[SOLVED] Upgrading a 5 year old PC?

[vanGenne]

Hey everyone,

I was browsing for a new monitor, which made me question whether my GPU could handle it. Which led me to doubt pretty much my entire system, even though it seems to run everything I throw at it perfectly fine. It's 5 years old exactly today, I obviously marked the date of my first ever self-built PC!

My question is, can my rig still perform well enough for a 1440p monitor at 100+hz (specs below)? My current monitor is a bog standard 21.5 inch 1080p monitor at 60Hz.
What should I upgrade? Or if everything's balanced, would it be better to hold off a bit and just upgrade the entire thing later?

Specs:
CPU: Intel I5 4670K (overclocked at 4000mHz, with Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212)
GPU: EVGA GTX 780
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4
RAM: 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
I use a dedicated SSD for games, a separate SSD for windows, and an HDD for other stuff.

Thanks!

 

[Eximo]

Hmm. you are at that difficult point where you have what was quite high end at the time, but is now solidly in the middle range. Going from mid-range to high end again is pricey, particularly when you want more graphics output.

Your system can certainly handle a faster GPU, but there are many games now that will be slower on your older quad core. Still more than playable though. (You could always try overclocking a little more, maybe pick up a bigger CPU cooler)

Since you are looking at high refresh QHD displays, you really need to consider upgrading everything. However, you could get a new GPU and monitor now and you would certainly see an improvement. In any game where your CPU isn't a problem, it would run as fast as the GPU will go. You can then look at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard/RAM at a later date.

Depends on what you have to spend, but anything up through the RTX2080TI would drop right in. The new Radeon VII and you would probably want to look at your power supply. (Both the GTX780 and RTX2080Ti are rated at 250W)

 

[punkncat]

I would consider getting a GPU that would be worthy of your next build, put in here to use while you decide and save towards that. This build is still workable for some time I think.

 

[vanGenne]

Hmm. you are at that difficult point where you have what was quite high end at the time, but is now solidly in the middle range. Going from mid-range to high end again is pricey, particularly when you want more graphics output.

Your system can certainly handle a faster GPU, but there are many games now that will be slower on your older quad core. Still more than playable though. (You could always try overclocking a little more, maybe pick up a bigger CPU cooler)

Since you are looking at high refresh QHD displays, you really need to consider upgrading everything. However, you could get a new GPU and monitor now and you would certainly see an improvement. In any game where your CPU isn't a problem, it would run as fast as the GPU will go. You can then look at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard/RAM at a later date.

Depends on what you have to spend, but anything up through the RTX2080TI would drop right in. The new Radeon VII and you would probably want to look at your power supply. (Both the GTX780 and RTX2080Ti are rated at 250W)

Thanks for the response!

I should have wattage to spare, I put a modular 750W in there since I was eyeballing SLI when I first purchased it. A second 780 would at this point be pretty redundant though. I can afford a new monitor, but probably not a new monitor+graphics card at this point. Any clue what my system should be able to handle monitor-wise? I mostly want a slightly higher refresh rate, and maybe something curved. 1440p would be nice, but I'm scared of severe performance drops in-game.

 

[vanGenne]

I would consider getting a GPU that would be worthy of your next build, put in here to use while you decide and save towards that. This build is still workable for some time I think.

Thanks for the response! Seems like a good idea, if only I could afford a graphics card at the moment. Better start saving I guess

 

[loki1944]

Hey everyone,

I was browsing for a new monitor, which made me question whether my GPU could handle it. Which led me to doubt pretty much my entire system, even though it seems to run everything I throw at it perfectly fine. It's 5 years old exactly today, I obviously marked the date of my first ever self-built PC!

My question is, can my rig still perform well enough for a 1440p monitor at 100+hz (specs below)? My current monitor is a bog standard 21.5 inch 1080p monitor at 60Hz.
What should I upgrade? Or if everything's balanced, would it be better to hold off a bit and just upgrade the entire thing later?

Specs:
CPU: Intel I5 4670K (overclocked at 4000mHz, with Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212)
GPU: EVGA GTX 780
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4
RAM: 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
I use a dedicated SSD for games, a separate SSD for windows, and an HDD for other stuff.

Thanks!

