Avoiding bottleneck while only upgrading a few components

[Daemonenjaeger]

I'd like some upgrade advice. I built my first system in 2010 and have never upgraded. I am hoping to be able to upgrade one or two components to be able to play newer games like Borderlands 3 and Division 2; I'd like to avoid needing to upgrade the motherboard if possible.

Here is the current build:
•    AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition  Quad-Core 3.4 GHz Socket AM3
•    ASRock 890FX DELUXE3 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Motherboard
•    SilverStone ST1000-P 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 & EPS 12V 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
•    CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
•    Radeon HD 5870

I don’t think there is a worthwhile CPU upgrade that I could make without also upgrading the motherboard due to the AM3 socket, so I’d like to avoid upgrading it. I want to upgrade to a newer nvidia gpu, but don’t want to run into a bottleneck. Think my machine could run alright with a Nvidia GTX 1660 Super without upgrading the CPU and Motherboard?

Will I need to refresh windows after a gpu upgrade? 

[5x5]

You need a CPU upgrade I'd you want a GPU upgrade to matter. Your current CPU will limit even a 1650 Super/RX 570. It's slower than a modern Athlon 200GE...

[Daemonenjaeger]

Do you think there is an older card I could upgrade to that could enable me play new games still, without being a serious bottle neck? If so which card and where would one find previous gen cards? I assume I'd have to go with a used component.

 

If I did upgrade my CPU and motherboard, would I need to refresh windows or can I just boot up with the new components installed? 

 

Any advice on what do so with my old components? Is there a market for old components online somewhere? 

[Bombastinator]

23 minutes ago, Daemonenjaeger said:

Do you think there is an older card I could upgrade to that could enable me play new games still, without being a serious bottle neck? If so which card and where would one find previous gen cards? I assume I'd have to go with a used component.

 

If I did upgrade my CPU and motherboard, would I need to refresh windows or can I just boot up with the new components installed? 

 

Any advice on what do so with my old components? Is there a market for old components online somewhere? 

Nope.  The issue is a lot of old CPUs can handle modern GPUs because they were basically overpowered.  This is not a “problem” you have.

[Daemonenjaeger]

Okay, and am I correct in assuming I have to get a new motherboard if I upgrade my CPU? 

[i_build_nanosuits]

13 minutes ago, Daemonenjaeger said:

Okay, and am I correct in assuming I have to get a new motherboard if I upgrade my CPU? 

Yes and ram too., basically that machine is done with...your current cpu is garbage and it will never play games smooth even with a new graphics card. 5870hd was a good match for it back then...now you're looking at a new computer basically ...your stuff is too old.

[i_build_nanosuits]

You COULD look for and Intel ddr3 compatible platform tho like an i7 3770 or 4770 with a motherboard and reuse your ram...that way you could properly power like a 1660 super or something and get good performance .

[SteveGrabowski0]

Not a chance. I have a Xeon E3-1231v3 (an i7-4770 minus 100 MHz) that demolishes the Phenom II X4 and it still bottlenecks my 1660 Super at 1080p pretty significantly in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2. AC Odyssey looks like it would be even worse. If you want to make that into a modern gaming machine about the only thing you can salvage from what you listed is the power supply, maybe.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

Yes and ram too., basically that machine is done with...your current cpu is garbage and it will never play games smooth even with a new graphics card. 5870hd was a good match for it back then...now you're looking at a new computer basically ...your stuff is too old.

Garbage may be strong.  It will still browse the web and play movies.  As far as gaming goes though, yup.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Not a chance. I have a Xeon E3-1231v3 (an i7-4770 minus 100 MHz) that demolishes the Phenom II X4 and it still bottlenecks my 1660 Super at 1080p pretty significantly in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2. If you want to make that into a modern gaming machine about the only thing you can salvage from what you listed is the power supply, maybe.

Also case and fans.  

[SteveGrabowski0]

1 minute ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

You COULD look for and Intel ddr3 compatible platform tho like an i7 3770 or 4770 with a motherboard and reuse your ram...that way you could properly power like a 1660 super or something and get good performance .

Even that's not really enough. My E3-1231v3 bottlenecks my 1660 Super quite a bit at time. 4C/8T should be considered dead for AAA gaming for anyone buying today considering the consoles coming in 3-4 months are 8C/16T and virtually every AAA game is going to be designed first and foremost for them.

[Daemonenjaeger]

24 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

Yes and ram too., basically that machine is done with...your current cpu is garbage and it will never play games smooth even with a new graphics card. 5870hd was a good match for it back then...now you're looking at a new computer basically ...your stuff is too old.

 

Crud, my RAM can't even be reused? Is RAM motherboard platform specific or something? Do you think brand new 2020 components will last longer i.e. is the technology beginning to plateau or improve at a slower rate? How often to you feel like you need to upgrade to be able to continue playing modern games? Also, what would determine if I could not keep using my power supply, it is a 1,000 watt, so I thought it should definitely still be fine to use.

[Bombastinator]

33 minutes ago, Daemonenjaeger said:

Crud, my RAM can't even be reused? Is RAM motherboard platform specific or something? Do you think brand new 2020 components will last longer i.e. is the technology beginning to plateau or improve at a slower rate? How often to you feel like you need to upgrade to be able to continue playing modern games? Also, what would determine if I could not keep using my power supply, it is a 1,000 watt, so I thought it should definitely still be fine to use.

