BiTBiTE_101

Junior Member
Jan 26, 2018
4
1
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Hey guys!
Count this as my first post!!
Alright so my whole reason of joining was to ask some simple advice.

I'll start by listing my specs:

i5 2500k OC @4.5Ghz
AsRock Z77 Extreme3
Corsair Vengeance 16Gb
1200W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold
Sapphire Radeon 270X
1TB Seagate Hybrid drive (main)
4TB Seagate (Storage drive, I'm not on the pc right now, don't remember the exact specs)

As most of you will notice, this rigs outdated. Kids are expensive.
I'm planning on a new system, but I always keep pushing it off because of financial constraints. I'm wondering if there still life in purchasing a 3730k, or is it like beating a dead horse?

They can be had for sub 200 on ebay, and wont warrant me upgrading anything else. If I have to build a completely new rig I'd be looking at easily over 1000 just to upgrade sockets, which is out of my budget.

Obviously the GPU is of concern, but I could grab a 1070 (or eventually 2) that would outlast this socket and into the next.

I also have a P9X79 from an old build. I remember there was a hiss in the audio which is why it was pulled and been sitting on my shelf for the past 5 years.
I wonder if slapping in like a 3960x would be my best option if I go that route? They could still be had for sub 250 and the 2011 platform had quad channel ddr3. All of my existing hardware would also fit. Id be buying a cheap xeon first to test the board out.

I wouldn't be playing the newest games obviously, and TBH I play Fallout 4 all the time maxed out and there's not even a stutter on my 2500K. I'm hoping to be able to stretch out the 1155 for at the most 1 to 1.5 years max.
In the distant (or not-so-distant) future when I upgrade, this PC will replace my Q6600 as my freenas server, which will be an awesome upgrade as the s775 maxes out at 8G of ram...

I'd appreciate some advice, although I'll definitely get a few laughs lol. I'm hoping to stretch out the life of what I have if I can. I understand that this will never push vr, but that's what my new rig is going to built around. I'm just waiting for the technology to mature before building something new.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,225
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Well, your 2500K has a healthy OC on it, which should allow it power through most of this years' games yet, I expect. Although the Meltdown / Spectre patches will affect your performance somewhat. Thankfully, it appears that Gaming is one of the application categories least affected by them, performance-wise.

I hate to say it, but as long as your existing rig is running properly, you may realistically want to stick with it for another year or so, if a new rig is a financial burden.

Right now, a new rig is going to require DDR4 memory, which is currently at all-time-high prices, and GPU prices are through the roof due to coin-mining on GPUs.

Ryzen 2000-series is coming out, with a frequency increase / power-reduction (12nm).

Intel's got their CoffeeLake 6-core lineup, but they're: 1) expensive, and 2) suffer from the "Intel flaws", of which Ryzen isn't affected by one of them, and only tangentally affected by the other.

If you're really got an itch to upgrade, wait for Ryzen 2000-series, and consider that then.

I think that going to a HEDT Sandy Bridge would be a side-grade. (Considering your current OC.)
 
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ao_ika_red

Golden Member
Aug 11, 2016
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Unless you could source it cheap enough, I recommend a full system upgrade. I've seen some pretty cheap used 3770k on eBay. You might consider those
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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Agreed with what was said above.

Save your money for a complete overhaul in a few years. A card like the GTX 1070 (if you can find one in stock) will likely eat up most of the $1000 figure you listed above. In fact, almost every video card out there all the way up to the Nividia Titan XP is out of stock because of the mining gold rush.

Between the sky-high prices, the availability of certain parts, and the design flaws of Intel CPUs with Meltdown/Spectre, this might be the worst time to build a new computer there ever has been.
 

BiTBiTE_101

Junior Member
Jan 26, 2018
4
1
36
Wow thanks for the responses guys.

My whole idea when I build this was to upgrade it in the future, but I guess I missed the boat.

@ao_ika_red that's what led me to ask on the forum. I fully intend to upgrade my GPU first and I know my little 2500k will reach its end, regardless of how high the overclock is. I seen I could grab those for around 250. If I'm having dual 1070s in mind, would the 3730 (or 3770) be alright to push these?
I wouldn't be buying the GPUs now, and honestly I got my 270x on ebay for 135 when they were almost 300 new in store, so I'd probably be purchasing the 1070s used again.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
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Wow thanks for the responses guys.

My whole idea when I build this was to upgrade it in the future, but I guess I missed the boat.

@ao_ika_red that's what led me to ask on the forum. I fully intend to upgrade my GPU first and I know my little 2500k will reach its end, regardless of how high the overclock is. I seen I could grab those for around 250. If I'm having dual 1070s in mind, would the 3730 (or 3770) be alright to push these?
I wouldn't be buying them now, and honestly I got my 270x on ebay for 135 when they were almost 300 new in store, so I'd probably be purchasing the 1070s used again.

