How long do I wait before upgrading?

[Twiistaah HD]

I currently have an i5 4690K @ 4.4GHz with a GTX 1060 6GB. Had the 4690K for around 5 years and the 1060 for around 4 now. I'm looking to upgrade to keep up with the times and to get some more performance for the things that need it. I mostly play eSport titles but there are some more intensive games I play like Rust or even the new Call of Duty that I'd wanna try that might not run great. I do also use my PC for some 3D modelling, some video editing, some programming and occasionally running game servers for my friends to play on (mostly minecraft). Some actions in Fusion 360 take a loooonnggg time to complete sometimes but it's not that often, and for the servers depending on what we've got setup on the server, it can be running 5+ seconds behind constantly.

 

Now that I've given some information on what I use it for, I'll explain what I'm really asking. I had been looking at something like a 2070 a few months back to just have a better GPU but thought my CPU might cause a bottleneck(?) so I held off. I then began thinking about upgrading my CPU, looking at Zen2 so I'd have to buy new motherboard, RAM and CPU, expensive upgrades. So I also held off for longer on that hoping that Zen3 may come before the end of the year but not so sure about that anymore, was also a bit worried about initial launch problems with AMD that may potentially make the upgrade a headache.

 

 I would now want to look at the 3070 maybe, but maybe just the FE. Would I need to upgrade my CPU before GPU to get the best of newer GPUs? If so, should I just get Zen2 at this point or wait for Zen3 still?

 

[Excorcist_46]

I would recommend waiting for at least 6 months the prices of the latest stuff is insane. After 6 months the prices will come down and the new platforms would mature. A r7 4800 will be great pairing with a 3070

 

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

3 minutes ago, Excorcist_46 said:

I would recommend waiting for at least 6 months the prices of the latest stuff is insane. After 6 months the prices will come down and the new platforms would mature. A r7 4800 will be great pairing with a 3070

 

Let everything calm down, let prices stabilise?

[CommanderAlex]

12 minutes ago, Twiistaah HD said:

I had been looking at something like a 2070 a few months back to just have a better GPU but thought my CPU might cause a bottleneck(?) so I held off.

Good call as I was beginning to see a bottleneck with my 4790k and 1070 at the time. 

12 minutes ago, Twiistaah HD said:

Would I need to upgrade my CPU before GPU to get the best of newer GPUs?

I would recommend that as you will see performance gains going with a newer CPU paired with one of the latest GPUs out there now. I feel Zen2 is still worth it to an extend but would need a high end Ryzen in order to get the most out of your GPU (Amphere or Big Navi). During these times right now, I would definitely wait for prices to come down and to resolve stability issues with Amphere cards (crashing to desktop etc.) unless you want to pay to be a guinea pig. 

[Excorcist_46]

1 minute ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

Let everything calm down, let prices stabilise?

yeah

 

[flashiling]

this should depend entirely on your current needs.

does your system accomplish the tasks you want it to, and at the pace you want it to?

if yes, then why in the world would you want to upgrade?

if no, then yes, you should upgrade, but then comes another question.

do you have the money? and does using your current system cause you anger/irritation because it's slow or old or just doesn't perform as you need it to.

if yes to both then upgrade tomorrow, (or wait untill amd launches their new gpu's )

[Twiistaah HD]

1 minute ago, flashiling said:

this should depend entirely on your current needs.

does your system accomplish the tasks you want it to, and at the pace you want it to?

if yes, then why in the world would you want to upgrade?

if no, then yes, you should upgrade, but then comes another question.

do you have the money? and does using your current system cause you anger/irritation because it's slow or old or just doesn't perform as you need it to.

if yes to both then upgrade tomorrow, (or wait untill amd launches their new gpu's )

I mean I don't honestly neeed it but it would be nice for the few situations it hangs up. I do want M.2, I upgraded to a second hand Asus Z97-AR to get M.2 but I'm not sure if it's running at full speed. 

[flashiling]

1 minute ago, Twiistaah HD said:

I mean I don't honestly neeed it but it would be nice for the few situations it hangs up. I do want M.2, I upgraded to a second hand Asus Z97-AR to get M.2 but I'm not sure if it's running at full speed. 

personally i can only feel a difference between m.2 and normal HDD when it comes to booting games like GTA V and starting my pc,

but if that's your only "issue" then i'd suggest just getting and m.2 

[Twiistaah HD]

1 minute ago, flashiling said:

personally i can only feel a difference between m.2 and normal HDD when it comes to booting games like GTA V and starting my pc,

but if that's your only "issue" then i'd suggest just getting and m.2 

I mean going back to a system that doesn't have an SSD is infuriating to me lol. Everything is just slow, waiting for the start menu to pop up is slow. It's also that I paid the extra for an NVMe drive but don't get the speed benefit of having it, so currently it was a bit of a waste. I've seen benchmarks of people getting faster than what I'm getting so I think it might be how the PCIe lanes are setup on this board or something.

 

[Twiistaah HD]

I do want to use Christmas as an excuse to upgrade, so I may honestly just look at getting a 3800X or something, it's only a year old anyway and I'm pretty sure I'd be happy with that upgrade from a 4690K lol. 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 3.9 GHz 8-Core Processor	£297.99 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard	£156.98 @ Newegg UK
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL15 Memory	£68.23 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£523.20
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-30 13:37 BST+0100

This is the parts list I made a while ago when I was looking at this a few months ago. 

 

Edit: and look at GPUs later down the line.

[Tan3l6]

Zen 3 (AMD 5000 series) is just around the corner do not upgrade before its launch - 8. October.

[Twiistaah HD]

3 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Zen 3 (AMD 5000 series) is just around the corner do not upgrade before its launch - 8. October.

I would likely upgrade at the end of the year so I suppose I'll wait to see how the zen 3 launch goes to decide.