Your CPU and RAM are fine; that GTX 780 is ~GTX 1050Ti performance, that is really the only thing that will need upgrading if you want to get anywhere near 100 FPS on high (I won't say ultra because even a 2080Ti will struggle there @1440p in the most demanding games). If it was me I would get a GTX 2070 or a used GTX 1080 or 1080Ti and call it good. I have a 4770K as well as newer CPUs such as 6600K/7800X; you are not going to see phenomenal increases in FPS by upgrading that CPU; especially @1440p.

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[vanGenne]

Your CPU and RAM are fine; that GTX 780 is ~GTX 1050Ti performance, that is really the only thing that will need upgrading if you want to get anywhere near 100 FPS on high (I won't say ultra because even a 2080Ti will struggle there @1440p in the most demanding games). If it was me I would get a GTX 2070 or a used GTX 1080 or 1080Ti and call it good. I have a 4770K as well as newer CPUs such as 6600K/7800X; you are not going to see phenomenal increases in FPS by upgrading that CPU; especially @1440p.

Thanks for the info! I reckon you suggest the 2070 because the 2080 would be overkill with my CPU?

A new card will be around €500-600 by the looks of it, so I will have to save some money. I'm thinking of just getting a new monitor, and saving the card for a few paychecks in the future.

 

[loki1944]

Your CPU and RAM are fine; that GTX 780 is ~GTX 1050Ti performance, that is really the only thing that will need upgrading if you want to get anywhere near 100 FPS on high (I won't say ultra because even a 2080Ti will struggle there @1440p in the most demanding games). If it was me I would get a GTX 2070 or a used GTX 1080 or 1080Ti and call it good. I have a 4770K as well as newer CPUs such as 6600K/7800X; you are not going to see phenomenal increases in FPS by upgrading that CPU; especially @1440p.

Thanks for the info! I reckon you suggest the 2070 because the 2080 would be overkill with my CPU?

A new card will be around €500-600 by the looks of it, so I will have to save some money. I'm thinking of just getting a new monitor, and saving the card for a few paychecks in the future.

2080 should be ok as well, but 2070 is ~GTX 1080 performance, which is a decent performer @1440p for a lot less $$. Not sure where you live, but according to the german pcpartpicker site, it's a €195 difference between the 2070 and the 2080. Bottlenecking is pretty overrated for 99% of games, especially @1440p on up, yes there may be a game here or there that bottlenecks, but I'm running an i7 960@4.1Ghz with a 980Ti, only slightly less powerful than a 1080, and on average the difference between that pc and my 7800X with a 980Ti@1440p is unnoticeable for almost any game unless I benchmark it; even then @1440p the difference is often quite small.

 

[vanGenne]

Your CPU and RAM are fine; that GTX 780 is ~GTX 1050Ti performance, that is really the only thing that will need upgrading if you want to get anywhere near 100 FPS on high (I won't say ultra because even a 2080Ti will struggle there @1440p in the most demanding games). If it was me I would get a GTX 2070 or a used GTX 1080 or 1080Ti and call it good. I have a 4770K as well as newer CPUs such as 6600K/7800X; you are not going to see phenomenal increases in FPS by upgrading that CPU; especially @1440p.

Thanks for the info! I reckon you suggest the 2070 because the 2080 would be overkill with my CPU?

A new card will be around €500-600 by the looks of it, so I will have to save some money. I'm thinking of just getting a new monitor, and saving the card for a few paychecks in the future.

2080 should be ok as well, but 2070 is ~GTX 1080 performance, which is a decent performer @1440p for a lot less $$. Not sure where you live, but according to the german pcpartpicker site, it's a €195 difference between the 2070 and the 2080. Bottlenecking is pretty overrated for 99% of games, especially @1440p on up, yes there may be a game here or there that bottlenecks, but I'm running an i7 960@4.1Ghz with a 980Ti, only slightly less powerful than a 1080, and on average the difference between that pc and my 7800X with a 980Ti@1440p is unnoticeable for almost any game unless I benchmark it; even then @1440p the difference is often quite small.

I'm Dutch, so you were close The site where I buy my pc parts has a 2080 which has been opened once, then sent back, and it's 'only' €688. Still a good discount compared to other 2080's though.

I will just save a little, and see if there is a similar cheap option available once I have the dough. Otherwise a 2070 might be good. Thanks for the help!