You would be better to buy a GTX 1080ti rather than two GTX 1070 cards. The benefit of SLI for gaming is largly dying/dead. It's often buggy and games often don't have support for it for well after its release. Even used cards are selling for crazy amounts right now. You might want to look into that aspect, and see it doesn't make sense to buy one right now unless you absolutely have to.

https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/

Just ignore upgrading the CPU, save the money until you are ready to upgrade the whole system in a couple years.
 
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BiTBiTE_101

Junior Member
Jan 26, 2018
4
1
36
Alright. Thanks for the help guys. Looks like this build is going to be stretched some more.

I don't see it as a bad thing considering how old this build is, but at least now I have more of a path to follow instead of burning money in a dead platform.
 
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BiTBiTE_101

Junior Member
Jan 26, 2018
4
1
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You would be better to buy a GTX 1080ti rather than two GTX 1070 cards. The benefit of SLI for gaming is largly dying/dead. It's often buggy and games often don't have support for it for well after its release. Even used cards are selling for crazy amounts right now. You might want to look into that aspect, and see it doesn't make sense to buy one right now unless you absolutely have to.

https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/

Just ignore upgrading the CPU, save the money until you are ready to upgrade the whole system in a couple years.

Really? What happened to the good ol tri sli days? My rig looked like a beast!

I think I need to follow up on some tech articles. My knowledge seems to be outdated.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
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Really? What happened to the good ol tri sli days? My rig looked like a beast!

I think I need to follow up on some tech articles. My knowledge seems to be outdated.

Yeah, just read through the various postings in the video card sub-forums, and you will see there are issues/bugs with many games when it comes to SLI, and sometimes it takes a while for game developers to even add the support for it to work. It's just cheaper to buy a better single top-end card, rather than two mid-range cards. I grew up running cards in SLI, so I understand the temptation to keep doing it, but a lot has changed over the last 5-10 years. SLI just isn't worth it IMO anymore, except in very specific cases.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
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You would be better to buy a GTX 1080ti rather than two GTX 1070 cards. The benefit of SLI for gaming is largly dying/dead.

Totally this.

I used to be a avid support of SLI / Xfire...

Here is my honest opinion on it..

1. Dont expect any SLI support for 0 day launchs on games period.
Nvidia wont do it, neither will AMD. So you'll end up playing your game with probably slight driver tweaks but almost always never multi-gpu scaling.

2. By the time you do get SLI / Xfire Support, too late and done with on the game.
Your already moving onto the next thing, so unless your a late adopter in gaming, meaning you like to binge on steam sales, and never buy launch date games, then thats the only benifit of having SLI support.

3. Nvidia SLI drivers SUCK....
OMG i seriously think they support the infinite monkey keyboard theorem, which states if you put a monkey behind a keyboard and have it type at it long enough, he will be able to write coherent words, or in Nvidia's case, he will write the proper code for SLI in the the game...

Seriously, single large most ram fastest gpu u can afford and call it a day has been my new moto, after the 980ti's i have had in SLI.

Now i just use a single 1080Ti, and call it a day... and that with its 11GB of GPU Memory is a BEAST.
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
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I just purchased a 3770 (non-K) on eBay to replace my 3570k. I should just about break even after I sell the old chip.
 

WildW

Senior member
Oct 3, 2008
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evilpicard.com
Just replaced my 2500K with a 2600K - the extra threads seem to be making things smoother. Prices on these 1155 chips have gone a bit odd. 2600K has been dropping a bit lately, presumably as folks upgrade. . . but 3770k has gone up and is about double the price of the 2600k. (At least here in the UK)

My understanding is that if you're overclocking there isn't much difference between the two. Ivy Bridge is faster per-clock but Sandy Bridge clocks a bit higher.
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
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Just replaced my 2500K with a 2600K - the extra threads seem to be making things smoother. Prices on these 1155 chips have gone a bit odd. 2600K has been dropping a bit lately, presumably as folks upgrade. . . but 3770k has gone up and is about double the price of the 2600k. (At least here in the UK)

My understanding is that if you're overclocking there isn't much difference between the two. Ivy Bridge is faster per-clock but Sandy Bridge clocks a bit higher.

Yeah, biggest difference is in power consumption, Sandy Bridge is very considerably more power hungry. That, and PCIe 3.0 support.
 

waltchan

Senior member
Feb 27, 2015
846
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2018 update....

I sold two Pentium G630s for $32 each on January 2016. Today, I rebuy two G630s again for $4.99 each. How cool is that?