Upgrading PC (GPU, maybe entire PC if needed)

[RiskyBomberPT]

Hello,

 

I've been wanting to upgrade my PC since the beginning of the year and I was put off by some real life friends of mine who said "wait! just wait! you're fine for now, there will be new stuff coming out later this year". And I've waited... But recently I've been hitting the wall when it comes to gaming performance. Hitting max VRAM in some games and dropping frames very often (sometimes even in League of Legends, in late game, when there's a baron buff), I've just reached my limit with my poor old 3gb GTX1060

 

I've previously made a thread here, in January, asking for advice on upgrading, but now I'm coming back with a higher budget and more and more confusion as there's so many new releases in both the GPU and CPU markets...

 

My Budget:

I'm unsure if I can keep my system as is

From what I've seen I'll need a new PSU since mine is outdated and could be unreliable, even if it meets the power target.

The CPU is a big question mark for me. Can I keep the i5? I noticed my CPU reaching 100% very easily. I'm currently not overclocking it and with only the Hyper 212x I don't think I can overclock a lot... I never even tried out of fear of overheating the PC or just making it very unstable overall.

 

So... if I'm only upgrading the GPU (and the PSU) I would set a limit of around 500 euros for the budget

 

If my i5 is not enough to handle a new GPU, I was thinking about maybe going with a Ryzen 3600, extending my budget to double (1000 euros)

 

The Current PC:

CPU: Intel i5 7600k

Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212x

GPU: ASUS GTX1060 DUAL OC 3GB

MOBO: MSI Z270-A PRO SKT1151

RAM: GSkill PC4-19200 2400MHz 16GB (2x8gb) AEGIS CL15 DDR4

SSD: Samsung 850 EVO ULTRASLIM 250GB SSD

HDD: Western Digital Blue 1TB HDD 7200RPM

PSU: Seasonic S12ii GB 520W 80plus Bronze

Case: Cooler Master CM590 iii Window

 

The target use:

1080p gaming (I have a dual monitor setup, primary monitor at 75hz and secondary at 60hz, both 1080p, usually game on the primary)

Some of the games I play or intend to play are CSGO, League of Legends, Rainbow 6 Siege, Overwatch, Anno 1800, Destiny2, Black Desert Online, Monster Hunter World, Forza Horizon 3 and 4, etc

 

Streaming smoothly is not necessarily within my needs but would be a nice bonus (for screen sharing on Discord, which with my current setup seems to make me drop quite a lot of frames)

 

I'm not sure I will be using RTX on my games, but with the RX 5700 blower card at 380€ the AMD offering seems a bit overpriced (maybe?)

 

 

Now for the prices and items that I have in my area of residence...

 

GPU:

MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus XS 6G OC - 374,9€

Zotac GeForce RTX 2060 AMP! Edition 6GB - 379,9€ (This one is clocked higher than the MSI by about 90mhz for just 5€ more)

MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Ventus 8G OC - 444,90€

MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Ventus 8G - 474,90€

 

Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 8GB - 384,90€ (stock reference cooler and clocks)

Gigabyte/MSI/Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB - 439,90€ (they're basically the exact same card, same stock reference cooler with same clocks and price)

 

PSU:

Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 550W Full Modular - 84,9€

Corsair RM550x Series 80PLUS Gold Full Modular - 94,9€

 

In case of needing to upgrade the rest of the PC:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 - 218,9€

MSI B450-A Pro - 94,9€ (should have a button to flash BIOS without CPU, I think)

GSKILL Ripjaws V 16gb (2x8GB) DDR4-3200MHz CL14 - 138,3€

 

 

So my question is how to best go about upgrading, I wouldn't want to spend my 1000 euro bigger budget unless I really needed to upgrade the CPU

At the same time, I'm not sure at which point am I overspending on the graphics card, so which would be the sweet spot, the 2060? the 2070? or in-between, with the 2060 super? Would the AMD cards still be relevant at their current price tag even if just available with reference card blower style coolers?

 

As for what I'll be doing with my old parts, the used market here is not the best, hard to sell and hard to buy, so my older components will be used to upgrade the other family rig (which is basically all built out of donations from my old PC parts), so no money can be extracted out of my current parts to make the upgrade easier

 

 

Thanks to anyone who can contribute to this thread and to making my final decision on the upgrade...

