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Upgrading my CPU, MB, and RAM and I'm not sure what to go for

Flobbit
By Flobbit
in CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory
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Hey, I usually do one major upgrade per year. last year I upgraded from a Nvidia 1660, to a 3080ti.
This year or next I'm aiming to upgrade my CPU, MB, and RAM because I know DDR5 is at a good price, and the CPU and RAM I have is holding back my GPU from what I can tell.
Current Setup:
CPU: i7 11700k
MB: MSI MPG Z590M Gaming Edge Wifi
RAM: 32gb (4x8gb) 3600 G.Skill RBG

I'm not sure what you pair with my GPU. I also would like to have more than one USB controller. I stream a bit and play VR so I have quite a bit plugged in over USB and have maxed it out before.
The RAM is kinda the easy part for me. I'm open to going Team Blue again, or trying out Team Red for the first time with my CPU!

Any suggestions are helpful and welcome!

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Budget?

I might be experienced, but I'm human and I do make mistakes. Expand for common PC building advice, a short bio and a list of my components and other tech. I edit my messages after sending them alot, please refresh before posting your reply. Please try to be clear and specific, you'll get a better answer. Please remember to mark solutions once you have the information you need.

 

Common build advice: 1) Buy the cheapest (well reviewed) motherboard that has the features you need. Paying more typically only gets you features you won’t use. 2) only get as much RAM as you need, getting more won’t (typically) make your PC faster. 3) While I recommend getting an NVMe drive, you don’t need to splurge for an expensive drive with DRam cache, DRamless drives are fine for gamers. 4) paying for looks is fine, just don’t break the bank. 5) Tower coolers are usually good enough, unless you go top tier Intel or plan on OCing. 6) OCing is a dead meme, you probably shouldn’t bother. 7) "Bottlenecks" rarely matter and "Future-proofing" is a myth. 8) AIOs don't noticably improve performance past 240mm.

 

useful websites: https://www.productchart.com - helps compare monitors, https://uk.pcpartpicker.com - makes designing a PC easier.

 

He/Him

 

I'm a PhD student working in the fields of reinforcement learning and traffic control. PCs are one of my hobbies and I've built many PCs and performed upgrades on a few laptops (for myself, friends and family). My personal computers include 3 windows (10/11) machines and a TrueNAS server (and I'm looking to move to dual booting Linux Mint on my main machine in future). While I believe I have an decent amount of experience in spec’ing, building and troubleshooting computers, keep in mind I'm not an expert or a professional and I make mistakes.

 

Favourite Games of all time: World of Tanks, Runescape, Subnautica, Metroid (Fusion and Dread), Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Original and Reignited Trilogy), Crash Bash, Mario Kart Wii

 

Main PC: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/NByp3C

 

Secondary PC: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/cc9K7P

 

TrueNAS Server: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/m37w3C

 

Laptop: 13.4" ASUS GZ301ZE ROG Flow Z13, WUXGA 120Hz, i9 12900H, 16GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, 4GB RTX 3050 Ti, TB4, Win11 Home, Used with: 2*ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt 4 Dock, Logitech G603, Logitech G502 Hero, Logitech K120, Logitech G915 TKL, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, Logitech G PRO X Gaming-Headset (with Blue Icepop in Black), {specs to be updated: two monitors}

 

Other: LTT Screwdriver, LTT Stubby Screwdriver, IFIXIT Pro Tech Toolkit, Playstation 1 SCPH-102, Playstation 2 SCPH-30003, Gameboy Micro Silver OXY-001, Nintendo Wii U WUP-001(03), Playstation 4 CUH-1116A, Nintendo Switch OLED HEG-001, Yamaha RX-A4A Black AV Receiver, Monitor Audio Radius (4*90s, 1*200s, 2*270s, 1*380s), TP-Link TL-SG105-M2, Netgear GS308, IPhone 14 Pro Max 128GB Space Black, Secretlab TITAN Evo (Black SoftWeave Plus Fabric), 2*CyberPower BR1200ELCD-UK BRICs Series, Samsung 40" ES6800 Series 6 SMART 3D FHD LED TV, UGREEN USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, SABRENT 3.5" SATA drive docking station

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You can certainly upgrade, but it's not like the 11700k is an awful CPU. It was launched around the time of the Rtx 3080ti, you're using a CPU and GPU combo that's pretty balanced.

 

If you upgrade the cpu, you'll get more performance but I don't think it's necessarily worth it unless you have specific examples where it's sluggish or play a lot of simulation heavy games where the X3d parts are so useful.

 

One of those situations where you're going to spend say $400-500 and go "ugh my 3080ti is holding back my 14700k/7800x3d/etc I need to upgrade it now". 

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You are looking at spending over 500 USD to upgrade that setup to just gain 10% more FPS in some titles at 1440p.

 

If you are fine with that, best CPU for gaming to get is the 7800x3d

VR you may not see any gains given the resolution on those headsets are even larger.

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My main reason I'm looking to upgrade is for streaming and video editing. The CPU tends to chug pretty hard when I'm working on a 30 minute video. Though that could also be my RAM. I think for the most part I was looking at upgrading my CPU because I want to upgrade to DDR5, and thought maybe it would be easier to find what I'm looking for in a MB if I went with a newer CPU. If I'm completely brain dead for this, I'll take the L. But if CPU doesn't seem that important to upgrade right now I would still like to upgrade my MB and RAM.

 

Right now I'm 1080p gaming but am going to buy the Samsung Odyssey G8 while it's on special for Black Friday on Amazon once I get paid on Wednesday. 3440 x 1440, 175hz, OLED, HDR, all that fun stuff.

 

I hope that that helps describe my current position. 

 

 

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