Upgrading and need some help

[Ancestral]

Budget (including currency): ~$1000cad

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Borderlands 4, light photo and video editing.

Current Build:

I7 8700k

32gb of ram

4060

Gigabyte Z370 AROUS Gaming 7

970 pro 1tb m.2

2 other small ssd

4tb hdd

Corsair HX850i platinum.

Other details:

I haven't followed the scene in quiet a while, I do like to experiment with over clocks not sure if that's needed, I would need to buy a new cpu cooler. Would I need to buy a new power supply also? I've had this one since 2019.

 

[filpo]

7 minutes ago, Ancestral said:

Would I need to buy a new power supply also? I've had this one since 2019.

No that's a great quality unit and not even that old considering how good it is so I'd say keep the PSU as well as the storage (unless you need more fast storage, it isn't too much so you can do that). For more fast storage (both 2TB):

M.2: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/TGWJ7P/teamgroup-t-force-z44a7q-2-tb-m2-2280-pcie-40-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-tm8ffw002t0c129

2.5Inch SSD: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/Fqt9TW/teamgroup-t-force-vulcan-z-2-tb-25-solid-state-drive-t253tz002t0c101

 

What is your aim with this upgrade however? Do you want more FPS? or faster video and photo editing? If the former, it could still be your GPU holding you back and upgrading your CPU won't help at all. Then again, if you upgrade your GPU your CPU may struggle trying to keep up with the GPU.

 

So what I'm asking is: What exactly do you want to get out of this upgrade?

[AnoN38X]

24 minutes ago, Ancestral said:

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Borderlands 4, 

 

 

What exactly are your targeted settings for Borderlands 4? For most cases, high settings, high resolutions and maybe high FPS (depending on the resolution) to run that game well your looking at a 9800X3D and 5090 GPU... Its an unoptimized mess...

[podkall]

1 hour ago, Ancestral said:

Would I need to buy a new power supply also? I've had this one since 2019.

PSUs can last 10 years or more when lucky/built well

 

There's 2 options, keep this and upgrade GPU, or keep everything else and upgrade CPU+MB+RAM

 

The GPU option is as good choice as CPU, money wise, despite inflated prices of GPUs, DDR5 RAM isn't looking great lately either:

 

 

 

This is how core upgrade could look like:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/bDTjwY

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D 4.1 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($359.99 @ Canada Computers) 
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Frozen Prism 70.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($66.90 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: *ASRock B850 Pro RS ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($185.99 @ PC-Canada) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($251.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $864.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-11-08 11:17 EST-0500

 

7600x3D is 6 core, but it does have the bigger cache, alternative is slightly more expensive 8 core 7700(x), x3D chips have less freedom in OC, but still some OC features the very basic ones.

 

If you don't want water in your PC, there's 50-60CAD air coolers from Thermalright too. Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE V3

 

And for GPU, the budget allows up to 9070 XT, if your CPU is keeping up and the system is nice and smooth and doesn't max out on games, that can also work.

 

ASRock Steel Legend

 

It's an upgrade that might not bring much to the table, or it might bring so much, stronger GPU renders graphics faster, is capable of crunching more fps if the CPU allows it to. Higher settings can be turned on in graphics. And other things strong GPUs can do.

 

But if game is CPU heavy, stronger GPU won't carry it far, open world games or complex games where CPU has to do more than just tell GPU what to render can feel almost same on faster GPU. Because the CPU can't keep up and the GPU is waiting for CPU.

[Why_Me]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i7-14700F 2.1 GHz 20-Core Processor  ($419.96 @ shopRBC) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($49.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: *MSI PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($194.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Total: $664.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-11-08 14:49 EST-0500

[Ancestral]

On 11/8/2025 at 9:45 AM, filpo said:

No that's a great quality unit and not even that old considering how good it is so I'd say keep the PSU as well as the storage (unless you need more fast storage, it isn't too much so you can do that). For more fast storage (both 2TB):

M.2: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/TGWJ7P/teamgroup-t-force-z44a7q-2-tb-m2-2280-pcie-40-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-tm8ffw002t0c129

2.5Inch SSD: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/Fqt9TW/teamgroup-t-force-vulcan-z-2-tb-25-solid-state-drive-t253tz002t0c101

 

What is your aim with this upgrade however? Do you want more FPS? or faster video and photo editing? If the former, it could still be your GPU holding you back and upgrading your CPU won't help at all. Then again, if you upgrade your GPU your CPU may struggle trying to keep up with the GPU.

 

So what I'm asking is: What exactly do you want to get out of this upgrade?

 

Hey thanks everyone for the replies, I just want to play the game on a stable FPS with decent quality doesn't need to be max quality but above low. Currently when trying to play the game my CPU sits at 100% on any settings I throw at it. I would love to make this setup work but figured I needed a CPU upgrade and than potentially a GPU upgrade.