I am so in over my head these days!

[Billbrown1982]

Hey all

So, years ago (like 20) back when 486's were a thing and a Pentium was only for your rich mates I was REALLY into PC building. For years I knew all the components, differences between sockets, what processors had against others...the whole lot.

Somewhere along the way, I got old I guess...life got in the way...I even switched over to an iMac for quite a few years as my home computer.

Then I got the PC gaming bug again, money wasn't flush so I bought a PC from a builder as I could pay on finance, with what I figured was a pretty decent spec. 

Then we got into VR, so I upgraded to a GTX 1080 to run the vive, which it does.

But I've never really bothered to tweak it or look at things in detail and the little annoyances are finally getting to me, like for instance I can play pretty much any new game on high/max settings...but they will all from time to time have maybe some slight stuttering or frame drops from time to time, almost like its bottle necking somewhere.

After recently finding LTT and binge watching a whole lotta videos i've now got the bug to get back into the game, fix these issues and almost certainly upgrade the machine a little - water cooling is definitely going to happen.

So from what I've picked up on the videos I started with downloading Cinebench and doing a test....to be pretty devastated at my score. To me, it seems....pretty low for my build.

But on the plus side my temps seemed to behave, between 45 idle (bit high?) to 67 max and that surprised me because my case cooling isn't great...at all.

I scored 1238, on an Intel Core i5-7500 @3.4 ghz. Honestly I wouldnt' even know where to start looking at for upgrades...I don't want to go nuts cost wise but my gut is telling me new case & watercooling, quite possibly a new motherboard which then brings a world of pain cause no doubt new procesor & ram lol

Any thoughts/ideas are more than welcome. Maybe even some suggestions on benchmarking so I can work out where my problems seem to lie?

Cheers guys

[SenKa]

The weakest point of your system is definitely that motherboard and CPU. Could you do us, and yourself, a favor and throw your system together in PCPartPicker?

 

 

[Billbrown1982]

Absoloutely. Didn't want to just steam in with my first post and throw my specs up and expect answers sorta thing...if that makes sense! 

 

I'm not 100% sure about the RAM, except its definitely 2 x 8GB of Kingston DDR4 2133Mhz. 

I couldn't find the CPU cooler listed either but thats not really important in this situation
 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i5-7500 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$207.90 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	Asus STRIX Z270-E GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory	Kingston FURY 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$64.50 @ Amazon
Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card
Case	GameMax FALCON WHITE RGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply	Corsair VS 650 W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply	$63.99 @ Amazon
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$139.89 @ OutletPC
Monitor	Iiyama B2783QSU-B1 27.0" 2560x1440 70 Hz Monitor
Monitor	Iiyama B2783QSU-B1 27.0" 2560x1440 70 Hz Monitor
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$486.28
	Mail-in rebates	-$10.00
	Total	$476.28
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-22 16:50 EDT-0400

 

[SenKa]

Cool!

 

Your CPU and motherboard are definitely the first 2 things that gotta go if you're upgrading anything. I would say the PSU is next, and lastly the RAM. If you can overclock it to 2666 or higher I honestly wouldn't even bother with it.

 

DDR4 is still the current spec, so you don't strictly need to upgrade it even though it would help in performance. You said you didn't want to go too crazy on upgrade, so I would reccomend an i7-8700 and a nice H370 motherboard. That will bring you up to the current mainstream of 6c12t, and give you a healthy performance uplift over your non hyperthreaded 4 core CPU.

[Billbrown1982]

Yeah so my boy came home and told me to run this benchmark.

Looks to me like the "Brawn" achievement pretty much sums up the problem and its exactly as you said lol

Appreciate your help! I am going to start looking at those options and will definitely be back with more questions

[SenKa]

Feel free to reach out friend! I am on very often.

[Billbrown1982]

Would you definitely say getting a 8700k and a new motherboard is preferable to going for the cheapskate route and getting a 7700k that will just drop straight in?

I know its more of a bandaid solution at this point. Just looking at options.

 

Knowing me, if I do go new build i'll end up going crazy with it, even though I said I didn't want to....

