Build new or upgrade?

[RhysMusique]

Hello all!

 

I built my current PC back in early 2014. These are the specs:

 

i5-3570k CPU

16GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM

EVGA GTX 980Ti (upgraded from a GTX 760 in 2016)

OS is on a medium tier 120GB SSD (yes, yes, I regret not going higher capacity!) - and have a 500GB SSD and 1TB Mechanical HD.

 

I have a good case/fans/cooler, PSU, peripherals etc, so it's just the Mobo, CPU, RAM and possibly GPU.

 

Now I feel as though the 980Ti is still doing me okay, but could possibly be replaced if I were going to just build a new system anyway - I was thinking along the lines of an RTX 2070.

Current specs I have for a full rebuild are:

i7-8700 (non-k as I really don't have the time to think about overclocking these days - and they're £60 cheaper on average)

16GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM

Zotac RTX 2070 OC Mini

New 500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 SSD to clone my OS drive to.

 

I generally play casual games, some CS:GO, racing sims, but my real passion is Flight simulation in a 3 monitor 1080p surround setup - something that at the moment is stuttery, due to the amount of high detail add on scenery I use. 

 

Let me know what you'd all recommend - do I replace my 980Ti with an RTX 2070 or not?

 

Thanks,

 

Rhys

[Fasauceome]

I would say upgrade to the new CPU first and then see if a graphics upgrade is still warranted. Also, new AMD CPUs soon, if you can wait a couple months or so there will be a lot more options. Otherwise, an i7 is still not great value now, you could consider a high end Ryzen CPU.

[GoldenLag]

wait for Zen 2. 

 

that upgrade really isnt worth it atm. especially since Zen 2 should be around the corner

[RhysMusique]

18 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Otherwise, an i7 is still not great value now, you could consider a high end Ryzen CPU.

Thanks for the input! Really helpful. I'm out of the game a bit on PC parts as haven't had time to keep the hobby up, but would a 1920X Threadripper be a good replacement for the i7-8700? I may well upgrade CPU/MB/RAM combo and see if my stuttering is improved much, and if not, then get the 2070. 

 

 

15 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

that upgrade really isnt worth it atm. especially since Zen 2 should be around the corner

Right okay - have AMD really picked up their game since I last built a PC then? I always seem to remember AMD just having 86 core CPUs that couldn't run Windows Solitaire - haha! Joking aside - is Zen 2 meant to be a good value installment? Currently trying to do this upgrade on as much of a budget as possible, spending where necessary though. 

[TheGlenlivet]

Is your main goal is to fix the flight sim issue?  What sim is it?  On Xplane 11 with a 1080ti and a 1950X at 4Ghz, I still get under 30fps on a 3440x1440 screen with high details.  Not sure that a 2070 will fix that problem.

That said, a higher speed CPU would probably help my set up.  I had a better experience on a 7700K, gtx 1080 and 1080P monitor back in the day.

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, RhysMusique said:

Thanks for the input! Really helpful. I'm out of the game a bit on PC parts as haven't had time to keep the hobby up, but would a 1920X Threadripper be a good replacement for the i7-8700? I may well upgrade CPU/MB/RAM combo and see if my stuttering is improved much, and if not, then get the 2070. 

For gaming, you can avoid threadripper and just get their mainstream offerings (unless you just absolutely need 64 PCIe lanes).

 

The Ryzen 7 2700X is a strong performer, and a quality X470 motherboard can be had in the $150 range.

 

Zen 2 is said to improve the core count and frequency at the same MSRP for each part of the product stack, so there's a good chance their $100 base offering will be an immense improvement over your current CPU and also rival Intel's performance.

Edited April 2, 2019 by fasauceome

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, RhysMusique said:

is Zen 2 meant to be a good value installment? Currently trying to do this upgrade on as much of a budget as possible, spending where necessary though. 

well the value king right now is the r5 2600/x

 

we dont know pricing, but it should offer the same or better value than current products. 

[RhysMusique]

Just now, TheGlenlivet said:

Is your main goal is to fix the flight sim issue?  What sim is it?  On Xplane 11 with a 1080ti and a 1950X at 4Ghz, I still get under 30fps on a 3440x1440 screen with high details.  Not sure that a 2070 will fix that problem.

That said, a higher speed CPU would probably help my set up.  I had a better experience on a 7700K, gtx 1080 and 1080P monitor back in the day.

Yes it is, to be honest. I run P3Dv4 with the newest Orbx 'TrueEarth' scenery so it's a bit taxing on everything I believe. I just thought maybe upgrading to the 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM would give me a fighting chance? I run 3x 1920x1080 monitors when simming, so in effect a 5760x1080 display.

