[SOLVED] Upgrade advice needed!

[Spades0]

Hi all!

I recently purchased a 4K monitor for gaming. While I am really impressed with the increased resolution, the drop in frame rate is predictably quite noticeable, especially in games like The Witcher 3, Jedi Fallen Order, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Xplane 11. My current machine is comprised of a Core i7 4790, GTX 1080, and 16 GB of RAM. So I recently got the idea of buying a 2nd hand GTX 1080 and combining it with my first card in SLI after seeing the huge difference this can make when playing games in 4K. However I was very dissapointed to find out my current motherboard (MSI Z97 GUARD PRO) does not support SLI.

Therefore I am currently considering upgrading my motherboard, CPU and memory first and then adding a second GTX1080 a bit later once I have saved up some more. I am currently considering one of the following upgrade kits in the links below but would appreciate advice on whether or not this whole operation is a good idea. Is it worth going for the Core i7? I am also aware that I would need to upgrade my PSU as well for SLI.

https://www.evetech.co.za/core-i7-9700-rog-strix-z390-f-16gb-rgb-upgrade-kit/best-deal/6562.aspx
https://www.evetech.co.za/core-i5-9400f-rog-strix-z390-f-16gb-rgb-upgrade-kit/best-deal/6169.aspx

I am hoping this system would provide a decent performance for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Thanks!

 

[Obakasama]

Hm... between the two bundles the one with the i7-9700 is better (8 cores instead of 6), as the motherboard and RAM are the same.

The issue, as far as I'm concerned, is going SLI as not many games scale well with multiple graphics cards. Current advice is to get the single most powerful graphics card affordable to avoid those issues.

 

[Spades0]

Hm... between the two bundles the one with the i7-9700 is better (8 cores instead of 6), as the motherboard and RAM are the same.

The issue, as far as I'm concerned, is going SLI as not many games scale well with multiple graphics cards. Current advice is to get the single most powerful graphics card affordable to avoid those issues.

Thanks for the response! Would you say the Core i7-9700 is better even for 4K gaming?

 

[Obakasama]

As a generic response, yes.

Truthfully it depends on the game itself as to how well it will run. Some games are more core dependent (more cores the better); whereas some games are clockspeed dependent (higher clocks the better). However, 4K gaming is dependent on the graphics card more; there are more pixels to account for (four times that of 1080p). The CPU becomes less relevant in this scenario.

 

[Spades0]

As a generic response, yes.

Truthfully it depends on the game itself as to how well it will run. Some games are more core dependent (more cores the better); whereas some games are clockspeed dependent (higher clocks the better). However, 4K gaming is dependent on the graphics card more; there are more pixels to account for (four times that of 1080p). The CPU becomes less relevant in this scenario.

Thanks, in spite of the large difference in price I decided to play it safe and went for the Core i7. I have decided to stick with SLI to see how it works for me. Just got my secondhand GTX 1080 and seems to be working as it should. Now I just need to wait for my other components to arrive. Hopefully it lives up to my expectations.

 

[Obakasama]

Good luck.