Upgrade or buy new PC

[Woofly94]

Should I upgrade or just buy a new PC?

 

I have a

 

i5 4460

8GB DDR3 RAM 1600MHz

GTX 1070 8GB

450w Corsair VS Psu

H81M+ Motherboard

1TB HDD

 

I'm planning on upgrading the whole PC I paid £700 a year ago for this PC (GPU Upgraded), I think it's getting outdated, it can run all the games I play at max settings 55-60fps, but my CPU is bottlenecking, however I want the best I can get, I have £1500-£2000 to spend on a new PC or Upgrading, I've never built a PC before and buying a pre-built PC of the same specs that I'd be upgrading to is only £100-£200 more than it would cost building it myself, but without the heartache, and it would also come with a better(looking) case and watercooling, which I don't know how to do.

 

The specs the PC would be is:

 

I7 6700k 

16GB DDR4 RAM

GTX 1080 8GB

500 PSU (they never state which PSU it is)

Z170 Motherboard

3TB HDD

128GB SSD

This build usually goes for £1400-£1700 pre-built

 

However if I built it myself I can build it specifically with what I want (but I don't know how to build a PC which deters me)

 

I7 7700k

32GB DDR4 RAM

GTX 1080 8GB

750 EVGA Gold PSU

Z170 Pro gaming

1TB HDD

250GB SSD

 

This would end up about £200 cheaper, I admit it's a better spec but I'm not sure I have the ability to build it completely myself, I also have no clue about watercooling, so while this is a better spec at £100 cheaper, it wont have watercooling or one of those very nice see through side panel cases (which I like) + pre-built is plug and play really.

 

What you think I should do?

 

This is my current case, do you like it? I could put an L.E.D strip inside

 

[needlessly_weekday]

Plop in a 4770(K) and upgrade your ram. You would probably good for some time.

[Woofly94]

Yeah the problem with that is, theres no logic at all in paying full price for a 3 year old processor, when I can get the new i7 7700k in couple months for same price.

[needlessly_weekday]

5 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

However if I built it myself I can build it specifically with what I want (but I don't know how to build a PC which deters me)

 

I7 7700k

32GB DDR4 RAM

GTX 1080 8GB

750 EVGA Gold PSU

Z170 Pro gaming

1TB HDD

250GB SSD

 

This would end up about £200 cheaper, I admit it's a better spec but I'm not sure I have the ability to build it completely myself, I also have no clue about watercooling, so while this is a better spec at £100 cheaper, it wont have watercooling or one of those very nice see through side panel cases (which I like) + pre-built is plug and play really.

PC building is not hard at all. There are plenty of tutorials and it's kinda hard to mess it up. This would be a beast system. Make sure to add a water cooler to OC.

[needlessly_weekday]

1 minute ago, Woofly94 said:

Yeah the problem with that is, theres no logic at all in paying full price for a 3 year old processor, when I can get the new i7 7700k in couple months for same price.

Yes, but wouldn't it be better than spending $1400-1600. That 1070 is still very powerful. 

[Woofly94]

The 1070 isn't as powerful as I thought it would be to be frank, maybe that's cos my RAM/CPU is bottlenecking it but it's defintely not overkill for 1080p considering it's struggling on max settings/60fps on AAA titles.

[PCGuy_5960]

GTX 1070 is getting outdated???? WTF?

The i5 I get, but the GTX 1070 is by no means outdated!

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, Woofly94 said:

The 1070 isn't as powerful as I thought it would be to be frank, maybe that's cos my RAM/CPU is bottlenecking it but it's defintely not overkill for 1080p considering it's struggling on max settings/60fps on AAA titles.

Add another GTX 1070 and buy a 6700K then...

[Woofly94]

I never said the 1070 is outdated if you read my OP I said I upgraded to it, SLI GTX 1070 is just above the GTX 1080 and often below it in alot of games, and £200 more. Not buying a i7 6700k when the i7 7700k is just around the corner

 

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, Woofly94 said:

I never said the 1070 is outdated if you read my OP I said I upgraded to it, SLI GTX 1070 is just above the GTX 1080 and often below it in alot of games, and £200 more. Not buying a i7 6700k when the i7 7700k is just around the corner

 

Oops, I misread the OP, sry...