[TheGlenlivet]

Just now, RhysMusique said:

Yes it is, to be honest. I run P3Dv4 with the newest Orbx 'TrueEarth' scenery so it's a bit taxing on everything I believe. I just thought maybe upgrading to the 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM would give me a fighting chance? I run 3x 1920x1080 monitors when simming, so in effect a 5760x1080 display.

Unless P3D is using all the Vram you have you don't need more, but a 2070 would be an upgrade to a 980ti due to speed and the extra 2 GB of Vram if you do need it.  Have you monitored your system during the sim?  Can you tell what is holding things back?

Also, as said above, don't got Threadripper for gaming.  Both the regular Ryzen and Core Intel CPUs have higher clocks which games still want for the best results.

[RhysMusique]

13 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

The Ryzen 7 2700X is a strong performer,

This looks really good, thanks for highlighting this out for me - and at a similar price to the i7-8700k for a bit better performance it seems.

 

13 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

well the value king right now is the r5 2600/x

Thanks also for highlighting this model - looks really good value and will definitely think about it. Is the performance difference between the '5 2600X' and the '7 2700X' worth the £150ish increase in price?

 

 

10 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Can you tell what is holding things back?

Really not sure, I haven't looked too deep into it - I just went 'eh new pc time now oh no what a disaster (hehe)'..  Are there any pieces of software that'll give me an insight into what's struggling in my system (apart from just Task Manager?)

[TheGlenlivet]

7 minutes ago, RhysMusique said:

Really not sure, I haven't looked too deep into it - I just went 'eh new pc time now oh no what a disaster (hehe)'..  Are there any pieces of software that'll give me an insight into what's struggling in my system (apart from just Task Manager?)

MSI afterburner and rivatuner will give you an onscreen usage display during game play.  Both are free.  I'd try that maybe.

[Fasauceome]

8 minutes ago, RhysMusique said:

This looks really good, thanks for highlighting this out for me - and at a similar price to the i7-8700k for a bit better performance it seems.

the 8700k appears to be significantly more expensive, although that depends on the vendor. Are you using PCpartPicker.com to check prices? If not, I recommend it, you can compare vendors and get better value.

 

The 8700k is a better performer in gaming now but the 2700x has 2 more cores which can come in very handy.

[RhysMusique]

20 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

MSI afterburner and rivatuner will give you an onscreen usage display during game play.  Both are free.  I'd try that maybe.

So just did a bit of a test flying around Amsterdam Schiphol (with addon scenery) and it seems these are an average of my usages:
 

CPU: 100% most of the time, never dropped below 90% usage. (My CPU is overclocked to 4.2GHz).

RAM: 10GB of 16GB used at all times. Very uniform.

GPU: 60-70% usage on average, and 5GB of 6GB VRAM Used. Plus it was using around 0.8GB of 8GB of other dedicated memory (from my RAM I guess).

 

It does seem that my GPU is just about coping but could the CPU be the whole cause of the stuttering? Or could it be to do with that VRAM  getting close to its 6GB limit?

25 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Are you using PCpartPicker.com to check prices? If not, I recommend it, you can compare vendors and get better value.

Just used it now, this upgrade is coming in at just under £1000.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	£286.98 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	Asus - PRIME B350-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	£69.99 @ Amazon UK
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	£84.78 @ Aria PC
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£99.00 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	Zotac - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card	£430.79 @ Overclockers.co.uk
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£971.54
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-02 17:42 BST+0100

 

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, RhysMusique said:

Just used it now, this upgrade is coming in at just under £1000.

the 970 evo is excessive for gaming. If you're not using the PC to handle huge files, an 850 evo will do nicely.

[TheGlenlivet]

3 minutes ago, RhysMusique said:

CPU: 100% most of the time, never dropped below 90% usage. (My CPU is overclocked to 4.2GHz).

RAM: 10GB of 16GB used at all times. Very uniform.

GPU: 60-70% usage on average, and 5GB of 6GB VRAM Used. Plus it was using around 0.8GB of 8GB of other dedicated memory (from my RAM I guess).

Looks like the CPU is pegged.  Do you know if P3D can use more that 4 threads?  If so then the 2700X or 8700K will be a good upgrade for flight simming.  You could even keep the 980TI and see if things improve with just the CPU upgrade.

[RhysMusique]

6 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

the 970 evo is excessive for gaming. If you're not using the PC to handle huge files, an 850 evo will do nicely.

Thanks for the guidance, my friend has a 970 Evo and it boots before you've even had a chance to press the power button! 850 it is for me though, cost is more important!

 

13 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Do you know if P3D can use more that 4 threads?

Yes, people report having 8 core usage in P3D I believe. So it should help there. Think I'm going to upgrade everything but GPU for the moment and see how the 980Ti gets on!

 

 

 

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Thanks all for your help!