PC upgrade?

Evilcamper

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice on if i should upgrade my PC. I generally play a mixture of AAA games such as Battlefield V and the Total War series as well as indies such as airport CEO. Also my sister is starting an engineer career which may necessitate the running of engineer design and simulation software. Starting to wonder based on my specs if any upgrades are needed:

CPU: Intel i5 6600
Motherboard: ASRock H170 Pro4S
RAM : 2x 8192MB- Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 DIMM CL16-16-16
GPU : 8GB Sapphire Radeon R9 390 Nitro with backplate
Power Supply: Bequiet 530 Watt Pure Power L8 Bronze
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo SATA and a WD Green backup

I currently run a 2 monitor set up with 1080p monitors-1 DP and 1 HDMI. I think my main hardware upgrades would probably be the power supply and the GPU. Budget is adjustable so suggestions at different price ranges would be welcome as well.

I would like to avoid replacing the motherboard if possible and I know this would limit me to a Kaby Lake processor at best.

Any advice would be appreciated

TerrorFirmer

For Battlefield V the 6600 is a major bottleneck, a 2nd hand i7-6700 would be the way to go. Also likely to be beneficial for some of the engineering stuff, though that's entirely dependent on how the software uses CPU resources.

The GPU is still pretty good, the only proper worthwhile upgrade would be a Vega 56 (£299) or Nvidia RTX2060 (£330). The 2060 is generally a little better though there's a much better games promo with AMD right now.

You can get an RX590 for about £240 that is faster, but not so much faster I'd bother upgrading to it personally.

It really depends on your budget but given the games you're playing I'd prefer an i7-6700 + R9 390 over an i5-6600 and either of the above cards.

Evilcamper

Sorry for the late response but was just thinking that upgrade will probably necessitate a psu upgrade so does anyone have a suggestions on psus?

Xenoronin

Evilcamper wrote: »

Sorry for the late response but was just thinking that upgrade will probably necessitate a psu upgrade so does anyone have a suggestions on psus?

Nope, 530W is plenty for any upgrade you do. The i7 doesn't draw that much more power, and if you do upgrade the GPU, they have improved the power requirements so it will probably draw less power than your current 390.

K.O.Kiki

Xenoronin wrote: »

Nope, 530W is plenty for any upgrade you do. The i7 doesn't draw that much more power, and if you do upgrade the GPU, they have improved the power requirements so it will probably draw less power than your current 390.

The only GPU that uses more watts than R9 390 is the Vega 64 :pac:

Skerries

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The only GPU that uses more watts than R9 390 is the Vega 64 :pac:

I feel such a power hungry bastard as that is the path I went

8builder

If you want to play battlefield V then as stated above your CPU is a very crucial bottleneck here and the GPU isn't much fancy either. I'll get straight to the point, You said you'd like to avoid replacing the mobo but mate, its important since the audio hardware on the asrock h170 is poor as well and you're missing out on a lot of good things because of the mobo, Just get a used 6700k locally at a good price then go ahead and get a z270 or z170 motherboard because you'll have to OC as well - its not important though but OC is always great. And a side note, don't skimp out on the motherboard check some variants here https://appuals.com/motherboards-for-intel-core-i7-6700k/ also possibly trade in your r9 390 with a Rtx 2060 or gtx 1660ti if possible and voila you're good to go!

K.O.Kiki

Eh. If you want better audio, I'd rather get a USB DAC-amp.

You're better off with a 30-quid Behringer UCA202 than a new mobo.

TerrorFirmer

I doubt the OP cares about the audio and even if he did, a new mobo makes no sense just to get a 6700K. At that point you're better off just getting a B450 + Ryzen 2600/X combo new.

Coyler

I've a very similar setup to OP due to the budget being very tight over the last few years. Had to stick to deals to get best bang for buck for the last decade. So swap the 6600 for a 7400 and you've got my box. Anyway, things have changed and I'm able to expand my spending on my rig again. So, I've done my research and mapped out an upgrade path that OP might be interested in.

I'm pulling the trigger on a Vega 56 over the weekend mainly because I want The Division 2 (and the two other games don't hurt) but the prices are really good now. Excellent, in fact. Hoping to undervolt it to get better clocks and not draw as much power. My R9380X has been rock solid powered by my Corsair CX500 but undervolting the Vega 56 will give my PSU a little more head room and make it more efficient with the add boost of potentially higher clocks. Worse case scenario, if the Vega 56 is pushing my PSU to hard I'll grab a better one but I strongly suspect I'll be fine for now.

As for CPU, I agree with TerrorFirmer on that. Just buy a decent one second hand if you can't find a good deal. I'm probably hold off for a month to spread the spending and while I level solo in Division 2 but it seems a i7 7700k would be the best for Division 2 one I get to end game. Added bonus is it is a good choice for all games, CPU intensive or not. Better to have it and not use it then be looking for it, I say.

As for Battlefield V, Evilcamper, this article might be of interest to you. I agree with TerrorFirmer again. Go with the CPU now and drop the fidelity to get a solid frame rate. For multiplayer it doesn't really matter. Pick up a Vega 56 when you have the funds again. Or hold off for the Navi release that is coming down the tracks. If you go with the GPU upgrade first, you'll struggle to notice the benefit with your current CPU.

As for buying second hand, is adverts worth checking out or is there somewhere else the cool kids sell their stuff? In the vast majority of cases, the prices most people are seeking are completely out of sync with market rates.

Evilcamper

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice.

I think that I will go for a CPU upgrade since that would tie into the engineering bit as well. Yea the setup is a bit old was bought about 4 years ago (on a trainee salary) and I think I didn't think I would o/c the CPU at the time, plus it seemed like an i7 would be an extreme investment.

Might go for a GPU upgrade given the price drops and depending on my own future income. Also waiting to see what Navi will look like. Plus just got a Freesync monitor so I think will have to stick with the AMD GPUs to get the benefit out of it.

I don't know if a Mobo upgrade would be prudent just for the sound quality improvements. Was my first build so the mobo was an area where I probably didn't know as much as I should have going into it.

Sister has recently indicated a desire to take the computer for work as well so might be a completely new computer build in the works now.

Lu Tze

Evilcamper wrote: »

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice.

I think that I will go for a CPU upgrade since that would tie into the engineering bit as well. Yea the setup is a bit old was bought about 4 years ago (on a trainee salary) and I think I didn't think I would o/c the CPU at the time, plus it seemed like an i7 would be an extreme investment.

Might go for a GPU upgrade given the price drops and depending on my own future income. Also waiting to see what Navi will look like. Plus just got a Freesync monitor so I think will have to stick with the AMD GPUs to get the benefit out of it.

I don't know if a Mobo upgrade would be prudent just for the sound quality improvements. Was my first build so the mobo was an area where I probably didn't know as much as I should have going into it.

Sister has recently indicated a desire to take the computer for work as well so might be a completely new computer build in the works now.

Have a look at the software you will be using, and if it will utilise multiple threads. If you have it at work, keep an eye on the CPU utilisation. I was looking at some hydraulic modelling software a couple of years ago, recommended spec was 4790k, but when I was using the trial it was predominantly single threaded, and the rep confirmed on the phone. No point going over the top on cores/threads if there is no benefit.
Recently got a Ryzen 2600, have yet to put it through its paces with some modelling though. Even AutoCAD used to be single threaded, that may have changed in the newer versions. I don't think it was seems as a priority to implement multi threading in relatively niche software like modelling.

TerrorFirmer

CEX have i7-6700 at the moment for €150. I would get one quick while it's available.