It's been some tough months trying to hold on with the upgrades but I think it's finally time I'll go through with it

[Sorenson]

I totally understand why you’re hesitant to overclock your 7600k but the chip was built for overclocking. I’m a pretty cautious overclocker so what I do is never mess with the voltage and just increase the all core boost to where it is stable. Your chip will get a bit hotter but the hyper 212 should be able to handle it. 

 

For GPU I would go with the 2060 super-2070 unless their is a significant discount for the 5700/xt and you can get them without the blower style cooler. 

 

Another option for upgrading the cpu would would be to get a used 7800k. If you went with ryzen you would have to get a new mobo and would also probably want to upgrade the ram. 

[m777y]

change to 2060 super first, buy some good psu like corsair cx/tx/rmx or thermaltake smart /toughpower grand 500-650W.

then if you still get not happy, try overclock the proc to @4,2 Ghz.

[RiskyBomberPT]

10 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

I totally understand why you’re hesitant to overclock your 7600k but the chip was built for overclocking. I’m a pretty cautious overclocker so what I do is never mess with the voltage and just increase the all core boost to where it is stable. Your chip will get a bit hotter but the hyper 212 should be able to handle it. 

 

For GPU I would go with the 2060 super-2070 unless their is a significant discount for the 5700/xt and you can get them without the blower style cooler. 

 

Another option for upgrading the cpu would would be to get a used 7800k. If you went with ryzen you would have to get a new mobo and would also probably want to upgrade the ram. 

I'll give it a go then, at which temperatures and clocks should I stop to stay on the safe side?

I didn't even know about the 7800's existence, but a quick googling shows me that it's on other socket (LGA2066 instead of 1151) and around 500 dollars (can't even find it in my country)... Maybe you meant the 7700k? Though at 370€ brand new for just hyperthreading and a little bit more clock it seems a bit overpriced... And I can't really say much about the used market in my country as it's very hard to find anything, people don't sell used parts very often here

 

2 minutes ago, m777y said:

change to 2060 super first, buy some good psu like corsair cx/tx/rmx or thermaltake smart /toughpower grand 500-650W.

then if you still get not happy, try overclock the proc to @4,2 Ghz.

 

Seems like a nice plan

 

My CPU is stock right now, but it seems to idle at 4.1ghz and when at 100% it goes to 4.2ghz, as if it's constantly turbo-boosting... Maybe my motherboard or power settings are making it constantly boost? Does this mean if I raise my base 3.8ghz clock to 4.2ghz it will constantly boost all the way to 4.6ghz?

[MeatFeastMan]

5700/xt's are getting custom cards at the same price as the blower designs. So if you can wait a week or two, you'll be able to get those instead. And for the 5700 the blower is fine, the card is in the 70's under load. And it's 60 euros less than the 2060 Super while performing pretty much the same.

 

The blower design for the 5700 non-XT is still relevant because temperatures are acceptable unlike on the vega cards. Noise is still a problem but I'd imagine it's not quite as bad.

Unless you are desperate for ray tracing or require cuda cores, the AMD cards are better choices.

 

 

[m777y]

8 minutes ago, RiskyBomberPT said:

I'll give it a go then, at which temperatures and clocks should I stop to stay on the safe side?

I didn't even know about the 7800's existence, but a quick googling shows me that it's on other socket (LGA2066 instead of 1151) and around 500 dollars (can't even find it in my country)... Maybe you meant the 7700k? Though at 370€ brand new for just hyperthreading and a little bit more clock it seems a bit overpriced... And I can't really say much about the used market in my country as it's very hard to find anything, people don't sell used parts very often here

 

 

Seems like a nice plan

 

My CPU is stock right now, but it seems to idle at 4.1ghz and when at 100% it goes to 4.2ghz, as if it's constantly turbo-boosting... Maybe my motherboard or power settings are making it constantly boost? Does this mean if I raise my base 3.8ghz clock to 4.2ghz it will constantly boost all the way to 4.6ghz?

it can. all core boost in constant work mean doing manual overclock. maybe you can do it to @ 4.4 ghz if you lucky.

you can doing that on bios settings. but the feature turbo boost must off to doing manual overclock. 

just googling step by step for manual overclock, good luck!

