Upgrade Recommendations: GPU/CPU/Win 7 to Win 10

[sickness335]

Hi all,
I’ve wanted to upgrade my gaming PC for a while but I’m not sure where to begin. Currently, this is my setup:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 – 3.4 GHz
RAM: 12 GB DDR3
Motherboard: Gigabyte 870A-UD3
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
GPU: NVDIA GTX 780
Monitor: LG E2350V “23

As said in the title, my budget would be under $800. I’d ideally like to save as much money as possible, but not overpay. I primarily use my computer for gaming; I don’t stream, edit videos, or any of that. I would most likely have to gradually upgrade, meaning if I upgrade my CPU, I’d upgrade my GPU a few months down the road, and vice versa. With that being said, are there any recommendations to make for an upgrade on any of the parts listed? I’ve also been looking into overclocking, but I’ve read mixed reviews on the overall benefit it can bring (at most 1-10 FPS difference). I’m able to play most of the newest AAA games at its highest settings minus a few ambients and shadows… but I experience FPS drops frequently in exterior areas. This also occurs quite a bit when playing Fallout 4/Skyrim. Besides lowering the graphical settings, I think a more “future proof” (probably another five years lets be real) option would be to upgrade. I know my CPU is getting up there in age; I think I’ve had it for six years, so I can imagine that’s one of the things due for an upgrade.

Fortunately, I haven’t had the unpleasant experience of having my hard drive crash or experience any fatal Windows errors that would prompt a complete fresh install since 2011. But in that time I’ve accumulated quite a bit of storage (only have about 70 GB left on my terabyte). This prompted me to purchase an additional 2 terabyte hard drive which will be arriving soon. I’ve wondered if this would be an appropriate opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10. I’d ideally have my games on the 2 TB, and the OS and other necessary programs on my original terabyte. I’ve been pretty good about keeping my Win 7 OS happy and healthy (CC cleaning, defragmenting, etc.), but I notice the subtle snail pace it can have every now and then especially after playing a high resource demanding game.

Anyway I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on my current build. If you have recommendations for newer hardware, please feel free to include it too. Thank you

 

[marko55]

Right now, bang for the buck, AMD Ryzen is darn tough to beat.

You could pick up:

- ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac motherboard (newegg exclusive). This board may even be overloaded w/features pending your desires: $145 USD
- 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill F4-2666C15D-16GVS DDR4 2666 RAM: $112 USD
- AMD Ryzen 1600 CPU, 6-core/12-thread 3.2/3.6GHz CPU. Comes with a cooler and you can simply set its multiplier to 3900 in the BIOS to clock it to 3.9. $220 USD

Gaming at 1080, paired with a solid GPU this system will provide 110+ FPS consistently even with settings cranked in games.

That leaves some spare change for a GPU upgrade if you want, or maybe an SSD or an OEM copy of Win 10 Home. If you're gaming at 1080 I'd see how your 780 does with a new setup before revisiting a GPU upgrade. Just note that if you're gonna go the Ryzen route, Windows 7 can be a challenge because Win 7 doesn't have built in drivers for USB 3.0 and these Ryzen X370 boards have no USB 2.0 on board ports, so keyboard/mouse connectivity is challenging when installing. The B350 chipset boards (ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4) have USB 2.0 ports however so you may even be able to just plug your current OS drive in to the new board, boot in to windows and just update all the drivers.

That said, if you're concerned with CPU clock speeds and are dead set against overclocking, an Intel build with a higher clocked CPU like an i5 7600K works, but that's a 4-core/4-thread CPU. Applications are all headed toward multi-threading including games, and will continue to do so moving forward. With that an i7 would be ideal if you can spring the extra cash. You could still build a very strong i7 based system with your budget and have a CPU that clocks over 4.0 at stock (i7-7700).

If you want to hold out a touch longer, Intel will be releasing their first i5 ever with hyperthreading later this year. At that point the major difference between i5 and i7 (hyperthreading) is going to be seriously skewed. Not sure how Intel will market the two lines of i-series CPUs differently at that point, whether they'll keep lower clock speeds on the i5's than the i7's or what.

Regardless, I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy just a quad core CPU right now that intends to run it for 5 years. Maybe if only for a few years.

 

[sickness335]

Right now, bang for the buck, AMD Ryzen is darn tough to beat.

You could pick up:

- ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac motherboard (newegg exclusive). This board may even be overloaded w/features pending your desires: $145 USD
- 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill F4-2666C15D-16GVS DDR4 2666 RAM: $112 USD
- AMD Ryzen 1600 CPU, 6-core/12-thread 3.2/3.6GHz CPU. Comes with a cooler and you can simply set its multiplier to 3900 in the BIOS to clock it to 3.9. $220 USD

Gaming at 1080, paired with a solid GPU this system will provide 110+ FPS consistently even with settings cranked in games.

