Double upgrade: seeking efficiency

[Rivlet]

Budget (including currency): limited but flexible; no specifics; the lower the better. Efficiency is my goal (which is why I ask you guys). Currency is €.

Country: Spain, European Union.

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 1080p gaming, streaming, dual monitors; video editing (Filmora / Topaz Video AI).

Other details: 

 

There are two PCs to improve. I'll let you be the judge on how to squeeze the most out of them with the least number of changes and the lowest possible expenses, but I'll mark in red what I believe has to change, whether we like it or not. I'll use orange for what I have doubts on. Rest in black. We can move the pieces from one PC onto the next. For example, if you think replacing X components on PC#1 and reusing them to enhance PC#2 is enough to get the most out of the GPUs, so be it.

 

PC #1 (gaming, streaming, video editing, data storage)

Motherboard: MSI Z370 PC PRO (MS-7B49) — bought in 2018
Processor: Intel Core i5 9600K (Coffee Lake; 1151; 14nm). — bought in 2018

Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 — bought in 2018
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2400 32gb (8gb x4): CMK16GX4M2A2400C16 — bought in 2018
Graphics card: MSI RTX 4060 Ti VENTUS 3X OC (8GB, DDR6) — bought in 2024 (or 2023, but I'm pretty sure it was in 2023).

SSD: Samsung SSD 970 EVO PCI-E NVMe M.2 500GB — bought in 2018.

Power supply: Corsair RM750X V2 750W 80 Plus Gold Modular — bought in 2018.

 

All of the above is assembled on a Phanteks Eclipse P400, also from 2018.

 

No peripherals needed.

When to buy: no particular preference. I can hold.

Resolution and refresh rate: 1080p at or higher than 60fps (single monitor is 144hz, Freesync).

Reasons to upgrade: while playing Helldivers II and Monster Hunter Wilds I noticed that my CPU was the main limiting factor to squeeze the most out of my 4060ti. In theory, a 4060 is more than enough to ultra both games, but I had severe framedrops and inconsistent texture quality rendering while playing. Prior to that, I had noticed that streaming certain games was starting to hit my fps and performance. CPU reaches 100% load almost constantly with the mentioned games.

Main games I want to be able to run right now: Helldivers II, Monster Hunter Wilds, Star Citizen and future releases.

Goal: to fix those issues with the lowest possible spending, focusing on efficiency (i.e. avoiding bottlenecks), while creating a versatile platform for future upgrades. Maybe too much to ask. I'm also looking for a reliable, durable, 4~8TB drive for data storage and preservation.

 

PC #2 (only gaming & streaming)

Motherboard: MSI Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon (MS-7A12) — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend).
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700K (Skylake; 1151; 14nm). — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend).

Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H105 — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend).
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2133 16gb (8gb x2): CMK16GX4M2A2133C13 — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend).
Graphics card: MSI RTX 2070 ARMOR 2X OC (8GB, DDR6) — bought in 2018.

SSD: Samsung SSD 840 Series 250gb / SanDisk SD SSD P 128 GB — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend)

Power supply: Corsair RM750 750W 80 Plus Gold Modular — bought in ??? (recycled from a friend)

 

All of the above is assembled on a Aerocool XPredator X3 (unknown date, recycled from a friend).

 

No peripherals needed.

When to buy: no particular preference. I can hold.

Resolution and refresh rate: 1080p at or higher than 60fps (main monitor is 100hz, no Freesync).

Reasons to upgrade: kind of the same as above, although not as "urgent". With equal-to-better Monster Hunter Wilds settings, this PC is able to run it with constant FPS and no artifacts or weird graphical backs and forths. We know the 2070 is significantly weaker than the 4060 and that we can't expect the same, but we still believe the CPU might be limiting its potential (even though the i7 6700K seems to be fare way better than the i5 9600K, even though it's significantly older). If possible, we'd like to avoid a costly expense on a new GPU (unless you surprise us with a cheap upgrade). CPU reaches 90% load with almost the same demands of PC#1.

Main games I want to be able to run right now: Helldivers II, Monster Hunter Wilds and other future releases. Important to be able to stream too.

Goal: same as above, but no special storage request. We'd like to enhance the SSD capacity though, to avoid being forced to uninstall games.

 

I know this is complex and maybe I overdid it, but thank you for your time and effort.

 

[SorryBella]

Is PC #2 used by someone else in the household? No realistic reason to have 2 PC nowadays if you're the sole user for both.

[Rivlet]

4 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

Is PC #2 used by someone else in the household? No realistic reason to have 2 PC nowadays if you're the sole user for both.

Yeah, it is used by someone else.

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, Rivlet said:

Yeah, it is used by someone else.

Sweet. Transfer PC1 CPU-RAM-Board combo to PC2, keep the PC1 cooler though and buy this. Use the AM4 bracket, its transferrable to AM5.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500F 3.7 GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor  (€177.62 @ reichelt elektronik) 
Motherboard: ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  (€133.69 @ Coolmod) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (€109.90 @ Amazon Espana) 
Total: €421.21
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-02 15:43 CET+0100

 

The CPU-RAM-Board from PC2 can go to used market easily to recoup the cost. Ryzen 7500F would be plenty to play on 1080p.

 

(note: this video is 1 year ago, your mileage may fare better or worse)

[Rivlet]

14 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

Transfer PC1 CPU-RAM-Board combo to PC2

Thank you for your suggestion. That option is cost-efficient indeed.

 

But won't the other PC have the 100% CPU load issue that I'm having with MHW if I transfer that? It seems that its only advantage is the i7 6700k, as it runs better with a far worse GPU.

[SorryBella]

Just now, Rivlet said:

Thank you for your suggestion. That option is cost-efficient indeed.

 

But won't the other PC have the 100% CPU load issue that I'm having with MHW if I transfer that? It seems that the only advantage is the i7 6700k.

Instructions Per Clock improvement, the 9600K is still faster than 6700K even with the 2 missing threads, and in general you want physical cores far more than hyperthreaded core. Overall relative performance is 3% faster than 7700K which is very close to 6700K in performance.

[Rivlet]

2 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

Instructions Per Clock improvement, the 9600K is still faster than 6700K even with the 2 missing threads, and in general you want physical cores far more than hyperthreaded core. Overall relative performance is 3% faster than 7700K which is very close to 6700K in performance.

Thank you for the answer and the data. Then I wonder why we're getting that PC#1 CPU bottleneck in comparison to PC#2. I guess it's either because MHW is poorly optimised for certain setups or because it really benefits from extra threads.

Again: thank you!