New pc build upgrading from intel core i7 6700k?

random2234 · January 14, 2022

Budget (including currency): £2,000

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly gaming. Some examples of some the games i play Forza Horizon 5, GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, the crew 2. I think those would probably be the most demanding games i play tbh.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc):

So my current PC build is a Intel core i7 6700k with a Noctua NH U14S cooler, 32gb ddr4 ram, Nvidia GTX 1080, 1 2tb SSD and 1 480gb ssd, Corsair 750W PSU and coolermaster H500M case.

Looking at gaming at ultra settings1440p 60fps. Not too fussed at 4k gaming tbh since i imagine that may push me over my budget. I'm going to be keeping my SSD drives, PSU if i can but prepared to buy a new one if need to, case fans and PC case. Havent really kept up with the news of DDR 5 ram so not sure if i can just keep my existing ram or if i need to upgrade to DDR 5 if its worth it for futureproofing or performance. Also no clue if i'll need to get a new CPU cooler so if you can also advise me a decent cooler if need to upgrade it preferably Noctua since ive found them easy to install in the past. Not interested in water cooling

Queen Chrysalis · January 14, 2022

3 hours ago, random2234 said:

Budget (including currency): £2,000

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly gaming. Some examples of some the games i play Forza Horizon 5, GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, the crew 2. I think those would probably be the most demanding games i play tbh.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc):

So my current PC build is a Intel core i7 6700k with a Noctua NH U14S cooler, 32gb ddr4 ram, Nvidia GTX 1080, 1 2tb SSD and 1 480gb ssd, Corsair 750W PSU and coolermaster H500M case.

Looking at gaming at ultra settings1440p 60fps. Not too fussed at 4k gaming tbh since i imagine that may push me over my budget. I'm going to be keeping my SSD drives, PSU if i can but prepared to buy a new one if need to, case fans and PC case. Havent really kept up with the news of DDR 5 ram so not sure if i can just keep my existing ram or if i need to upgrade to DDR 5 if its worth it for futureproofing or performance. Also no clue if i'll need to get a new CPU cooler so if you can also advise me a decent cooler if need to upgrade it preferably Noctua since ive found them easy to install in the past. Not interested in water cooling

Have you tried yet? I play 1440 UW @75hz mostly ultra on a Vega 64 with a 1600. The 6700k isn't as fast as new CPUs, but it's still not gonna bottleneck a faster GPU for games like that at 1440 (really only comes down to CPU speed at 1080). The only meaningful upgrade you could do would be a top of the line GPU, and to be frank a 180 should handle 1440 60hz just fine. Get the monitor you want first, then try gaming on it with your current system. You might end up tweaking a setting or two, or doing a mild OC on the GPU, but that's way better than spending double MSRP for a new GPU and throwing away ~$1000 when your system might be just fine, especially when new fabs are being built right now to get next gen cards back down to MSRP. Keep in mind too, that most of the time there is almost no difference in appearance between a specific setting being set to high as opposed to ultra, while the difference in workload between the two can be massive.

TLDR: Get your 1440p monitor first, game on it with your current tower, tweak your settings if you need to, then re-evaluate. YUour GPU is the only thing you even really could upgrade, and they are not affordable ATM.

Somerandomtechyboi · January 15, 2022

Just overclock the crap out of the 6700k since intel 14nm max volt spec is 1.52v and keep temps under 80c, and upgrade the gpu since its only 1080p and under where cpu performance really affects fps, 1440p and above you want a powerful gpu cause thats what does most of the heavy lifting

Queen Chrysalis · January 15, 2022

31 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Just overclock the crap out of the 6700k since intel 14nm max volt spec is 1.52v and keep temps under 80c, and upgrade the gpu since its only 1080p and under where cpu performance really affects fps, 1440p and above you want a powerful gpu cause thats what does most of the heavy lifting

This. Skylake has a shitload of OC headroom and a hyperthreaded quad is still plenty for gaming, as win11 is great at prioritizing your active workload and pushing background processes to a single thread without sacrificing any performance. OC'd skylake cores are also still faster than the underclocked Zen 2 Cores you see in new consoles.