Upgrade or not - can't decide

[incredislow]

Hey,

I have my old setup of 5 years that I was thinking to upgrade:

• i5 - 4670K
• 8GB ram
• Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H-CF
• GTX 1070 (obviously not 5 years old :))
• Some SSD's and two prehistoric drives.
• Seasonic 650W Gold

With this (for another 5 years or so):

• i5 - 9600K
• 32GB ram
• ASRock - Z370 Extreme4 / Asus Prime Z370-a
• GTX 1070 (same card)
• Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280
• Same drives & ssd's
• Same PSU

The new setup would cost me 'bout $800 right now (black friday/cyber monday).

 

I'm looking at a 65/35% split between Gaming / Video production home desktop setup. I'm not super eager to buy everything now, computer works fine, I can play any title with no problems. However I'd like to ask for your opinion on what would be the best long-term solution with the prices as they are, and the industry heading where it is (i don't really know where it's heading - that's why I'm here :D).

• Buy now, but change setup to X.
• Keep what I have, buy in at the next gen?
• Wait even more, the next-next (x86) gen intel cpu will be the greatest thing to ever.
• Change the CPU / Add ram to my current setup - like a hybrid wait scenario?

Thanks for the help!

[xg32]

short answer, wait for zen 2, need that hyperthreading.

[Livinloud]

I believe 32gigs of ram is a little overkill. You should be fine with 16gigs and that will cut your cost down some more.

[incredislow]

Hey thanks!

zen2: I was looking at AMD systems, but chose to stick with big blue for now

ram: Interesting, I was reading about 16GB being the new "at least" standard and just went for x2.

 

[Merreck]

1 hour ago, incredislow said:

Hey thanks!

zen2: I was looking at AMD systems, but chose to stick with big blue for now

ram: Interesting, I was reading about 16GB being the new "at least" standard and just went for x2.

 

i5's 9th or 8th gen arent really worth it with the Ryzen 7 2700X... I have heard some bad things about the ASrock Z390/Z370, and i also hear that even if I5-9600K is compatible with Z370 there are some performance losses with Z390 boards. So there's that, Dunno what price differences are between EVO 960 and EVO 970, but its barely noticeable unless you max out the performance 70% of the time, and you don't with games.

the end result is (even for me as i am trying to upgrade my system from a i5-6600K) that AMD is starting to make a compelling argument, that my wallet cant ignore. and CES 2019 is around the corner meaning the 3rd gen Ryzen 3000 series are about to be announced and to some rumors released this FEB 2019 (unconfirmed), and seeing as 2nd Gen Ryzen closed the gap, i have a hope that Ryzen 3rd gen will just be better, more cores, same speeds per core as intel, and dedicated Hyper threading, unlike Intel... if not, then well price inflation will have dropped on Intel's cpu's by then.

[incredislow]

Merreck, could you elaborate on those performance losses/bad things heard regarding the cpu and chipset? As far as the M.2, the 970 is/was on sale and is/was the same price as the 960.

[xg32]

1 hour ago, incredislow said:

Merreck, could you elaborate on those performance losses/bad things heard regarding the cpu and chipset? As far as the M.2, the 970 is/was on sale and is/was the same price as the 960.

there's nothing wrong with the z390/z370 (i've used the z370 extreme4+taichi and z390 taichi), though gigabyte owns z390, the asrock boards had just a bit too much unnecessary voltag on the earlier bios.

 

The 8th and 9th gen still holds a 10-15% gaming lead over ryzen on some AAA games, whether that is worth depends on your budget. The early leaks of zen 2 however shows performance at least matching that of a 5ghz 9900k. If zen 2 has more cores at that performance, i'll be forced to upgrade again.

 

i built the 9900k system betting that zen 2 won't beat it by a large margin, and we'll see in 2-3 years. Personally i just could not bring myself to build a ryzen rig for high refresh rate gaming after looking at the numbers. The best course of action right now imho is to wait for zen 2 if u can wait, you don't lose anything, the risk of a cheap 12 core (350-400usd)  that leaves intel in the dust is real, though the speculation is 8 cores for now since they'd likely need a new socket for 12.

 

That said, if you want your computer to last 5 years, need that hyperthreading, or at the very least the 9700k (i upgraded from a 8600k, it was already bottlenecking in AAA titles in 2018), and thats why i suggested zen 2, but if u still with intel, i'd suggest 8700k or 9700k.

 

Intel's 10nm is a mess, and amd is ahead in 7nm, so i've completely written intel off on next gen for now (hence going all-in 9900k)