Question PC Hardware Upgrade

[scj6771]

It's been awhile, I have been out of the PC gaming\hardware scene for about 4 years, below are my current specs (a bit dated I know), I am looking for a modest upgrade, my current specs did me well for awhile if that gives you a better understanding of my comfort level, I'd say my budget would be around $1000 on the high-end, I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

Mobo: Z170A SLI Plus

CPU: i7-6700K 4.00GHz

Memory: Kingston HyperX FURY Black 16GB 2133MHz DDR4

GPU: Radeon RX 580 8GB

Power Supply: EVGA 600 B1, 80+ BRONZE 600W

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Are you willing to buy on the 'used' market?

 

[Tech Junky]

What do you want to accomplish? Gaming? Daily use?

For ~$1300 you could drop in a z690/12700k/6900xt and be up to date for gaming and anything else for a while.

 

[scj6771]

What do you want to accomplish? Gaming? Daily use?

For ~$1300 you could drop in a z690/12700k/6900xt and be up to date for gaming and anything else for a while.

Gaming mostly, Division, Deep Rock Galactic, I don't run anything GPU intensive, I have an SSD, at the moment I cant recall make and model, but I know it was a budget model, I ran my OS on that and then a standard HD for everything else, I would prefer to eliminate the mechanical HD and just put it all on a faster drive.

 

[scj6771]

Are you willing to buy on the 'used' market?

I have had luck with purchasing components used before so I am not opposed

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok, so, a 6900XT would probably be overkill then. That will drop the price considerably as you can get mid range performance for ~$300 or less.

The size of your "storage" needs makes a difference though. M2 drives tend to run $100/TB whether SATA or NVME. Maybe a 2.5" SATA SSD might get you lower cost per TB and still 3X the performance of a single spinner.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7RLhTn

I added 4 drives just for price comparisons. The 770 is a dram-less drive but performs well. The 850 is a normal NVME w/ DRAM though which might perform better as an OS drive.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you go with socket 1700 and a 12k series chip you can could upgrade to a 13k chip later on. But afaik 13k chips would be the last before a new motherboard would be needed for their next gen. 13k seems to be a really good chip as far as avgs but you want to increase minimums for smoother (less stutter) gaming. My X3D chip accomplished that with style. I've seen some reviews at 1080p where the 3D minimums are on par with even the 13900K chips, but read through those reviews carefully.

 

[scj6771]

Ok, so, a 6900XT would probably be overkill then. That will drop the price considerably as you can get mid range performance for ~$300 or less.

The size of your "storage" needs makes a difference though. M2 drives tend to run $100/TB whether SATA or NVME. Maybe a 2.5" SATA SSD might get you lower cost per TB and still 3X the performance of a single spinner.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7RLhTn

I added 4 drives just for price comparisons. The 770 is a dram-less drive but performs well. The 850 is a normal NVME w/ DRAM though which might perform better as an OS drive.

Good stuff, thanks for the part list, I will take a look

 

[Shmee]

I came up with this, https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bmGW6r as a more modest upgrade. From the sound of it, seems the NVMe storage would have the biggest benefit for you. That said, you get a good GPU and system upgrade, as well as RAM. The 6650XT seemed like a better deal to me than the 2060, as it should be a fair bit faster.

If you are considering a major upgrade, I would probably get a new PSU as well, depending on the age of your current PSU. If you go with a high end 12th or 13th gen i7 though, I would definitely get a new PSU, and more than 600W.

Note if you change motherboard, you may need a new Windows license. If you go with 12th gen+ Intel, you will probably want Windows 11. Also, there is a chance you will need to do a BIOS update on the board I selected to work with the 5700X, luckily it has a bootless USB BIOS update button.

 

[Shmee]

Also, if you don't mind buying the NVMe drive used, the exact drive I mentioned, the one I have as my OS drive, is on sale in our FS/T forums for $135 now. This is the 2TB Adata XPG S70 Blade, very nice drive. Only thing is you may need a higher post count to visit there, I am not sure. Be sure to check the specific rules there if you are interested.