[SOLVED] Upgrade from an i7-6700 to Ryzen 5 3600x or upgrade rx 5700 xt to a rtx 3070?

Steve_K7

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EDIT: so I will be upgrading my cpu to the new 5000 series when they come out!
if anyone has any suggestions for what boards to get it would be a great help!

(I read up that it's the best bang for buck is going with a B550 instead of a Z570 mobo.) if anyone can confirm. Also that all that's needed is a bios update. But my issue is I don't have an amd cpu to flash the mobo for the latest bios ver. Would I need to worry or do mobo now ship with the newest ver. Bios already preinstalled?

My current system:

i7-6700
Z-270 mb
rx 5700 xt
24gb ram
1 tb ssd
8 tb hdd

I'm debating what I should upgrade. I primarily do gaming on my pc but I also do some photo and video editing (productivity work)
Would it be better for me to upgrade my cpu to a 3600x meaning I'd have to get a new mb which would cost me around $500 CAD total or should I upgrade my gpu and get the 3070 when stocks become available?
Also am I bottle necking my gpu's preformance with the i7 6700? (I get some frame drops and stutters occasionally)
Any help is great!
Thanks
 
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The 6700, and a non-K/stock clocked CPU with but 4c/8t, is definitely limiting minimum and average FPS, and, those limits would still be there even after a GPU upgrade...

The 5700XT is quite competent in the reviews I've read....

I'd probably wait two or three more weeks, pitch in another $100, and shoot for a 5600XT CPU, as the IPC gains on these CPUs allows some massive FPS gains in some gaming titles, i.e., 43% average gain on CS :GO, etc...
What resolution and refresh rate is your monitor, and are you gaming on multiple monitors or just a single display?

What specific applications do you use for photo and video editing and are you doing this professionally or just at a "hobbyist" level of use?
 

Steve_K7

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What resolution and refresh rate is your monitor, and are you gaming on multiple monitors or just a single display?

What specific applications do you use for photo and video editing and are you doing this professionally or just at a "hobbyist" level of use?

I'm running a dual monitor 1080p. One is 144hz for gaming the other is just a 60. I use photoshop, Lightroom, after effects, premier. Hobbyist lvl
 
For 1080p there is absolutely no reason to buy another graphics card when you already have a very capable 1440p card in the 5700xt that is a fully "all ultra 1080p" capable piece of hardware.

There should be no doubt that the upgrade you need is CPU and memory, not only for gaming but also for those particular Adobe applications that definitely benefit far more from improved CPU performance than they do from anything related to the graphics card for the most part. I would however WAIT to see what happens with the Ryzen 5000 series releases later this coming month which will probably significantly increase the performance per dollar over current models and possibly offer some cost savings on current gen models once retailers start trying to offload the existing inventory. Motherboards aren't likely to change price much so you can buy your choice of board whenever you like, no new chipset is going to be coming out with this CPU generation release so current X570 and B550 boards, or come January, even existing B450 boards, will be what you get to choose from for use with 5000 series CPUs.

Considering what you have right now, I'd really be looking more towards something like the Ryzen 3700x or whatever has an equivalent core count from the 5000 series, and then, unless you really feel like you need PCIe 4.0 support in the very near future, which I personally believe is a consideration that shouldn't be given too much weight, even a good B450 board like the Tomahawk would suffice without the need to pay the premium for an X570 or B550 board unless there is something in the feature set of one of those boards that you really feel you must have.
 
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Steve_K7

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For 1080p there is absolutely no reason to buy another graphics card when you already have a very capable 1440p card in the 5700xt that is a fully "all ultra 1080p" capable piece of hardware.

There should be no doubt that the upgrade you need is CPU and memory, not only for gaming but also for those particular Adobe applications that definitely benefit far more from improved CPU performance than they do from anything related to the graphics card for the most part. I would however WAIT to see what happens with the Ryzen 5000 series releases later this coming month which will probably significantly increase the performance per dollar over current models and possibly offer some cost savings on current gen models once retailers start trying to offload the existing inventory. Motherboards aren't likely to change price much so you can buy your choice of board whenever you like, no new chipset is going to be coming out with this CPU generation release so current X570 and B550 boards, or come January, even existing B450 boards, will be what you get to choose from for use with 5000 series CPUs.

Considering what you have right now, I'd really be looking more towards something like the Ryzen 3700x or whatever has an equivalent core count from the 5000 series, and then, unless you really feel like you need PCIe 4.0 support in the very near future, which I personally believe is a consideration that shouldn't be given too much weight, even a good B450 board like the Tomahawk would suffice without the need to pay the premium for an X570 or B550 board unless there is something in the feature set of one of those boards that you really feel you must have.

thank you I will def wait for the 5000 series before I buy anything! I'm also not sure why this is but when ever a play war zone I can't run the game on high settings without getting extreme frame drop, getting 50-60 FPS. I'm not sure if this is just the game being poorly optimized or the Adrenalin drivers being unstable or a combination of everything.
 
The 6700, and a non-K/stock clocked CPU with but 4c/8t, is definitely limiting minimum and average FPS, and, those limits would still be there even after a GPU upgrade...

The 5700XT is quite competent in the reviews I've read....

I'd probably wait two or three more weeks, pitch in another $100, and shoot for a 5600XT CPU, as the IPC gains on these CPUs allows some massive FPS gains in some gaming titles, i.e., 43% average gain on CS :GO, etc...
 
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Steve_K7

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Oct 26, 2016
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The 6700, and a non-K/stock clocked CPU with but 4c/8t, is definitely limiting minimum and average FPS, and, those limits would still be there even after a GPU upgrade...

The 5700XT is quite competent in the reviews I've read....

