PC Upgrade - Looking for advice

You trendsetter, you.

This will be your drive speed as the bottleneck, fwiw, not your video card.

Do you think that is the case even if the CPU is a 3570k (unclocked)? I could try upgrading with just a new big SSD, but don’t really want to do that if it won’t make the game fairly fast. Right now, it’s nearly unplayable due to load times.

I’ll verify when I get home, but I think I have a 3570k (not overclocked - I know, stupid) CPU and a 1050 GPU. I’m not necessarily looking to play higher than 1080p with decent graphics settings (don’t need everything on ultra, but high or at least medium would be nice).

It’s possible your CPU might be influencing load times, but your video card won’t have anything to do with it. Even with a slower CPU an SSD will show you quite a bit faster load times (and just about everything regarding the desktop experience will also feel better). The biggest hurdle you may face is if the motherboard has a SATA … uh, version? That can give you the full SSD speed. I recall my previous gaming PC (that my son is using) could have had a SATA SSD installed but iirc the bandwidth on my board was lower than what the SSD could achieve by a lot (this is, I believe, why putting an SSD into an XBO or PS4 helps, but not nearly as much as you’d think it should).

SSD will help load times a lot if you’re on a mechanical drive, but as Scott mentioned your motherboard may crimp it’s speed. Your SATA slots may share bandwidth with your video card slot as well.

Once you get into a battle, everything else will stay exactly the same speed as you experience now. Turn times will also be just as slow. There are some games that stream HD data. Subnautica is one, so an SSD will make a huge difference on-the-fly. Warhammer 2 does not need to stream HD data so it’s just the getting the data into memory. The game however is very cpu and GPU intensive. It’s on an old engine so it does a terrible job of using multiple cores.

A bit late but Filco Red switches. I have a filco from 2011 and 2016, they still work. The 2011 one has no ink left on the WASD keys thought (guess which one is for home and which one for work).

This looks like the current upgrade thread…

I was surprised to find my current homebuilt PC is quickly approaching it’s 10th birthday:

i7-920
6GB RAM (tri-channel!)
nVidia GTX 960
Corsair TX650W power supply

It’s managed to last this long because 1) I’m a web dev, and work doesn’t tax it much 2) I mostly got out of PC gaming for the last several years, and the stuff I have played was older.

I’m kind of coming back to the hobby and playing some newer games, and the kids are old enough now that they’re playing stuff like Fortnite on it and our other PC (i5-2500k, 8GB RAM, nVidia 9800GTX). So the system is finally showing it’s age.

I’m pretty happy with everything else, but the core components need replacing. I’ve fallen out of touch with what’s out there, so I could use some suggestions as to what to look for. My general philosophy has always been to find the best price/performance level.

So any suggestions as to what I should be looking at?

CPU: I do occasionally get some video work, so not sure if that makes the 9700k more attractive than the 9600k. I also am getting into more .Net work, so will be compiling with Visual Studio. That’s probably the top end of the CPU intensive work.

RAM: I will likely go for 16GB of RAM at this point because I’ve been playing around with Docker and occasionally run VMs for work and actually ran out RAM.

Video: The GTX 960 still holds up really well, but I’m going to pass it on to the secondary system to replace the 9800GTX. I think I usually look at the $200 price point for video cards, so what’s that equate to today?

Thanks for any help!

I’d go for a RX 580 at the $200 price point. Great card for 1440 gaming or lower on almost any modern game.

If you’re going to spend some money, don’t go halfway if you want to do some decent PC gaming. It just doesn’t make sense at this point.

I’d suggest Intel i7 9700k, Gigabyte z390 Aorus Pro (choose version based on whether you need wifi or not), 16 Gig DDR4 for dual channel (8x2) and just spend what you’re comfortable with for the speed. Video card gives you the most flexibility based on budget. I have a GTX 1080 and I like it a lot, but I know it won’t push max graphics at 4k.

Just keep in mind the Ryzen 3000 series is being announced at CES this month and will be launched soon. From the leaks/rumours it sounds like it could be a big leap.

What kind of monitor will you be using with the new system?

If you can hold off, I’d see what AMD brings to the table.

Thanks for the responses so far. It’s an old hang up I suppose, but I’ve always been more comfortable with Intel/nVidia parts, so I’m not sure that I would end up going with an AMD processor or ATI video card. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but my understanding from some very quick reading is that AMD and ATI tend to run hotter and use more power (and possibly louder). Lower heat and noise is fairly important to me, partly because I’m around the system all day and this room tends to get very warm in the summer.

Meant to mention this in my original post, but I’m going to be sticking with my current monitors, and the only one I game on is 1920x1200 (Dell U2415).

[Edit] And I’m definitely not in a big hurry. I can wait a few months for sure, although if I can use a video card in both the current system and the newer one I might go ahead and pick that up.

Well, if you’re sticking to Nvidia and aiming at around the $200 price point, then there’s really no decision to make: you should go with a GTX 1060.

Another reason to wait for the next range of Ryzen CPUs. They are using 7nm manufacturing, which for a given performance level should give significantly lower heat/noise than Intel who are still on 14nm.

Maybe this is the right spot. I am looking to finally build a new PC. I have hobbled along parts for a long time, but it might be time to build from the ground up (including monitor, speakers, and a router that is killing my download speed). My aim is to be able to finally play Warhammer Total War 2 at full settings without taking 6 minutes to load a battle, do some modern shooter stuff like Anthem or Battlefield V fluidly on full settings, and be powerful enough to pick up PC VR soon.

I plan to shop at Frys or Amazon and have a friend who will likely help me build it; he is just not up to speed on the current best/ good in class hardware choices. It has been a looong time since I build a PC. Besides tech choice, brand of said tech could be helpful too.

I currently have:
Intel I5 3570k @3.4ghz
Nvidia GTX760
8gigs RAM
Older than dirt ATA HDD 1t (this is a major source of my pc headaches due to how slow it is)
Samsung T260 monitor
Linksys Cisco wireless G router
Altec Lansing speakers from…like 1990

The system does well enough, but load times are really bad and I seem to either put up with lower performance or lower than top settings nowadays. Sometimes both. The monitor clearly has lost a step in modern tech as looking at basically every other screen looks so much more crisp and vibrant.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Also is Windows 10 the only option? I have stuck with Windows 7 64 for a long time.

You should probably give a budget…

Ok, I’ll get started.

One important consideration is what resolution you’re planning for. You currently have a 24", 1920x1200 monitor.

Second is the storage. I suppose if 1 TB is enough to hold all the stuff you have currently, then a 1 TB SSD is enough too. That’s about $150 USD for a samsung SATA. Someone correct me, but I don’t think nvme pci2 whatever seems to make a difference in real life usage.

For speakers you could get Micca MB42X, $110 amazon, very good bang for the buck. IIRC the PB42X means you don’t use a separate amp.

Maybe have a look through something like this for an overview of what the options are these days? They should link straight to Amazon too.

This is what I recently bought:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pJ6BHh

Missing from that list is an external DvD drive and a graphics card (I had an extra I used so I didn’t need to buy a new one).