Question Will this GPU and CPU upgrade work on my Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard?

[Warpspasm]

I'm currently running an i5 4690k CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU on my Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard with 16GB of RAM. After more than a few years, I really need to upgrade my system to allow me to run some of the newer games I want to play. I'm thinking about getting an i7 CPU and a newer Geforce card like the RTX 3060. Will this simple component swap do the trick? I'm assuming both will work with my motherboard, right?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bob.B]

I'm currently running an i5 4690k CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU on my Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard with 16GB of RAM. After more than a few years, I really need to upgrade my system to allow me to run some of the newer games I want to play. I'm thinking about getting an i7 CPU and a newer Geforce card like the RTX 3060. Will this simple component swap do the trick? I'm assuming both will work with my motherboard, right?

Thanks in advance.

Cpu support list.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-7-rev-10/support#support-cpu

Make sure you have a quality psu to power the 3060.

 

[Warpspasm]

Thanks for the link. It appears the 3060 is compatible. I also looked up the compatible CPUs and see the Core i7-4790K will work as will the Core i7-5775C and several others. I read an earlier thread where someone swapped out their GPU and CPU, but ended up with a situation where the CPU still wasn't advanced enough to prevent both it and the GPU from being maxed out and created problems. Looking at the CPUs listed on the link, how do you know which would be the best match? I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which would be the best one to pick. Any insight would be very much appreciated.

 

[Bob.B]

Thanks for the link. It appears the 3060 is compatible. I also looked up the compatible CPUs and see the Core i7-4790K will work as will the Core i7-5775C and several others. I read an earlier thread where someone swapped out their GPU and CPU, but ended up with a situation where the CPU still wasn't advanced enough to prevent both it and the GPU from being maxed out and created problems. Looking at the CPUs listed on the link, how do you know which would be the best match? I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which would be the best one to pick. Any insight would be very much appreciated.

Unless you can get the I7 dirt cheap I would not touch it.
Time to move up to more current stuff.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yeah, you can get a 4790K for $80, but I don't think that's the problem here. You're going to be similarly limited these days, on new AAA games, by any CPU you can run on this motherboard. Haswell just had its tenth anniversary a couple months ago; these are old CPUs.

While a GPU upgrade will help -- again, the reference to a quality PSU, meaning quality and not just an amount of wattage is crucial -- I don't think you can completely resolve issues with new games without a platform upgrade.

 

[geofelt]

What kinds of games do you play?
If you play fast action games or at high resolutions, then a 3060 gpu upgrade might be good.
What is the make/model of your current psu?
Your current psu is likely sufficient if it is of good quality.

Otoh, if you are cpu limited, a i7-4790K upgrade is ok only if you play multiplayer games with many participants.
For games such as sims,mmo and strategy the single thread performance is all important, and that does not change much going to i7-4790K.
If you have not yet done so, you can get some 25% more compute power by overclocking your 4690K.
Try this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited and a new cpu is in order.

Run the cpu-Z bench test and look at the single thread rating.
It should be something like 490.
Here are some other scores:

CPU-Z Benchmark for Intel Core i5-13400F (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - November 2024

valid.x86.fr

 

[Warpspasm]

Yeah, you can get a 4790K for $80, but I don't think that's the problem here. You're going to be similarly limited these days, on new AAA games, by any CPU you can run on this motherboard. Haswell just had its tenth anniversary a couple months ago; these are old CPUs.

While a GPU upgrade will help -- again, the reference to a quality PSU, meaning quality and not just an amount of wattage is crucial -- I don't think you can completely resolve issues with new games without a platform upgrade.

The thing is, I'm not sure I want to do an entire build again (I'm 72 years old and don't enjoy it anymore). I really don't play games as much as I used to, but there several where I barely meet the minimum requirements. I'm just looking to bump up the performance a bit.

 

[Warpspasm]

What kinds of games do you play?


Run the cpu-Z bench test and look at the single thread rating.
It should be something like 490.

I mostly play shooters games like Borderlands, adventure games like Dishonored and just started Elder Scrolls Online. They all play well with what I have. But, I'm looking to get Baldur's Gate 3 and just barely make the minimum specs.

I ran the cpu-z bench for single thread and it only came in a 430.

 

[Bob.B]

The thing is, I'm not sure I want to do an entire build again (I'm 72 years old and don't enjoy it anymore). I really don't play games as much as I used to, but there several where I barely meet the minimum requirements. I'm just looking to bump up the performance a bit.

Just to take a peek download this.
UBM

Reboot.
Wait a few mins.
Run ubm with the browser closed.
Post a LINK to the results page.

 

[geofelt]

I mostly play shooters games like Borderlands, adventure games like Dishonored and just started Elder Scrolls Online. They all play well with what I have. But, I'm looking to get Baldur's Gate 3 and just barely make the minimum specs.

I ran the cpu-z bench for single thread and it only came in a 430.

Not to worry.
Many submitting 4690K cpu-z runs will have overclocked their processors giving higher numbers.

FWIW, Many consider userbenchmark to be fake technology and useless.