Question Upgrade CPU or is motherboard too old?

[Askeladdo]

Hello, I have an older PC that I've installed a new graphics card and RAM into over the years, but I haven't touched the CPU since it was first built. I want to upgrade it rather than buy a whole new rig, but I fear the motherboard is either too old to be compatible with newer generation CPUs and the cost to replace both would be roughly the same price as buying a new rig. My reason for alarm is whenever I launch any game, be it RuneScape or Elden Ring, my CPU peaks 90%+ utilization, makes the game very choppy for the first 10~15 minutes, then runs smoothly. It's practically impossible to run any VR game with my Quest 2.

Could I have advice on how to proceed?

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.80 GHz
Installed RAM: 16 GB DDR3
1.8 TB HDD
GPU: Radeon RX 470 (12GB)
Motherboard: X79-UP4


Budget: ~2k

 

[kira-faye]

Just at a glance, anything old enough to be using DDR3, you're better off just starting fresh - any CPU upgrade is going to be minimal. If you can find a faster compatible chip cheap on eBay or similar, go for it, what's the harm... otherwise, just save up.

 

[Bob.B]

Hello, I have an older PC that I've installed a new graphics card and RAM into over the years, but I haven't touched the CPU since it was first built. I want to upgrade it rather than buy a whole new rig, but I fear the motherboard is either too old to be compatible with newer generation CPUs and the cost to replace both would be roughly the same price as buying a new rig. My reason for alarm is whenever I launch any game, be it RuneScape or Elden Ring, my CPU peaks 90%+ utilization, makes the game very choppy for the first 10~15 minutes, then runs smoothly. It's practically impossible to run any VR game with my Quest 2.

Could I have advice on how to proceed?

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.80 GHz
Installed RAM: 16 GB DDR3
1.8 TB HDD
GPU: Radeon RX 470 (12GB)
Motherboard: X79-UP4


Budget: ~2k

Thought.
Get the proper bios/mobo/gpu drivers.
Clean up the storage.
Don't run unneeded background stuff.
So far that's all free.

Replace the hdd with a ssd.
That you can move to new pc in the future.

 

[Dororo00]

If your motherboard is a rev1.1 you can get a Xeon E5-1650 v2 and overclock it to 4.3, this gives a Ryzen 5 1600/2600 performance which is nice and cheap (you can get the Xeon off AliExpress for really cheap)
The 3820 you have is the weakest and lowest core count on that platform (4/8 while most of them has 6/12) I have an X79-UP4 too with a Xeon, it is perfectly capable still if you're on a budget.
Biggest upgrade would be an ssd tbh, you can slap a 1tb ssd for the games on that computer alongside the Xeon and get a really nice and cheap performance boost. That ssd can be moved to a newer pc in the future too.