Upgrade platform or improve current one?

[SoulsOfBlack]

Hi everyone! I had my gaming PC from like 2012, it has an Intel Core i7 2600 (non k, wasn't interested in oc back in the day) a Gigabyte H61M-S2V-B3 (my asus p8p67 died after my liquid cooler leaked), 8 GB of DDR3 1600MHz in dual channel RAM, an Nvidia GTX 970,a 600W EVGA Gold PSU, and an 240GB sata 3 SSD in a PCIe SATA 3 card+2TB HDD for games (all working great and brand new) After all this spectre/meltdown patches, i've started to notice my i7 2600 is showing some aging signs, stutter, freezing constantly, usage spikes in one or two threads, even after disabling them. GPU works at 20~25~% while CPU is pegged at 40~50% combined load (high usage on 1 or 2 threads) and such. I mostly play high IPC/CPU reliant games, and i run VMs to study sysadmin (no more than two at the same time). Right now i have two good deals for the money i currently have (student with some savings) a Ryzen 5 1600, Asrock x370 killer SLI, and 12 GB of DDR4 2666MHz RAM in dual channel for 370 USD. Problem is, i don't have all the money now, and the price tends to go up (screw inflation rofl). I tried to bring the price down putting a A320 chipset board, but the price change was negligible, and i lose the ability to OC. B350 and B450 boards have a 2~4 USD price difference (yes, my country is really weird with pricing) and 12 GB is the least i want to buy, as the price difference between 8 and 12 GB makes going for 8 GB not worth at all. On the other hand, i can get a Z68 motherboard, 8 GB of DDR3 and an i7 2600k for 254 USD, i can OC it to 4.3 GHz (i currently have a 120mm AIO), and i can get some extra cash selling my H61+i7 2600 combo. If i were to sell this actual mobo+cpu+ram combo, i could probably buy the ryzen platform (i am not interested in Zen+ or Zen2 atm), but, will it be worth? Will it make a difference in gaming performance? Any help would be appreciated, as im stuck on a dead end.

EDIT: Added storage

[KING OF THE DIRTY DANS]

Im going to break it down a bit

• I would get some sort of AIR COOLER if you had leaks tbh
• But more importantly, Ryzen will be far better than 2600 from intel

[Firewrath9]

I'd wait for Zen 2, Zen+ and Zen will further go down in price. Perhaps a i7-3770 for the time being.

[dDave64]

Assuming there's nothing wrong with it the i7 2600 is still a pretty strong chip. Should be able to run most anything reasonably well. I would look at reapplying thermal compound and getting a really strong air cooler. Liquid cooling is cool but absolutely not necessary, especially with that chip. If you keep that chip I'd get more RAM.

 

I also agree that you should get a Ryzen chip over another 2600 series from Intel. The performance jump there will be significant.

[SoulsOfBlack]

28 minutes ago, KING OF THE DIRTY DANS said:

Im going to break it down a bit

• I would get some sort of AIR COOLER if you had leaks tbh
• But more importantly, Ryzen will be far better than 2600 from intel

Thanks, i'll save a little more and maybe wait for Zen2 so the prices go down.

[SoulsOfBlack]

29 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

I'd wait for Zen 2, Zen+ and Zen will further go down in price. Perhaps a i7-3770 for the time being.

Good idea, i've heard you set the multiplier up to 42 for the 2600 non-k with a Z or P series motherboard. Is that true?

[SoulsOfBlack]

11 minutes ago, dDave64 said:

Assuming there's nothing wrong with it the i7 2600 is still a pretty strong chip. Should be able to run most anything reasonably well. I would look at reapplying thermal compound and getting a really strong air cooler. Liquid cooling is cool but absolutely not necessary, especially with that chip. If you keep that chip I'd get more RAM.

 

I also agree that you should get a Ryzen chip over another 2600 series from Intel. The performance jump there will be significant.

I got this liquid cooler for free, i had a contac silent 12 from Thermaltake, but i couldn't refuse a free WC. I think ill wait a little more and make the jump to ryzen.