That leaves some spare change for a GPU upgrade if you want, or maybe an SSD or an OEM copy of Win 10 Home. If you're gaming at 1080 I'd see how your 780 does with a new setup before revisiting a GPU upgrade. Just note that if you're gonna go the Ryzen route, Windows 7 can be a challenge because Win 7 doesn't have built in drivers for USB 3.0 and these Ryzen X370 boards have no USB 2.0 on board ports, so keyboard/mouse connectivity is challenging when installing. The B350 chipset boards (ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4) have USB 2.0 ports however so you may even be able to just plug your current OS drive in to the new board, boot in to windows and just update all the drivers.

That said, if you're concerned with CPU clock speeds and are dead set against overclocking, an Intel build with a higher clocked CPU like an i5 7600K works, but that's a 4-core/4-thread CPU. Applications are all headed toward multi-threading including games, and will continue to do so moving forward. With that an i7 would be ideal if you can spring the extra cash. You could still build a very strong i7 based system with your budget and have a CPU that clocks over 4.0 at stock (i7-7700).

If you want to hold out a touch longer, Intel will be releasing their first i5 ever with hyperthreading later this year. At that point the major difference between i5 and i7 (hyperthreading) is going to be seriously skewed. Not sure how Intel will market the two lines of i-series CPUs differently at that point, whether they'll keep lower clock speeds on the i5's than the i7's or what.

Regardless, I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy just a quad core CPU right now that intends to run it for 5 years. Maybe if only for a few years.

Thank you for your response and thank you for selecting some pretty sweet deals. I had a feeling the quad cores would phase out of popularity eventually.

If I were to buy the Ryzen, it wouldn't work with my current motherboard since they don't speak the same language? Want to make sure I'm understanding that correctly. The same goes for the DDR4 RAM? Getting a copy of Win 10 won't be an issue. Also, was this the Ryzen you were referring to? This is the 3.6 version. In your opinion with future proofing in mind (although I guess future proofing is a relative term,) would getting the i7 be a bit of an overkill as opposed to the Ryzen? Of course the i7 is the flagship CPU for Intel, but I'm guessing unless I'm running games with a higher resolution past 1080 (which I won't be) spending the extra cash wouldn't be worth it? Although like you said, that Ryzen deal is tough to beat.

Also just for curiosity, you mentioned overclocking; would overclocking my current CPU produce the same result as the Ryzen, or would there be a significant difference between the two?

Thank you again.

 

[marko55]

To answer your questions:

- A ryzen CPU is not compatible with your current motherboard. Different socket.

- Your motherboard also does not support DDR4 RAM

- So to the future....Thing is the Ryzen and i7 are better than each other in different ways. The Ryzen will be beat out the i7 for any application that utilizes more cores/threads from the CPU since its a 6-core with 12 processing threads available for your apps to use while the i7 "only" has 4 cores & 8 threads for simultaneous processing. The i7 however has better single-core performance. These days that pretty much only comes in to play with games, and that's slowly becoming a thing of the past. The most important thing about this gaming comparison is that when gaming at 1080 the real numbers are the Ryzen chip may peak out at 120-130FPS (with games set to max settings) while the i7 can be 10-30FPS higher on average. Point is, 120FPS is still AWESOME and absolutely playable across the board, so the Ryzen is still a great gaming chip. For basically all other applications the Ryzen beats out the i7. The Ryzen CPUs are the flagship of AMD. When you start gaming at 4K it actually puts the toll on your GPU, not CPU, and the gap is closed.

Overclocking that old of a CPU won't even come close to modern CPUs. You could do it and see if it helps in your current setup but I wouldn't expect much.

 

[sickness335]

Ah, I see now. Thank you for clarifying that! I apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area.

That makes sense now that you explained it. I'm definitely going to buy the Ryzen then. Honestly even hitting a constant 60 FPS would be preferable to what I'm currently playing at now. Fair enough about my current CPU; I feel like I'd maybe squeeze a couple frames more than what I'm getting now in the stock version.

I'm going to hold off on the GPU as you recommended to see how my system performs. I as well am very much interested in seeing how well the 780 performs. If at some point I feel like I should upgrade it, would you recommend getting another 780 and going the SLI route or getting a whole new, modern one?

 

[marko55]

I think its a wise choice. If you can afford it I highly recommend picking up a SATA SSD at least for your OS drive and leave a little room for some games. Makes a HUGE difference over a spinning disk.

As for the GPU I'd definitely recommend running a single current GPU. The GTX 1060 runs most games comfortably at 1920x1080 and is a great budget GPU, and a decent upgrade over your 780: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7xjWre3lMQ.

 

[sickness335]

Thank you for that!

I have a quick question, and I noticed this just now; the DDR4 Ripjaws is 2666, while the ASRock motherboard is listed as "2667/2400/2133". Does this mean the RAM will not work with it? Just want to make sure before ordering.