SLI GTX 1070s destroys a GTX 1080 and the 7700K is 1% faster than the 6700K

[Woofly94]

Do you have a source for i7 7700k is 1% faster than the i7 6700k? alot of sources say it's on par with the i7 6850k, and theres even a benchmark for it on Userbenchmark it's %14 faster according to User Bench

 

[danwager11]

You should upgrade your CPU but there isn't even a need for a 6700k for gaming, you would be running without a bottleneck with a 4690 or if you want something higher spec that fits your mobo then the 4790. That way you don't need to buy a new mobo. RAM can be adding with your mobo now, if it has two slots put in 2 8gb or if it has 4 slots, I assume you have 2 slots with 4gb in each, then all you need to do is add another 2 4gb. Also from specs online the 7700k is only going to be marginally better. Now while you could upgrade all of those to higher-end specs and it would be reasonable I suppose, it really isn't worth the upgrade. Your GPU on the other hand would be a complete waste to upgrade, the difference between the 1070 and 1080 is only around 10%, so you'd be paying 600 USD for 10% better specs. You can very easily replace a CPU, and adding hard-drives is very simple as well so you could upgrade both by looking a tutorial online, there's this cool channel on YouTube that does build guides sometimes you should check them out.

 

[danwager11]

17 minutes ago, spacemen13579 said:

Plop in a 4770(K) and upgrade your ram. You would probably good for some time.

No OC for  H81M+ Motherboar

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, Woofly94 said:

Do you have a source for i7 7700k is 1% faster than the i7 6700k? alot of sources say it's on par with the i7 6850k, and theres even a benchmark for it on Userbenchmark

No.... There have been leaked benchmarks which show that the 7700K is on average 5% faster than the 6700K, BUT the 7700K is running at 200MHz more though, so the clock for clock improvement is around 1%.. When both are overclocked the difference is negligible...

My 5820K at stock gets 1015CB an overclocked 6700K at 4.7GHz gets around the same... So, the 7700K when overclocked, can reach a stock 5820K/6800K/6850K/5930K, but when these are overclocked, they completely destroy the 7700K!

[Woofly94]

3 minutes ago, danwager11 said:

You should upgrade your CPU but there isn't even a need for a 6700k for gaming, you would be running without a bottleneck with a 4690 or if you want something higher spec that fits your mobo then the 4790. That way you don't need to buy a new mobo. RAM can be adding with your mobo now, if it has two slots put in 2 8gb or if it has 4 slots, I assume you have 2 slots with 4gb in each, then all you need to do is add another 2 4gb. Also from specs online the 7700k is only going to be marginally better. Now while you could upgrade all of those to higher-end specs and it would be reasonable I suppose, it really isn't worth the upgrade. Your GPU on the other hand would be a complete waste to upgrade, the difference between the 1070 and 1080 is only around 10%, so you'd be paying 600 USD for 10% better specs. You can very easily replace a CPU, and adding hard-drives is very simple as well so you could upgrade both by looking a tutorial online, there's this cool channel on YouTube that does build guides sometimes you should check them out.

 

Good answer but, I really can't justify buying a 3 year old CPU to add to my crap motherboard/ram which is the same price as the i7 6700k, and has no upgrade route in the future. While I have the money I might aswell just upgrade everything, which is where it boils down to, do I learn and build myself or buy a pre-built OR build a PC online with the specs I want and get it built for me.

[danwager11]

10 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

The 1070 isn't as powerful as I thought it would be to be frank, maybe that's cos my RAM/CPU is bottlenecking it but it's defintely not overkill for 1080p considering it's struggling on max settings/60fps on AAA titles.

You must have a HUGE bottleneck that doesn't make sense for your system or a broken part, I have a GTX 1070 and i5-6600k and I run 1440p and get 100 FPS on most games, while getting 70-80 FPS on graphic-intense games.

