Question Complete overhaul or selective upgrade?

[noeljm92]

Hey there, good people!

My current PC specs are:

CPU: Intel i7 6700k @ 4.00 GHz (no overclock)
Graphics: Zotac GTX 970 (no overclock)
RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 ( 2 x 8GB, dual channel, XMP 2400 MHz)
Motherboard: Asus E3 Pro Gaming V5
PSU: Corsair CS 750M
Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX
Monitor: AOC E2180SW

PC assembled in 2016.

I wish to play the latest and the next gen games on ultra (I'm a sucker for gorgeous graphics) for the next 3-4 years . What would you guys suggest?

P.S. I really appreciate all your help!

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Well, most of what you're looking to get from today's games comes from the GPU unless you're running 1080p. But if you're 1080p or greater and pushing everything as high as possible on quality settings, then a latest gen GPU will give you more bang for your buck.

Your CPU and platform in general is still a good working machine, only a few titles will stress that hardware other than the GPU, again, at lower resolutions. But at higher resolutions you'll be more GPU bound than anything.

So ultimately for cost, a better GPU will make the biggest impact.

For total overhaul, it would be of course much more expensive because you still need a later gen GPU, on top of a new platform, which will also cost more (new CPU at the very least, if not also a motherboard perhaps, could likely keep your RAM).

Total budget?

Very best,

 

[noeljm92]

Your CPU and platform in general is still a good working machine, only a few titles will stress that hardware other than the GPU, again, at lower resolutions. But at higher resolutions you'll be more GPU bound than anything.

So ultimately for cost, a better GPU will make the biggest impact.

Hey, thanks for the confirmation! The CPU was my biggest worry.

Well, my budget is dependent on the community's suggestion. If I can get away with a good GPU (say an RTX 3080) then I'll focus on that and get to the other parts later.

An RTX 3080 itself would be stretching my budget thin, as it is well above Rs. 100000 (INR) or about $1360 (USD) according to today's exchange rate.

Thanks for your help though!

 

[MalVeauX]

So, suggestion:

Pick a game that you know will be hard to run. Look up some benchmarks and see which GPU looks comfortable for what you want and cost. Then look at that GPU on different CPU platforms and see where the bottleneck is. Most GPU bound games will scale with the GPU, but a game that is low resolution (1080p or less) will start to become CPU/Memory bound as you scale up and that's where your older platform might experience issues. Regardless, a better GPU will scale up faster than a new CPU/Memory with your current GPU. So a new GPU in general is likely in the cards. The big question is do you go with a mid-tier CPU in addition to a new GPU or not. If a top GPU kills the budget, you'd have to look and see if a mid-tier CPU and a mid-tier (but higher than your current) GPU will fill that gap.

Very best,