[RiskyBomberPT]

28 minutes ago, MeatFeastMan said:

5700/xt's are getting custom cards at the same price as the blower designs. So if you can wait a week or two, you'll be able to get those instead. And for the 5700 the blower is fine, the card is in the 70's under load. And it's 60 euros less than the 2060 Super while performing pretty much the same.

 

The blower design for the 5700 non-XT is still relevant because temperatures are acceptable unlike on the vega cards. Noise is still a problem but I'd imagine it's not quite as bad.

Unless you are desperate for ray tracing or require cuda cores, the AMD cards are better choices.

 

 

 

Well, if the prices for the custom cards will be the same then I'm totally interested in waiting the 1 or 2 weeks for this to happen, like I mentioned in the post I'm not interested in the Ray Tracing, and I'm not sure I'll have any particular need for CUDA cores in specific. So if I can get a custom cooler 5700XT card for 440€ and that can perform better than the 2060Super it seems like a nice deal to me

 

Would a 550w PSU be enough for either of these cards if I'm overclocking my i5?

[MeatFeastMan]

48 minutes ago, RiskyBomberPT said:

 

Well, if the prices for the custom cards will be the same then I'm totally interested in waiting the 1 or 2 weeks for this to happen, like I mentioned in the post I'm not interested in the Ray Tracing, and I'm not sure I'll have any particular need for CUDA cores in specific. So if I can get a custom cooler 5700XT card for 440€ and that can perform better than the 2060Super it seems like a nice deal to me

 

Would a 550w PSU be enough for either of these cards if I'm overclocking my i5?

It should be fine if you're only overclocking the cpu.

[Sorenson]

7 hours ago, RiskyBomberPT said:

I'll give it a go then, at which temperatures and clocks should I stop to stay on the safe side?

I didn't even know about the 7800's existence, but a quick googling shows me that it's on other socket (LGA2066 instead of 1151) and around 500 dollars (can't even find it in my country)... Maybe you meant the 7700k? Though at 370€ brand new for just hyperthreading and a little bit more clock it seems a bit overpriced... And I can't really say much about the used market in my country as it's very hard to find anything, people don't sell used parts very often here

 

Sorry meant the 7700k i would try eBay since they generally have shipping, but 370 for it new is BS. At that price you could get a 3600, b450 motherboard, and RAM (at least in the US). 

 

For the overclock idling on an Intel tip shouldn’t go over 40c and turbo boosting I wouldn’t want the peak temps going over 85c. By peaks I mean you’ll see like ~75 and it might shoot up for half a second to 85c. Remember you can always add a second fan (ram clearance provided) to the hyper 212. Just give it a shot as long as you don’t mess with the voltages you should be fine. 

[RiskyBomberPT]

Hey!

 

Slightly late reply but I didn't have much time yesterday to mess around with the overclock

 

So I've been going around it for a little while, following the Anandtech post's clocks and voltages.

 

I did my stress testing with Realbench

I ran it at 4.6ghz with cache at 4.3, at 1.114v (idk what happened, i input 1.150 on the bios but Intel XTU gave me only 1.114v), got temperatures of about 70ºC in stress testing

 

Then ran it at 4.7ghz, with cache at 4.4, at 1.200v (showing 1.199 on Intel XTU). It sat at around 76ºC to 78ºC after i made my fans spin faster and earlier, with small spikes to 81ºC.

Idling on 4.7ghz is jumping massively, from 45ºC to 50ºC, might be because of the fan curves kicking it way faster past 50 and quickly cooling it back to 45ºC, then slowing down and repeating this cycle over and over...

 

I've checked the temperatures with both Intel XTU and HWMonitor.

 

Are these results satisfactory to pair up with a 2060super/5700xt?

Should I switch my thermal paste too? I've got Artic MX-2 currently, which has been there for a good 2years now. Maybe it's time to replace, but what should I get?

 

Quick edit: Should i try to lower my voltages too? I've followed this post: https://www.anandtech.com/show/10969/the-intel-core-i57600k-91w-review-the-more-amenable-mainstream-performer/11

Quick edit2: Not sure if it's any relevant but the room temperature is 24.3ºC, so quite cold