I am looking to update a few of the components in my Win 7/10 dual boot machine. It is used mainly for gaming, including lots of emulation.
Windows 7 is my main OS on this machine. The majority of my games and emulators I run in Windows 7, and only use Windows 10 on this machine with things that do not run in 7.
I want to upgrade my motherboard/CPU/RAM. I've been running an AMD FX 8370 Black, 16GB RAM, on a Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 , and I really don't have many complaints. It's been a beast of a machine. I also have a Win 10 gaming laptop, so I don't need to upgrade my desktop game computer to the latest/greatest for everything, just better for what I use it for.
My main goal with this upgrade is to get better performance from my graphics card (MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GAMING X 8GB ), which is currently being limited by my PCIe slot being too slow (currently running at 2.0 x16 vs 3.0 x16). My secondary goal is better overall performance in emulators and more demanding games. I do some 4k gaming, and as-is I can average around 50-60 FPS with all settings on high, but my GPU is pegged at 99% usage in MSI Afterburner, and overly complex areas may drop frame rates into the 40s. CPU usage remains very reasonable, generally 40-50%. Emulation is more restricted by the CPU, and I haven't really checked performance charts with those. They either work well enough for me to play, or I don't bother, but it would be nice if more things ran better.
I checked the latest "official" list of CPUs that support Windows 7 (Intel based), and it looks like there are a decent handful of 7th and 9th generation i7's and i9's.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-7-supported-intel-processors
I also checked the AMD list, and I kind of lost track of what's what with AMD for a while after the FX series.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-7-supported-amd-processors
Anything I get will most likely be second hand, so I'm looking for suggestions on which older processor and motherboard combo would be good for this, with full support for Windows 7, and not a need for jumping through a bunch of hoops to get it working. I've read USB3 drivers with newer motherboards might be an issue.
Thanks.
Windows 7 is my main OS on this machine. The majority of my games and emulators I run in Windows 7, and only use Windows 10 on this machine with things that do not run in 7.
I want to upgrade my motherboard/CPU/RAM. I've been running an AMD FX 8370 Black, 16GB RAM, on a Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 , and I really don't have many complaints. It's been a beast of a machine. I also have a Win 10 gaming laptop, so I don't need to upgrade my desktop game computer to the latest/greatest for everything, just better for what I use it for.
My main goal with this upgrade is to get better performance from my graphics card (MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GAMING X 8GB ), which is currently being limited by my PCIe slot being too slow (currently running at 2.0 x16 vs 3.0 x16). My secondary goal is better overall performance in emulators and more demanding games. I do some 4k gaming, and as-is I can average around 50-60 FPS with all settings on high, but my GPU is pegged at 99% usage in MSI Afterburner, and overly complex areas may drop frame rates into the 40s. CPU usage remains very reasonable, generally 40-50%. Emulation is more restricted by the CPU, and I haven't really checked performance charts with those. They either work well enough for me to play, or I don't bother, but it would be nice if more things ran better.
I checked the latest "official" list of CPUs that support Windows 7 (Intel based), and it looks like there are a decent handful of 7th and 9th generation i7's and i9's.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-7-supported-intel-processors
I also checked the AMD list, and I kind of lost track of what's what with AMD for a while after the FX series.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-7-supported-amd-processors
Anything I get will most likely be second hand, so I'm looking for suggestions on which older processor and motherboard combo would be good for this, with full support for Windows 7, and not a need for jumping through a bunch of hoops to get it working. I've read USB3 drivers with newer motherboards might be an issue.
Thanks.