Help me upgrade my sons PC please.

[CMB1888]

HI. 

MY 13 year olds birthday is coming up and he has been asking about upgrading his PC. 
Here is what he has just now.

I7 6700K Processor with Titan Dragonfly cooler.

Asustek Z170-P motherboard.

32GB of (I assume DDR4) Hyperex RAM.

RTX3060 TI (just got this at Xmas as an upgrade from 1050).

750w power supply.

AOC 27G2SAE monitor. 

He plays a mixture of games from Minecraft to Eldon Ring and Red Dead. 

My understanding is that the 6700 is pretty much the best we could fit into the Z170-P motherboard but I am uncertain how best to improve the gaming performance then.  
Should I bite the bullet and replace the processor and board? 
I think max budget of about £400 and any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Craig. 
 

 

[TatamiMatt]

18 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

HI. 

MY 13 year olds birthday is coming up and he has been asking about upgrading his PC. 
Here is what he has just now.

I7 6700K Processor with Titan Dragonfly cooler.

Asustek Z170-P motherboard.

32GB of (I assume DDR4) Hyperex RAM.

RTX3060 TI (just got this at Xmas as an upgrade from 1050).

750w power supply.

AOC 27G2SAE monitor. 

I plays a mixture of games from Minecraft to Eldon Ring and Red Dead. 

My understanding is that the 6700 is pretty much the best we could fit into the Z170-P motherboard but I am uncertain how best to improve the gaming performance then.  
Should I bite the bullet and replace the processor and board? 
I think max budget of about £400 and any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Craig. 
 

 

So you cant really get much better than what youve got with an easy upgrade imo, without some either spendature or figuring out where the bottleneck or limiting factor is

 

If you do want to go down the spendature route, do you have a budget? (apologies just seen the line where you mention just that) the 3060 Ti is pretty good so id assume youd largely be looking at a motherboard CPU and cooler upgrade

 

The other thing you could do (and the one i personally recommend) is play a game and see what is limiting the computer, for example, while a GPU upgrade was just got, if the new GPU is still the limiting factor, spending money elsewhere wont help an awful lot, you can do this by seeing the %utilisation of the components in task manager while in game

 

A small cheaper upgrade that could help is what storage is in the computer? Are games being stored in a hard drive or SSD? If a HDD, getting an SSD could actually improve the experience quite a bit

 

Also, if you could download HWinfo64 and send a screenshot of that in, it should give much more insight into what can be improved and what is limiting as this is a very detailed computer hardware monitoring programme

[filpo]

26 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

HI. 

MY 13 year olds birthday is coming up and he has been asking about upgrading his PC. 
Here is what he has just now.

I7 6700K Processor with Titan Dragonfly cooler.

Asustek Z170-P motherboard.

32GB of (I assume DDR4) Hyperex RAM.

RTX3060 TI (just got this at Xmas as an upgrade from 1050).

750w power supply.

AOC 27G2SAE monitor. 

He plays a mixture of games from Minecraft to Eldon Ring and Red Dead. 

My understanding is that the 6700 is pretty much the best we could fit into the Z170-P motherboard but I am uncertain how best to improve the gaming performance then.  
Should I bite the bullet and replace the processor and board? 
I think max budget of about £400 and any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Craig. 
 

 

I'd get am5 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£149.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£108.36 @ Amazon UK) 
Custom: 7500F (£113.00)
Total: £409.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 10:58 BST+0100

26 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

750w power supply.

What's the model?

Edited May 1 by filpo

[DoctorNick]

25 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

HI. 

MY 13 year olds birthday is coming up and he has been asking about upgrading his PC. 
Here is what he has just now.

I7 6700K Processor with Titan Dragonfly cooler.

Asustek Z170-P motherboard.

32GB of (I assume DDR4) Hyperex RAM.

RTX3060 TI (just got this at Xmas as an upgrade from 1050).

750w power supply.

AOC 27G2SAE monitor. 

He plays a mixture of games from Minecraft to Eldon Ring and Red Dead. 

My understanding is that the 6700 is pretty much the best we could fit into the Z170-P motherboard but I am uncertain how best to improve the gaming performance then.  
Should I bite the bullet and replace the processor and board? 
I think max budget of about £400 and any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Craig. 
 

