2017's upgrade plan!

Dr_G · February 11, 2017

Hey guys (and ladies).

My current PC consists of an i7 4770k (oc to 4.2GHz), 16gb DDR3 1600MHz, Asus DCII R9 290x, 840 evo ssd (250gb) + 2 HDDs for storage and game installs. I'm also using a Dell U2414H (IPS, 60 Hz) and an old Samsung 1680x1050. Now to the subject. I'm planning to start doing incremental upgrades for the next few months and was thinking what's the best way to go about this, given the current situation with CPUs.

First thing I want to upgrade is the monitor/GPU combo. For this I am between 2 different options. I will either buy a 1080p/144 Hz freesync monitor to replace the Samsung monitor (£200-250 in the UK) and stretch the 290x for as long as I get decent frame rates. I know I'll have a tough time getting 144hz in all the games I play, but I guess 70-80 fps will still be better on a freesync monitor. The other choice is to get a 27" 1440p/144hz freesync monitor (~£400-500) and get a Vega card when the prices fall a bit from the usually inflated release prices. In this case the 290x will struggle more, but from I've seen in various sites I can live with some lower graphical options until I upgrade.

Going to the CPU/ram/MB combo, I realise this is more speculative at the moment, but given the recent Ryzen leaks we can speculate a bit right? I realise there is no real point in spending £600-700 getting an i7 7700k with a Z270 motherboard and DDR4 ram (especially with their prices now). My 4770k is at 4.2GHz at the moment on 1.22V and I don't feel it struggles with anything I throw at it. Now if the Ryzen chips come out to be reasonably priced 8 cores with OC headroom for around the same price I will most probably go for that hopefully around fall time if my financials allow for it.

I'm not planning to change my case (Define R4), power supply (less than a year old EVGA G2) or any other components. I have an H80i cooler which is OK and may upgrade to a 240mm if I can spare the £100, not really important though since I don't plan to overclock aggressively. Any criticism/opinions would be greatly appreciated! I've been thinking about this for the past couple of months and want to do the best choices as this is probably going to be my system for at least a couple of years.

Mr.Humble · February 11, 2017

Hi,

although I too have several upgrade plans in the working for 2017 (my current system is in the signature) unless Ryzen proves it's a reasonable option I would stick with the i7 4770K and only upgrade the monitor and GPU if I were you. You could easily get 1-2 more years of very good performance of the chip.

Mr.Meerkat · February 11, 2017

3 minutes ago, Dr_G said:

Going to the CPU/ram/MB combo

Do you really need to upgrade? I mean if it's only gaming, there's literally no point in upgrading at all..,

4 minutes ago, Dr_G said:

monitor/GPU combo

You'll struggle to get 1440p 144fps at ultra in triple As with a single card, even if it's a titan XP...to be fair, a XP can do 80-110FPS~ at 1440p ultra/High so...with freesync, it won't be too bad

If you did get the 1080p monitor, a GPU upgrade will deffo grant you 100FPS+ at highest settings (maybe minus MSAA) so ya know...

Dr_G · February 11, 2017

Thanks for your answers guys. I expect the Vega cards to be at least equivalent with the 1080 and based on that I think I can expect to hit 144fps at less demanding games like Rocket League, cs etc and at least above 60fps on more demanding games which will benefit from freesync. That's the reasoning behind the 1440p/Vega combo.

As for the CPU, I am also doing some data analysis for work on my pc from time to time which will benefit from the 8C/16T CPU, but that's not on top of the priorities to be honest. Other than that, should I only expect a few fps in gaming from a new CPU? If that's the case then yeah, you are probably right there's no point in upgrading the CPU now, especially since I'll also need a new MB and ram.

Mr.Humble · February 11, 2017

6 hours ago, Dr_G said:

Thanks for your answers guys. I expect the Vega cards to be at least equivalent with the 1080 and based on that I think I can expect to hit 144fps at less demanding games like Rocket League, cs etc and at least above 60fps on more demanding games which will benefit from freesync. That's the reasoning behind the 1440p/Vega combo.

That, although it's a somewhat reasonable assumption, remains to be seen

6 hours ago, Dr_G said:

As for the CPU, I am also doing some data analysis for work on my pc from time to time which will benefit from the 8C/16T CPU, but that's not on top of the priorities to be honest. Other than that, should I only expect a few fps in gaming from a new CPU? If that's the case then yeah, you are probably right there's no point in upgrading the CPU now, especially since I'll also need a new MB and ram.

Games generally don't utilise more than 4 threads, even Cities:Skylines, a heavily CPU dependent game, stops benefiting after 8 threads, which is what you already have. You'd be better off either saving for an upgrade later, when the performance increase would actually justify dropping ~700$ on a new CPU/mobo/RAM combo, or spending the money on something else.