16 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

Yeah the problem with that is, theres no logic at all in paying full price for a 3 year old processor, when I can get the new i7 7700k in couple months for same price.

Age doesn't always determine the worth of an item, now a days things are coming out so often that upgrades are marginal. 

8 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

I never said the 1070 is outdated if you read my OP I said I upgraded to it, SLI GTX 1070 is just above the GTX 1080 and often below it in alot of games, and £200 more. Not buying a i7 6700k when the i7 7700k is just around the corner

 

You wont be able to SLI on your MOBO but there shouldn't be a need for a few years, especially for only 60FPS 1080p gaming.

[Woofly94]

3 minutes ago, danwager11 said:

You must have a HUGE bottleneck that doesn't make sense for your system or a broken part, I have a GTX 1070 and i5-6600k and I run 1440p and get 100 FPS on most games, while getting 70-80 FPS on graphic-intense games.

Age doesn't always determine the worth of an item, now a days things are coming out so often that upgrades are marginal. 

You wont be able to SLI on your MOBO but there shouldn't be a need for a few years, especially for only 60FPS 1080p gaming.

 

Not THAT much of a bottleneck, but atleast 10fps bottleneck, Not sure what games you are playing but it's not the games I am playing, AC Syndicate runs at 45fps in the city and 70fps on rooftops, at max settings, GTA V is at 80fps but drops down to 45 fps with everything max (grass at V high) Advanced Graphics OFF, but I should be seeing 70fps with everything maxed, even advanced graphics, alot of games I'm losing 10-15fps that I see on benchmarks with the i7 6700k. my GPU is OCed aswell

[danwager11]

13 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

Good answer but, I really can't justify buying a 3 year old CPU to add to my crap motherboard/ram which is the same price as the i7 6700k, and has no upgrade route in the future. While I have the money I might aswell just upgrade everything, which is where it boils down to, do I learn and build myself or buy a pre-built OR build a PC online with the specs I want and get it built for me.

I get that its "old" but that doesn't change it's performance with todays specs, it could be 10 years old if it can get you 60FPS 1080p which you game at there is no problem, and there is an upgrade path it uses a lga 1150 socket so you could move your CPU and GPU to a z170 later on if you wanted. But if the ultimate question of the post was to get a per-built or build it yourself, I would build it myself, you will be nervous the first time but just take your time and watch multiple tutorials before you do it. Part of the reason I said not to upgrade the whole thing was because if you only add some RAM, a new hard-drive and/or SSD, and upgrade the CPU it will be extremely easy to do. The hardest part of my first build was making sure the motherboard was put in correctly without damaging it and pluging things into the motherboard because I had stiff cables I didn't want harming my motherboard. So you could start small now and upgrade to 4690 or 4790, add 1-2 more ram cards, and adding a SSD and/or HDD.

[danwager11]

Just now, Woofly94 said:

 

Not THAT much of a bottleneck, but atleast 10fps bottleneck, Not sure what games you are playing but it's not the games I am playing, AC Syndicate runs at 45fps in the city and 70fps on rooftops, at max settings, GTA V is at 80fps but drops down to 45 fps with everything max (grass at V high) Advanced Graphics OFF, but I should be seeing 70fps with everything maxed, even advanced graphics, alot of games I'm losing 10-15fps that I see on benchmarks with the i7 6700k. my GPU is OCed aswell

There is definitely a problem with your parts or a huge bottleneck because I run Crysis 3 at 70-80 FPS, battlefield 1 90-100FPS, Overwatch 90-100FPS, The Division 70-85FPS, Fallout 4 70-80FPS, and Tomb Raider 70-80FPS and all of those games are on max settings 1440p. With 1080p you should be getting at least 20 FPS higher than 1440p.