 

El chepo upgrade, if you want to reuse ram - could go with bigger CPU: 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fbmjhk

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($93.98 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI B550 GAMING GEN3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $193.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 05:59 EDT-0400

[podkall]

4 hours ago, DoctorNick said:

El chepo upgrade, if you want to reuse ram - could go with bigger CPU: 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fbmjhk

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($93.98 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI B550 GAMING GEN3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $193.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 05:59 EDT-0400

cheap upgrade 5600 Ryzen,

 

more expensive upgrade but the cost translates to more performance 5 7600 Ryzen,

 

AM4:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($134.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B550 GAMING GEN3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $233.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 06:04 EDT-0400

 

AM5:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£177.99 @ AWD-IT)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2 ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£139.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: *ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£107.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Total: £464.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 15:38 BST+0100

 

@filpo's CPU is similarly fast to 7600 and cheaper though, so consider it if it's worth the save, because it's worth over 7600 if it's cheaper.

[alexdpars]

I would try to cheap out on the cooler and try to find a 3700x or a 5600 used with the wraith cooler which is pretty capable. That would be a big upgrade compared to what your son's have. Try to find a b550/x570 board for an upgrade path. Especially if you go on a 3000 or 2000 gen CPU. You will be able to upgrade to a 5000x3d processor down the road.

[filpo]

 

10 minutes ago, alexdpars said:

the wraith cooler which is pretty capable

10 minutes ago, alexdpars said:

That would be a big upgrade compared to what your son's have.

6700k is capable, it wouldn't be that huge

I've got a 5600 and a 3060 and with some games the 5600 is a bottleneck at 1080p in games such as pcbs2 or destiny 2

So a 3600 with a 3060 ti at 1080p would be quite a bottleneck

10 minutes ago, alexdpars said:

You will be able to upgrade to a 5000x3d processor down the road.

at that point an am5 upgrade would make much more sense

Edited May 1 by filpo

[Blasty Blosty]

24 minutes ago, podkall said:

AM5:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($134.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B550 GAMING GEN3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $233.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 06:04 EDT-0400

I think you forgot to copy the AM5 build

[CMB1888]

35 minutes ago, filpo said:

I'd get am5 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£149.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£108.36 @ Amazon UK) 
Custom: 7500F (£113.00)
Total: £409.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 10:58 BST+0100

What's the model?

Power supply is a EVGA 750BQ

[filpo]

3 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

Power supply is a EVGA 750BQ

Keep that and go for my list for am5

what's his cpu cooler?

[TatamiMatt]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

Keep that and go for my list for am5

what's his cpu cooler?

Titan Dragonfly cooler

[CMB1888]

It seems almost everyone is suggesting moving to AMD, is this where the best value is just now?  If we did then the AM5 socket would make sense for future-proofing i guess. 

 

If we went to an AM5 socket and processor but stayed, for the short term at least, with the 32GB of DDR4, would this be an issue? 

[Blasty Blosty]

2 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

It seems almost everyone is suggesting moving to AMD, is this where the best value is just now?  If we did then the AM5 socket would make sense for future-proofing i guess. 

 

If we went to an AM5 socket and processor but stayed, for the short term at least, with the 32GB of DDR4, would this be an issue? 

AMD knocks intel out the water for both price-to-performance and longevity these days.

 

You cannot use DDR4 with AM5, that will need upgrading.

[filpo]

2 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Titan Dragonfly cooler

 

Just now, CMB1888 said:

is this where the best value is just now?

yes

 

Just now, CMB1888 said:

f we went to an AM5 socket and processor but stayed, for the short term at least, with the 32GB of DDR4, would this be an issue? 

am5 is only ddr5 so you can't use any ddr4 ram with an am5 mobo and cpu. Do you mean am4? if so yes

Though X3D would be best for am4 (mobo can be £20 less if you go for the non wifi version)

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 3 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£219.98 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£124.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Total: £383.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 11:47 BST+0100

 

[TatamiMatt]

2 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

It seems almost everyone is suggesting moving to AMD, is this where the best value is just now?  If we did then the AM5 socket would make sense for future-proofing i guess. 

 

If we went to an AM5 socket and processor but stayed, for the short term at least, with the 32GB of DDR4, would this be an issue? 

AM5 only runs on DDR5 sadly, however AMD is by far the best value for money right now the best intel CPU 14900K/14900KS which goes for $500 and $700 respectively, whereas the 7800X3D actually beats the 14900KS in performance for $350

[CMB1888]

OK I see, the 4 or 5 after the AM relates to the RAM it is compatible with. 

 

[CMB1888]

Sorry, one more question. 
Are most AM5 boards and current processors compatible with Windows 11? 

