Does this upgrade path make sense for longevity?

[Gingercan]

Budget (including currency): ~11000SEK

Country: Sweden

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

Games: Sea of Thieves, Fall Guys, CS:GO, Rocket League, Witcher 3 and the like. Currently playing at 1080p but would like to upgrade to at least 1440p without having to sacrifice framerate or detail too much. 

Productivity: Mainly DAWs such as Presonus Studio One with upwards of 30-50 tracks per session. 

 

Other details 
Current setup (Plan to keep only what's underlined)

MOBO: MSI B85M-E45
CPU: Intel i7-4771
GPU: MSI Gaming X 1060 6GB
RAM: 16 GB DDR3 1600Mhz
CASE: Fractal Design Define Mini C 
SSD 1: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 

SSD 2: Crucial MX500 250GB
HDD: WD 7200rpm 1TB
PSU:  Cooler Master G650m

I plan to upgrade in two steps:

Step 1 (ideally in the next few months):

GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 - Maybe Zotac?

PSU: Seasonic Focus GX 650 650W

Step one total: ~6700SEK

 

Step 2 (possible sometime during Q1-Q2 2021):

Would this be sensible? Would you change anything? Should I completely reconsider? Please advice!

Thanks!

[Fasauceome]

If you save some money with these other retailers and go with the 3600 instead of the 3600X, you can double the SSD size

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	kr1989.00 @ CDON SE
Motherboard	MSI B450M BAZOOKA MAX WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	kr1034.00 @ Computersalg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL19 Memory	kr719.00 @ Computersalg
Storage	Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	kr1251.00 @ Computersalg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	kr4993.00
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-04 16:06 CEST+0200

 

Also fit some DDR4 3600, not sure what speed you selected for your parts list above. It is cheaper than the 3200 kits available for the time being.

[Ishnifan]

Don't think you need a 650W PSU for the step 2 build, unless the new RTX 3000 line is that thirsty, then again youll probably do some overclocking with the ryzen so youll need more power aswell but do as you want my guy.

[Bombastinator]

If a pc plays games now it will continue to play those games.  There’s a thread I just read of a guy who just built a “retro” pc that runs at 800mhz with ddr2.  The thing plays games of the period just fine. 
The question seems to be “will it play games that aren’t out yet?” No one knows. 

[Hairless Monkey]

I think I'd do things the other way around if I were you. But I'd wait for Zen 3 (Ryzen 4000) to launch.

 

Mostly because you won't see much benefit at 1080p 60Hz with the 3070 vs the 1060. But you should see some benefit in your productivity work by going with a better CPU.

[Gingercan]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

If you save some money with these other retailers and go with the 3600 instead of the 3600X, you can double the SSD size

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	kr1989.00 @ CDON SE
Motherboard	MSI B450M BAZOOKA MAX WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	kr1034.00 @ Computersalg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL19 Memory	kr719.00 @ Computersalg
Storage	Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	kr1251.00 @ Computersalg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	kr4993.00
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-04 16:06 CEST+0200

 

Also fit some DDR4 3600, not sure what speed you selected for your parts list above. It is cheaper than the 3200 kits available for the time being.

Hey thanks for the reply!

The RAM is 3600, so I got that covered. I'm not a huge overclocking enthusiast so I suppose a 3600 would work just fine for me. I just hope it is a sufficient jump in performance over my ageing i7. Thanks for the other retailers, I must have missed them - double storage is a great shout. 

 

4 minutes ago, Ishnifan said:

Don't think you need a 650W PSU for the step 2 build, unless the new RTX 3000 line is that thirsty, then again youll probably do some overclocking with the ryzen so youll need more power aswell but do as you want my guy.

According to Nvidia, they recommend a 550w PSU fore the 3070, but I figured that I'd rather be safe than sorry

 

[Ishnifan]

Just now, Gingercan said:

Hey thanks for the reply!