[Woofly94]

2 minutes ago, danwager11 said:

I get that it's "old" but that doesn't change it's performance with todays specs, it could be 10 years old if it can get you 60FPS 1080p which you game at there is no problem, and there is an upgrade path it uses a lga 1150 socket so you could move your CPU and GPU to a z170 later on if you wanted. But if the ultimate question of the post was to get a per-built or build it yourself, I would build it myself, you will be nervous the first time but just take your time and watch multiple tutorials before you do it. Part of the reason I said not to upgrade the whole thing was because if you only add some RAM, a new hard-drive and/or SSD, and upgrade the CPU it will be extremely easy to do. The hardest part of my first build was making sure the motherboard was put in correctly without damaging it and pluging things into the motherboard because I had stiff cables I didn't want harming my motherboard. So you could start small now and upgrade to 4690 or 4790, add 1-2 more ram cards, and adding a SSD and/or HDD.

I've upgraded RAM, CPU and GPU before, the motherboard is what worries me, where everything plugs in etc, if I mess up thats it, also I dont get why I would start small, when I can afford a £1500 upgrade right now?, upgrading to 4790k for £320 now is pointless when I can afford the extra £200 for the RAM and Motherboard.

[Woofly94]

2 minutes ago, danwager11 said:

There is definitely a problem with your parts or a huge bottleneck because I run Crysis 3 at 70-80 FPS, battlefield 1 90-100FPS, Overwatch 90-100FPS, The Division 70-85FPS, Fallout 4 70-80FPS, and Tomb Raider 70-80FPS and all of those games are on max settings 1440p. With 1080p you should be getting at least 20 FPS higher than 1440p.

I dont have any of those games, so I wouldnt know what I would be getting, all I know is I'm defo not getting the same FPS as benchmarks with i7 6700k, atleast 10fps down, also I've just done a fresh install of win 10, benchmarked my PC and everything is performing way above expectations.

[danwager11]

2 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

I've upgraded RAM, CPU and GPU before, the motherboard is what worries me, where everything plugs in etc, if I mess up thats it, also I dont get why I would start small, when I can afford a £1500 upgrade right now?, upgrading to 4790k for £320 now is pointless when I can afford the extra £200 for the RAM and Motherboard.

I agree motherboard was the thing I worried about most. The reason I am saying there is no need to upgrade everything now is because there isn't really a new to do so. You could spend say £800 on a new CPU, RAM, and HDD and either save the extra money for something in a few years when your computer is actually worth replacing instead of replacing it just since you have the money. You could also go and buy something else, maybe new phone, games, or try out VR. I guess if you have no problem with money and want to upgrade there is no problem, but I don't like to waste money I saved which is why I make sure that every penny is spent correctly and isn't wasted. I think that upgrading to a 6700k or 7700k is a complete waste of money for gaming (most believe so) and if you aren't planning on getting a 6600k-7700k then you might as well get the 4690/4790 and same the money on a new motherboard. It all depends on what the money you have means to you, is it hard earned cash, birthday money you get only once a year, or is it a small lottery winnings that you wouldn't have had anyway so why not spend it on something top-top end.

[danwager11]

13 minutes ago, Woofly94 said:

I dont have any of those games, so I wouldnt know what I would be getting, all I know is I'm defo not getting the same FPS as benchmarks with i7 6700k, atleast 10fps down, also I've just done a fresh install of win 10, benchmarked my PC and everything is performing way above expectations.

On 1080p with a gtx1070 on The Division with the specs I used you would get 118 FPS on Ultra http://prntscr.com/d6552h and 102FPS on ACS http://prntscr.com/d655pn

To put them in perspective, I used GameDebate data.

[Woofly94]

How are you getting 102FPS on AC Syndicate max settings when not even the benchmarks with the i7 6700k are getting 80fps on 1080p? also, it is hard earned cash I saved for 2 months to upgrade my PC to decent, the problem with me is that I like graphics, everything has to be maxed. I dont care about cutting corners to save money when later on it will bite me back, I'd rather upgrade everything then worry about upgrading again in 2 years, When that becomes outdated, as much as the i7 4790k is the better solution for me right now, later on it won't be and I really cant justify spending full price on a 3 year old CPU no matter how easier it would be.

[FlpDaMattress]

a vr ready beast and im still rocking a pentium. all you need is ram.