[Herman Mcpootis]

 

3 hours ago, Billbrown1982 said:

Would you definitely say getting a 8700k and a new motherboard is preferable to going for the cheapskate route and getting a 7700k that will just drop straight in?

the 7700k usually costs so much that you'd be better off going with a 3600+B450 board, so avoid it unless you can find it for cheap.

[Billbrown1982]

Yeah so the H370's can't be overclocked and I figured that if I'm going to watercool it anyway, a little bit more future proofing would be having the ability to clock it down the road, if it starts getting a bit dated.

So with that in mind, i'm now looking at either the:

 

ASUS ROG STRIX Intel Z390-E GAMING 9th Gen ATX Motherboard

or the

 

ASRock Intel Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 ATX Motherboard

 

Any preferences here?

[trevb0t]

The frame drops you speak of are likely due to too few cores/threads. And perhaps a bottleneck between your CPU and much beefier GPU.

In the current market, the 9700K and 9900K are really the only Intel pieces you might consider worth buying if you're looking at new pieces.

Otherwise, the 3600 and 3700X are neck and neck with the 8700K, (in most titles) better than the 7700K and way better priced.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$329.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard	$89.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$72.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$0.00
Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card	$0.00
Case	GameMax FALCON WHITE RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$0.00
Power Supply	BitFenix Formula Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	$79.00 @ Amazon
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$0.00
Monitor	Iiyama B2783QSU-B1 27.0" 2560x1440 70 Hz Monitor	$0.00
Monitor	Iiyama B2783QSU-B1 27.0" 2560x1440 70 Hz Monitor	$0.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$570.98
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-23 16:32 EDT-0400

You could even grab the $200 Ryzen 5 3600 for very comparable gaming performance at a nice price cut.

No more frame drops.

[Billbrown1982]

Definitely going back and forth between Intel and AMD chipsets at this point. But I am thinking I will most likey be sticking with Intel for now.

Curious as to why you've suggested a new power supply, but the same wattage as my existing one? Or was that just an error.

Cheers

[trevb0t]

53 minutes ago, Billbrown1982 said:

Definitely going back and forth between Intel and AMD chipsets at this point. But I am thinking I will most likey be sticking with Intel for now.

Curious as to why you've suggested a new power supply, but the same wattage as my existing one? Or was that just an error.

Cheers

Because I'm assuming you've got a 5+ year old PSU, so if you're going to add pricey new components to the build, you should grab a new one.

There is a lot more to power supplies than just wattage.

 

As for Intel vs AMD, I personally wouldn't go Intel unless you're either getting a KILLER deal on the 8700K, or you plan to foot for a 9900K. (And even then a 3700X is still a great argument.)

The 9700k lacks Hypertheading, which will eventually hurt its frame drop performance (even if it's great now.)

The $200 3600 has 12 threads, is overclockable, and has pretty comparable gaming performance. I know AMD was a bad bet in the past, but even Intel fanboy Linus Sebastien is batting for team red on this most recent product line.

Check out Gamers Nexus reviews on the subject. IMO he's the tester to be looking at. 

[Billbrown1982]

Funny enough I was just reading up on the PSU pinned thread about its more than just wattage. Yeah and your dead right, totally makes sense now!
 

Saw Linus's video on the new gen Ryzen's, thats a whole lotta cores. I use PC for gaming but primarily as a Media server too so thats also a consideration.

Gamers Nexus....I'll head over there now. Cheers!

[trevb0t]

31 minutes ago, Billbrown1982 said:

Funny enough I was just reading up on the PSU pinned thread about its more than just wattage. Yeah and your dead right, totally makes sense now!
 

Saw Linus's video on the new gen Ryzen's, thats a whole lotta cores. I use PC for gaming but primarily as a Media server too so thats also a consideration.

Gamers Nexus....I'll head over there now. Cheers!

 

 

Steve is like the OCing god. Though if you want stock speeds, they are also there for you.

Good news: you can OC a 3600 or 3700X on a $75-120 MOBO. (And it would even do pretty well on the stock cooler.)