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, CMB1888 said:

HI. 

MY 13 year olds birthday is coming up and he has been asking about upgrading his PC. 
Here is what he has just now.

I7 6700K Processor with Titan Dragonfly cooler.

Asustek Z170-P motherboard.

32GB of (I assume DDR4) Hyperex RAM.

RTX3060 TI (just got this at Xmas as an upgrade from 1050).

750w power supply.

AOC 27G2SAE monitor. 

He plays a mixture of games from Minecraft to Eldon Ring and Red Dead. 

My understanding is that the 6700 is pretty much the best we could fit into the Z170-P motherboard but I am uncertain how best to improve the gaming performance then.  
Should I bite the bullet and replace the processor and board? 
I think max budget of about £400 and any advice would be very much appreciated. 

Craig. 
 

 

You can't really upgrade on this old board

Get a 12600K and a med range Z690 board

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  (£154.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock Z690 PG Riptide ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (£133.74 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £288.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 11:55 BST+0100

 

Or AM5 but have to get DDR5

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£177.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650M D3HP Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£121.00 @ MoreCoCo)
Memory: ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£107.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Total: £406.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 11:54 BST+0100

 

 

[Blasty Blosty]

6 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

OK I see, the 4 or 5 after the AM relates to the RAM it is compatible with. 

 

Don't think that was intentional, but yes that is correct

[Blasty Blosty]

3 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

Sorry, one more question. 
Are most AM5 boards and current processors compatible with Windows 11? 

Yes, there might be some BIOS settings that need changed though with how stupid Windows is

 

Should be good to go though

 

One thing worth mentioning is that Windows might need to be reactivated, there are plenty of tutorials online how to do this after installing new pc parts

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, filpo said:

I'd get am5 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£149.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£108.36 @ Amazon UK) 
Custom: 7500F (£113.00)
Total: £409.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-01 10:58 BST+0100

^^^

can still cut costs by quite abit though

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/KBFyN6

34£ on the board and 8£ on the rams, and keep in mind that you can add the cooler later on so you can get am5 for only 328£

 

 

if you wanna get a cheaper upgrade that reuses your existing ddr4 you can get am4 for less than half the cost of an am5 upgrade

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/QZXvkJ

 

used 5600(x) are ~80£ and used 3600(x) are ~50£

 

ive left an option for a new board but you can get better used b3/450 for abit cheaper, usually a midranger like the tomahawk or equivalent would be ~50£ but ive seen some go as low as 30£ for boards like the b350 prime which are still half decent midranger boards atleast the last time i checked uk fb marketplace

 

so technically you could go am4 for sub 100£ and itd still obliterate that 6700k, and if you manage to spend over 150£ on an am4 upgrade you are definitely making a mistake (either overspending on the board and/or buying a new 5600) and you should jump to am5 outright

[GreenLeaf]

First what is your budget?

I would get an AM5 Ryzen 7 7800X3D and some corsair AIO watercooler depending on your son's case

The 6700k is definitely bottlenecking this 3060ti

But the GPU is definitely fine to use in 2024.

Maybe a new power supply will be needed

Oh and 32 gigs of DDR5 6000 or 6400 will be great to have.

 

Edited May 1 by GreenLeaf
Mistake

[CMB1888]

1 hour ago, GreenLeaf said:

First what is your budget?

I would get an AM5 Ryzen 7 7800X3D and some corsair AIO watercooler depending on your son's case

The 3060 ti is definitely bottlenecking this 6700k

But the GPU is definitely fine to use in 2024.

Maybe a new power supply will be needed

Oh and 32 gigs of DDR5 6000 or 6400 will be great to have.

 

So, no matter what processor, ram, motherboard I get him there will be no improvement because the graphics card will prevent it? Is that right? 

[GreenLeaf]

11 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

So, no matter what processor, ram, motherboard I get him there will be no improvement because the graphics card will prevent it? Is that right? 

You didn't got me right

The 3060 ti is excellent in 2024 and a 7800x3d will be a massive upgrade

This card with a 6700k is a massive bottleneck 

[Blasty Blosty]

16 minutes ago, CMB1888 said:

So, no matter what processor, ram, motherboard I get him there will be no improvement because the graphics card will prevent it? Is that right? 

Depends on the game really. Some games such as csgo/cs2 will benefit massively from a cpu upgrade, but more GPU intensive games (most) will not see a huge difference.

 

Although, it needs to be done because if you bought a more powerful GPU, the cpu will be a definite bottleneck.