I'd probably wait two or three more weeks, pitch in another $100, and shoot for a 5600XT CPU, as the IPC gains on these CPUs allows some massive FPS gains in some gaming titles, i.e., 43% average gain on CS :GO, etc...

Thanks so much! I was wondering if my cpu was bottlenecking my gpu limiting the max performance. I'll def be waiting till the 5000 series comes out and just get a cpu and new mb.
 

idkwhattonamethisacc

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If you wanna play games and do some light workstation things (video edit) then 3600x is pretty good but if you wanna do things that require a lot of cores ( like 16 cores ) then i would reccomend getting a dual e5 2678v3 setup since thats pretty cheap for 24 cores and the fact that these things can use ddr3 will make it cheaper, and dont forget about the turbo unlock mod, other than that i dont have any other reccomendations, the thing i reccomend most would be the 24 core setup since it will be an upgrade for productivity and is the best bang for buck when it comes to workstations, so itll be a good long term upgrade for productivity, so you have your gaming system and a productivity system, but if you are willing to upgrade to the 5800 or above then the workstation isnt that compelling unless you build more of them (like a cluster computer), so at this point i would just reccomend waiting for ryzen 5000 instead of upgrading to the 3600x or building a 24 core workstation
 
If you wanna play games and do some light workstation things (video edit) then 3600x is pretty good but if you wanna do things that require a lot of cores ( like 16 cores ) then i would reccomend getting a dual e5 2678v3 setup
WHY would you recommend that, specifically?

Hint, I would NOT recommend that, ever, for gaming, or light productivity workloads, but I'm interested in hearing your reasoning.
 

idkwhattonamethisacc

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WHY would you recommend that, specifically?

Hint, I would NOT recommend that, ever, for gaming, or light productivity workloads, but I'm interested in hearing your reasoning.
I reccomend 24 core e5 2678 v3 dual socket workstation if you really want a lot of productivity, and since these things arent the most expensive you could expect around 1000-1500$ for 72 core cluster computer if you want to do heavy calculations but obviously thats wayy overkill for video editing so a 5600x should be good for lighter things like that and a 72 core cluster computer for heavy compute loads tho the 72 core is very niche because if you were a proffesional you probs have alot of money so problably get a dual socket epyc with 128 cores and barely anyone knows about these old xeons so quite impractical but hey i guess it would make for a good mining/folding machine for the ones that do know xD
 
"heavy calculations" wouldn't seem to fall in the same category as "gaming" or "light workstation things". Besides which, there are PLENTY of "professionals" out there that don't "have a lot of money". Many, maybe even most of them, are just trying to make a living like the rest of us (At whatever we do), and just because they do something professionally doesn't mean they are rich or successful. Everybody is some kind of professional. There are professional Walmart cashiers and professional computer technicians that work at Best Buy. It doesn't mean they have unlimited budgets just because they are "professionals".

A system like you're talking about doesn't make sense for MOST professionals anyhow. It's an enterprise platform. Game engines aren't generally optimized for multi CPU platforms, and a lot of 3D and video production software is still primarily going to favor strong SINGLE CORE performance, although that's slowly changing, but I certainly don't see anybody having a burning desire to run dual CPU 72 core systems for light video editing or even for the majority of consumer applications. Maybe if they are consistently working with hundreds of TB of 4K footage, maybe.
 

idkwhattonamethisacc

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"heavy calculations" wouldn't seem to fall in the same category as "gaming" or "light workstation things". Besides which, there are PLENTY of "professionals" out there that don't "have a lot of money". Many, maybe even most of them, are just trying to make a living like the rest of us (At whatever we do), and just because they do something professionally doesn't mean they are rich or successful. Everybody is some kind of professional. There are professional Walmart cashiers and professional computer technicians that work at Best Buy. It doesn't mean they have unlimited budgets just because they are "professionals".

A system like you're talking about doesn't make sense for MOST professionals anyhow. It's an enterprise platform. Game engines aren't generally optimized for multi CPU platforms, and a lot of 3D and video production software is still primarily going to favor strong SINGLE CORE performance, although that's slowly changing, but I certainly don't see anybody having a burning desire to run dual CPU 72 core systems for light video editing or even for the majority of consumer applications. Maybe if they are consistently working with hundreds of TB of 4K footage, maybe.
Hmm maybe my dream 24 core dual e5 2678 v3 workstation is just as impractical as my old dream system with the w3690 that i would have oced past 5ghz, ah well im gonna keep my dream system as the 24 core since i could atleast run some vms and maybe play some games in a linux pop vm since haswell is decent and with a turbo unlock this thing could play games but it would problably be a bit inferior to a 1st gen 1600 non af,
 
These days, 24 threads is a single mainstream CPU in some cases. The 3950x is a 16 core, 32 thread Ryzen monster. Dual CPUs are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Even then, they were VERY MUCH a niche product that was mostly only useful to enterprise and server farm users.
 

idkwhattonamethisacc

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These days, 24 threads is a single mainstream CPU in some cases. The 3950x is a 16 core, 32 thread Ryzen monster. Dual CPUs are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Even then, they were VERY MUCH a niche product that was mostly only useful to enterprise and server farm users.
Im not really planning to upgrade to ryzen unless i have 2500$ since i want vms for cheap and maybe something for good productivity and decent enough gaming, even then i will only allocate 8 cores of one cpu for a gaming vm (pop linux) and i also love niche hardware, best value but can be impractical sometimes, i dont use mainstream since i find that it doesnt have the best value (old intel and new intel), plus i get to reap the benifits of good productivity and a versatile but somewhat impractical 24 core system, and hey turbo unlock will boost gaming performance so not that pointless.

Edit : im not gonna waste 2500$ for a gaming pc, i would rather spend that on a car (toyota KE70 or TE71 my dream car)