Not always. It does move though.  You’ve got ddr3.  Ddr4 is what is in common use. Ddr5 has already been finalized and is in use in the enterprise space. There are a few ddr3 boards still made in China.  Not many.  It is considered not a great idea to put anything slower than 3000mhz in ryzen2 if that helps explain things at all.  Most commonly ryzen2 has 3200 or 3600mhz in it.

 

this is kind of the way it always was.  There was a 10 year period where AMD couldn’t get its act together so intel just sat on its butt and collected cash hand over fist.  Things are moving again though.

[SteveGrabowski0]

41 minutes ago, Daemonenjaeger said:

Crud, my RAM can't even be reused? Is RAM motherboard platform specific or something? Do you think brand new 2020 components will last longer i.e. is the technology beginning to plateau or improve at a slower rate? How often to you feel like you need to upgrade to be able to continue playing modern games? Also, what would determine if I could not keep using my power supply, it is a 1,000 watt, so I thought it should definitely still be fine to use.

Building to last the next console generation will be quite expensive for sure. Right now the ~$180 Ryzen 5 3600 is the best bang for your buck cpu you can get and it's a really nice chip that can pretty much push any gpu on the market, including 2080 Ti. But I wonder if it'll last the entire console gen since it's 6C/12T while the PS5 and XBox Series X will use 8C/16T Ryzen chips clocked at around 3.3 GHz for PS5 and 3.7 GHz for XBox Series X if I remember right. Maybe you could buy R5 3600 now and when it starts aging move to a generation or two newer Ryzen 7 chip considering AMD boards usually support two or three gens of their cpus. But where it'll get expensive is the board. For that I'd have to go X570 to get PCIE-4.0 gpu and PCIE-4.0 ssd support. Sony seems to be banking really big on PCIE-4.0 SSDs and that's going to drive game design for the next 8 years or so.

 

As for gpu, you'd be looking at RTX 2070 Super to just outdo PS5's gpu performance, and that will be targeting 4k30 with raytracing based on the game reveals Sony has done. I wouldn't buy one today though, I'd wait for RDNA2 and Ampere this fall / winter to see how much more you can out of $500 than you could an RTX 2070 Super. Alternatively, the lower specc'ed XBox Series S has been rumored to run with a gpu likely to be about the power of the RX 590 or so and will seemingly target 1080p. Maybe 1080p30 with raytracing if they even support RT in the Series S.

 

A lot of unknowns right now and if you're looking to future proof today, you're going to spend a lot of money. XBox Series S is rumored to be revealed in the next week or two though so might get some clarification on that.

[SteveGrabowski0]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

this is kind of the way it always was.  There was a 10 year period where AMD couldn’t get its act together so intel just sat on its butt and collected cash hand over fist.  Things are moving again though.

Yeah, Intel was lazy as hell on the desktop and now it's costing them with AMD finally putting out such an awesome product again. Though at least it's not 20 years ago where you'd buy the highest end chip and then a year later it was pretty weak.

[Aragorn-]

Usually i would say just buy whichever GPU you want going forwards, and upgrade the rest later. But really the issue here is the CPU is simply too weak to play a lot of modern titles. Its from the Core2Quad era, and the Core2Quad had it beat back then, and even those arent any use with modern titles. Its also missing various CPU instructions, so a lot of modern games wont even run at all.

 

If your planning a staged upgrade, then buy the 1660 (or something better ) now and do the rest next month or wahetver.

 

If the budgets fixed, you'd be better off buying a lower spec GPU like say a used RX570, and spend the rest buying a 1600AF/2600/3100/3300x (Whichever you can find cheapest) and the cheapest AM4 board you can find that will run it. It will be a far more balanced system and play a lot nicer despite the weaker GPU. Or you up the budget and rebuild the whole lot to a higher standard.

[Dr0y]

i would go with a used something better than what you have and don't pay more than 40$ to 60$ if it can make you wait for next stuff to come out and then do the big move and upgrade.  If you can manage to still play some stuff with what you have then don't buy anything yet and just wait for holiday season. 

[xg32]

11 hours ago, Daemonenjaeger said:

.

the first step and minimum upgrade i'd go for is a b550 motherboard+3600+2x8gb of ram for about 350usd, the cpu and motherboard has to go, gpu can come later.

[Daemonenjaeger]

30 minutes ago, Dr0y said:

i would go with a used something better than what you have and don't pay more than 40$ to 60$ if it can make you wait for next stuff to come out and then do the big move and upgrade.  If you can manage to still play some stuff with what you have then don't buy anything yet and just wait for holiday season. 

Do you have any tips on buying used parts? For instance, is there a store that refurbishes and does quality control or is there a website you have had good luck with? I'd just hate to end up with something that someone abused and that no longer operates well.

[Dr0y]

Not really, when I buy used I usually get stuff on local ads like kijiji.   Make sure you can see the gpu working in game or benchmark.  If you get from ebay you can try to see if there's a return policy and such.   An rx 470 would probably be good but not sure how much of an upgrade it would be compared to the gpu you already have.