Question Upgrade to i7-7700k or wait?

[J-Cat16]

Birthday is coming up and was trying to decide if I should upgrade my CPU to an i7-7700k or just wait a little longer to upgrade. I play a lot of AAA games and FPS and have recently started having game crashes so that is why I am starting to look.

My current build is as follows:
MSI B250M BAZOOKA
Intel® Quad Core™ i5-7500 Processor
Corsair CX550W Power Supply
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPU
Corsair Vengence DDR4 2666MHz Memory - 16gb

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Game crashes and CPU upgrades don't necessarily go together. There is an underlying problem that a CPU upgrade might not address.

Have you checked CPU and GPU temps? Reinstalled GPU drivers? Any error messages? Blue screens?

 

[J-Cat16]

Game crashes and CPU upgrades don't necessarily go together. There is an underlying problem that a CPU upgrade might not address.

Have you checked CPU and GPU temps? Reinstalled GPU drivers? Any error messages? Blue screens?

Temps no. I have reinstalled drivers and that did help. Was mostly Apex that kept crashing but no blue screens or error messages. Division 2 crashed at first but that has subsided once I upgraded my drivers.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

If you aren't experiencing crashes anymore and would like to upgrade your CPU, you can benefit some from a better CPU. The i7-7700K is good, but it is obsolete and somewhat expensive. You have a B-series motherboard and will not be able to overclock. The stock i7-7700K provides around the same performance as the i5-8400. I would recommend buying a new motherboard and the i5-8400/9400F, or even the i5-8600K/9600K. This would cost about the same as the i7-7700K unless you live somewhere prices are different. The only major downfall is you will have to perform a clean install of Windows. The benefit would be the opportunity to upgrade to six or eight core i7/i9 later on. You can also get a Z-series motherboard and K-series i5 and overclock to get better performance than the i7-7700K.

 

[InvalidError]

Unless you are itching to ditch your PC ASAP, I'd set aside the bday money until after Ryzen 3000's launch, then re-evaluate upgrade options from there. Due to the massive increase in performance per dollar that is expected to come, it should at the very least give a hard kick in the pants to older Intel CPUs' prices if you still choose to upgrade to something compatible with your existing board.

 

[J-Cat16]

If you aren't experiencing crashes anymore and would like to upgrade your CPU, you can benefit some from a better CPU. The i7-7700K is good, but it is obsolete and somewhat expensive. You have a B-series motherboard and will not be able to overclock. The stock i7-7700K provides around the same performance as the i5-8400. I would recommend buying a new motherboard and the i5-8400/9400F, or even the i5-8600K/9600K. This would cost about the same as the i7-7700K unless you live somewhere prices are different. The only major downfall is you will have to perform a clean install of Windows. The benefit would be the opportunity to upgrade to six or eight core i7/i9 later on. You can also get a Z-series motherboard and K-series i5 and overclock to get better performance than the i7-7700K.

So really upgrade both motherboard and CPU because it’ll be a better bang for my buck?

 

[J-Cat16]

Unless you are itching to ditch your PC ASAP, I'd set aside the bday money until after Ryzen 3000's launch, then re-evaluate upgrade options from there. Due to the massive increase in performance per dollar that is expected to come, it should at the very least give a hard kick in the pants to older Intel CPUs' prices if you still choose to upgrade to something compatible with your existing board.

My PC is 2 years old and honestly runs great for what I use it for so I’m in no rush, just wanted to get a better idea of things before dropping $400. I think I will upgrade my board and CPU together.

 

[mdd1963]

I'd start basic testing with just one stick of RAM, alternating each one in required slot, for basic stability...; perhaps you have an intermittent stick...?

Naturally, a PSU can brown out under an intermittent partial short as well, so try disconnecting any extra drives or unneeded USB headers from PSU and mainboard...

Once you eliminate everything else, you are eventually left with a mainboard being 6 times more likely to be at fault than an actual CPU 'failing' issue ...

 

[J-Cat16]

I'd start basic testing with just one stick of RAM, alternating each one in required slot, for basic stability...; perhaps you have an intermittent stick...?

Naturally, a PSU can brown out under an intermittent partial short as well, so try disconnecting any extra drives or unneeded USB headers from PSU and mainboard...

Once you eliminate everything else, you are eventually left with a mainboard being 6 times more likely to be at fault than an actual CPU 'failing' issue ...

I’ll give this a shot, thanks!

 

[Frejjo]

Was mostly Apex that kept crashing but no blue screens or error messages

Apex is notorious for crashing randomly like that so I wouldn't worry too much about a hardware issue honestly. Crash reports are stored in the game files under apex_crash.txt if you're curious and want to confirm any potential issues.

 

[-Fran-]

From my own experience, sometimes games (and even Windows) crashes due to RAM config gone awry. You may want to double check your RAM is using the correct XMP profiles (or regular JDEC profile) so it doesn't give it weird timings the CPU's IMC may not like.

Diagnosing RAM config is tedious, but it's more often than not the cause of headaches.

Cheers!

 

[J-Cat16]

From my own experience, sometimes games (and even Windows) crashes due to RAM config gone awry. You may want to double check your RAM is using the correct XMP profiles (or regular JDEC profile) so it doesn't give it weird timings the CPU's IMC may not like.

Diagnosing RAM config is tedious, but it's more often than not the cause of headaches.

Cheers!

I will look into my RAM config today, thanks!

 

[J-Cat16]

Apex is notorious for crashing randomly like that so I wouldn't worry too much about a hardware issue honestly. Crash reports are stored in the game files under apex_crash.txt if you're curious and want to confirm any potential issues.

What should I be on the lookout for in those crash files?

 

[Karadjgne]

The fact that there is one in the first place. Pc's don't crash without a reason, so the fact a game has a crash log is pretty indicative of it being expected to crash. The log file will include that reason, but it could literally be anything from ram hangup, pagefile alignments, timing errors, driver errors, whatever.

 

[J-Cat16]

Thanks to everyone who has responded! I am going to hold off on upgrading for now and look into all the suggestions! Have a great day!

 

[InvalidError]

Pc's don't crash without a reason

And this does leave me scratching my head when someone views a couple of crashes each month as normal. I do not believe my i5-3470 has ever crashed for any reason other than hot-updating drivers - updating drivers without rebooting - and even that hasn't happened in about a year. The last time I have rebooted my PC was when I decided to apply the 1803 Windows build update over a month ago. My PC usually goes for 3-4 months between reboots to install updates, I'd be annoyed if it crashed even once a month.

 

[Karadjgne]

Lol. My pc hasn't crashed in 3 years, not since I dropped my OC from 4.9GHz to 4.6GHz and forgot to loosen up the LLC. It gets rebooted about 3x a year by me for cleanings which I coinside with windows updates. Did have a rash of reboots just last week though, mod conflicts in Skyrim SE.