The RAM is 3600, so I got that covered. I'm not a huge overclocking enthusiast so I suppose a 3600 would work just fine for me. I just hope it is a sufficient jump in performance over my ageing i7. Thanks for the other retailers, I must have missed them - double storage is a great shout. 

 

According to Nvidia, they recommend a 550w PSU fore the 3070, but I figured that I'd rather be safe than sorry

 

yeah, id say thats fair enough.

[Gingercan]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

If a pc plays games now it will continue to play those games.  There’s a thread I just read of a guy who just built a “retro” pc that runs at 800mhz with ddr2.  The thing plays games of the period just fine. 
The question seems to be “will it play games that aren’t out yet?” No one knows. 

I get that. It's just that I'd want to have a good of a chance as possible to not have to upgrade after dropping a lot of money on my PC! 

 

 

2 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

I think I'd do things the other way around if I were you. But I'd wait for Zen 3 (Ryzen 4000) to launch.

 

Mostly because you won't see much benefit at 1080p 60Hz with the 3070 vs the 1060. But you should see some benefit in your productivity work by going with a better CPU.

So you figure that I should just continue chugging along with the 1060? To be fair, the only instances where I really notice framedrops and the like are in GTA V (where it seems to be my CPU that is pinned at 100%) and in Sea of Thieves (where the GPU is hovering at 90%).

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Gingercan said:

The RAM is 3600, so I got that covered. I'm not a huge overclocking enthusiast so I suppose a 3600 would work just fine for me

For the sake of saving some money without hurting performance too much, even 3200 is a good buy, but like I said, this 3600 kit was cheaper than all the 3200 kits.

 

I recommend waiting as well, for 4th gen, but the ram you should buy now. Excessive stock is temporarily driving prices down.

[Gingercan]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

For the sake of saving some money without hurting performance too much, even 3200 is a good buy, but like I said, this 3600 kit was cheaper than all the 3200 kits.

 

I recommend waiting as well, for 4th gen, but the ram you should buy now. Excessive stock is temporarily driving prices down.

I actually completely missed that 4th gen was coming out. But seeing that my plan is to upgrade MOBO and CPU in 2021, and rumours seem to indicate that 4th gen is coming out later this year, I could probably just shift my shopping list to whatever the successor to 3600 will be. 

[Hairless Monkey]

1 minute ago, Gingercan said:

I actually completely missed that 4th gen was coming out. But seeing that my plan is to upgrade MOBO and CPU in 2021, and rumours seem to indicate that 4th gen is coming out later this year, I could probably just shift my shopping list to whatever the successor to 3600 will be. 

Yup. You really picked a great time to upgrade. Just have to wait a little longer

[Gingercan]

Just now, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Yup. You really picked a great time to upgrade. Just have to wait a little longer

 

 

So I should even postpone the GPU purchase for a while? Is this to await AMD's offerings or for 3070 to drop in price? 

[Hairless Monkey]

8 minutes ago, Gingercan said:

So I should even postpone the GPU purchase for a while? Is this to await AMD's offerings or for 3070 to drop in price?

Well I think that if you aren't going to upgrade your monitor sooner, that you will benefit more now from a CPU upgrade vs a GPU upgrade.

 

But your reasoning it sound.

 

zGoogle says that AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs are launching in November. Maybe they will shake things up, maybe not. I think I would personally wait. In fact, I think I just decided that I will wait before upgrading, myself, to a 3080.

[Gingercan]

5 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Well I think that if you aren't going to upgrade your monitor sooner, that you will benefit more now from a CPU upgrade vs a GPU upgrade.

 

But your reasoning it sound.

 

zGoogle says that AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs are launching in November. Maybe they will shake things up, maybe not. I think I would personally wait. In fact, I think I just decided that I will wait before upgrading, myself, to a 3080.

Hey thanks for the insight! Might just hold on a little bit longer.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Gingercan said:

 

 

So I should even postpone the GPU purchase for a while? Is this to await AMD's offerings or for 3070 to drop in price? 

I doubt the 3070 will drop in price.  It’s not even available till October though.