any longer. As I consider putting together a new system, I would like to start out with a MB and CPU but keep the other components. I know 8 memory slots limits my choices if I want to keep them all, but I like this configuration. No allegiance to either Intel or AMD, I have gone between both in the 25 years I have been building systems. With all that said... What is the current king of the chipset/cpu combination of price/performance with a reasonable measure of "future proof" built in? The X99 chipset and Intel I7 filled that niche nicely at the time. I am looking for the 2020 or 2021 equivalent that I can move the RAM, storage and video into. I do everyday tasks, work in MS Office, gaming, and some video editing. Thoughts?

 

[drea.drechsler]

.... I do everyday tasks, work in MS Office, gaming, and some video editing. Thoughts?

Are you happy with your gaming? At a decent enough resolution and refresh rate at high enough settings? Any bad FPS dropouts? If no complaints, why upgrade?

But if gaming fun is being pinched, do you know if it's your GPU that limits you? You should probably upgrade GPU first then consider the rest of the system. GPU most often is the bottleneck, especially for AAA games at higher resolutions and settings.

Once you've answered the GPU question and you still hate your gaming then I'd look at a 5600X for the king of gaming processors.

MSOffice runs well enough on a phone so that's no reason to upgrade.

Video editing...how much? are you bothered by performance issues? what applications do you use? does an 8 hour render-out of a 15 minute 4k video really bother you that much if you can get some sleep while it's going on anway?

If your timeline for video editing and rendering is often compressed or, you simply hate the glacial time scales you're working in currently, then you'll want to look at more cores so a 5900x is preferred over the 5600x. It will still game as well and has the cores to crash through the most tedious of video edits and renders.

Otherwise: what other itches are you hoping to scratch?

 

[Kurt D]

All good points. No problems with the existing system. The amount of time that has gone by since my last MB/CPU swap has me wondering what I might be missing? I also have someone who could make use of my existing system, so nothing gets wasted.

My itch is mainly around the age of my system. 5+ years in "computer years" is approaching retirement age in people years. It used to be I was in a continuous cycle of upgrades to keep up with gaming (back in the day when I was a flight sim fanatic). I am getting back into flight sims with Il-2 and WW1 add-on using an Oculus Rift S (very trippy experience, still learning). This particular simulation, being WW1, moves pretty slow so does not stress any components. I am not about to go running out any time soon, this is something I am just starting to think about. I have never skipped this many generations of chipsets and cpu's before or gotten so out of touch with the changes in technology. I must be getting old along with my system.

 

[drea.drechsler]

All good points. No problems with the existing system. The amount of time that has gone by since my last MB/CPU swap has me wondering what I might be missing? I also have someone who could make use of my existing system, so nothing gets wasted.

My itch is mainly around the age of my system. 5+ years in "computer years" is approaching retirement age in people years. It used to be I was in a continuous cycle of upgrades to keep up with gaming (back in the day when I was a flight sim fanatic). I am getting back into flight sims with Il-2 and WW1 add-on using an Oculus Rift S (very trippy experience, still learning). This particular simulation, being WW1, moves pretty slow so does not stress any components. I am not about to go running out any time soon, this is something I am just starting to think about. I have never skipped this many generations of chipsets and cpu's before or gotten so out of touch with the changes in technology. I must be getting old along with my system.

To be sure, being 5 years old there are significant improvements to be had. I think if you want to step up to 1440p or, especially, 4k gaming resolution you'd be impressed by some of the scenery in many AAA titles. MS Flight Simulator is simply awesome zipping in, out and around NYC sky scrapers and bridges in very-high to ultra settings at 1440p but it's absolute murder on both CPU and GPU; don't even attempt it at 4k unless you have a 3080/6800XT. Thinking ahead, planning an acquisition strategy and laying out the budgets would definitely be worthwhile.

The important thing, though, is to decide if you need superior multi-core performance in addition to gaming so you can decide between a 5900X or a 5600X as the processor. Either one will fit on most B550 motherboards. And BTW, even the 5600X would likely be a major step up for video editing compared to what you have now so if you opt for it you won't be losing anything.

You could probably use the memory and NVME from your existing system...but the memory would not likely be optimum for Ryzen and if you take them then what will you do to make that system useable? So it would seem better to plan on a complete system upgrade.