So…I’ve been increasingly struggling to run the latest games, as the age of my 6 years old desktop is starting to show, and Starfield denying my GPU just pissed me. I know it’s a bug and I can probably play it, but it’s outright the minimum for this game, and so I’d like a refresh of the worst, or should I consider a full new desktop? I know the GPU is starting to show its age, but not sure the CPU is salvageable or you’d advice a new one… Here’s a quick short summary of the computer:
-Mobo Gygabite Z170 K3 -CPU i7 6700 -2x8GB DDR4 2133 -MSI Nvidia 1070 8GB -SSD 1TB on the SATA port (I believe I can install an m.2 instead) -EVGA G2 750W
My questions…I believe these days an AMD card would be cheaper than an Nvidia, correct? What would be an equivalent to a 3070, or a 4070? More importantly…are they bigger in size (would it fit)? Do they take more power than my 1070 (will it roast my power supply?). Power would be a bit important, as I’d rather not replace all the wiring for the power supply, and electricity is becoming kinda pricey these days… I’m basically considering upgrading GPU and RAM, and considering if this would be a good upgrade or the CPU would then be a bottleneck (hence just throw it all and go for a full new desktop…I’d rather not).
Thanks!
Your power supply is fine.
If you feel you can deal with your CPU for a few more years just upgrade the GPU and call it a day. A 3070 or a 6700xt would feel like a huge upgrade.
Having that said your computer is still entirely serviceable. I’d just hold on a few more years and upgrade the whole thing.
Thanks! Yeah, maybe I can consider a 6700xt and other minor upgrades, like getting a NVME, an extra 16GB of RAM…It’s a relief knowing that the power supply will hold!
I second shapis’s recommendation. I was still gaming on an Ivy Bridge CPU until recently. It wasn’t until this year that games started giving me trouble at 1080p with medium settings, and that was mostly GPU related.
Your 16GB RAM might be fine for now. Most games I’ve played don’t come close to that. Of course, it’s easy enough to check while you’re playing (or doing whatever other tasks you do).
Depending on your OS, your SATA SSD might even be fine. (Although NVMe prices have been and still seem to be dropping, so picking one up in a couple months isn’t a bad idea if your motherboard can handle one.)
Read your motherboard manual carefully about what NVME types it supports in which M.2 slots and whether there are any gotchas.
Some M.2 slots take SATA (2 notches) as well as PCIe (1 notch), some only one type. You can’t tell visually — you have to check the manual.
Some M.2 slots will disable a SATA cable connector if you use them.
Some M.2 slots will work at a slower speed if certain PCI slots have a card in them.
I have the same EVGA supply powering radeon RX 6800 without problems. I believe it would be fine even with today’s highend.
I’d recommended PC part picker to determine compatibility with all your upgrades. You can tinker with different setups fairly easily and have the costs easily accessible. I believe there are also tools to determine likely bottlenecks, but I haven’t searched for many lately.
GPU will definitely be the biggest cost, but also likely the most noticeable improvement. RAM is fairly cheap, so you can bump up to 32 Gb without much expense. Not too familiar with Intel CPUs but it’s possible you might create a bottleneck with a GPU upgrade. Not the end of the world if you’re fine with upgrading that later too.
In your situation I would probably buy an AMD 7700x with 32gb of DDR5 6000, and if you can get them where you live, an AMD 6950XT (they’re really cheap here right now, equivalent to about a 3080ti-3090). Make sure to get a decent NVME SSD too.
Yes, buying any DDR4 components would just mean your upgrade is going to be obsolete really really soon.
You are saving money by buying current Gen components instead of last Gen components. Trying to salvage anything from your current build will just result in you needing to build a new rig again in a few years instead of 8-10 years from now.
Unfortunately. The i7-6700 is like 8 years old now, and yeah not really that great for anything but basic tasks or playing old school games. Even if you get a modern GPU, you’ll be held back by the CPU. And in case you decide to upgrade to Windows 11/12 in the future (say once Microsoft ends support for Win10), you will need to upgrade your CPU and therefore everything else. Might as well do the upgrade now and switch to AMD for both CPU/GPU as it’ll work out cheaper, and AMD is a better option for gaming anyway.
a 4 core CPU isn’t going to cut it in 2023 anymore, and anything new that you’d want to upgrade to is going to be bottlenecked by that 1070. You could of course look at used parts if your budget is tight, there are a lot of used (ex-miner likely) GPUs out there that could tickle your fancy and I bet there are plenty of people selling their 8+ core Intel / AMD + DDR4 + motherboard as well to upgrade to DDR5
GPU is almost always the first upgrade to go for.
Also, I went from a 1070 to a 6700 XT myself, can say it doubled framerates in games that needed it (Elite: Dangerous in planetside areas for example), so that’s something for you to consider; if you’re getting 30 FPS then it’ll be a good upgrade, if you’re only get 10 FPS it might not be enough.
Videocard Benchmark here:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Figure out your price point, then get the highest scoring card in that range.
Say for the sake of argument you don’t want to spend more than $300 on a GPU:
GeForce RTX 3060 TI at $302 and change, not bad.
Radeon RX 6750 XT out performs it, but it’s also $360 instead of 302. So are the extra 500 points on their performance scale worth $60? Probably not.
Prices are more of a guide, search around, you might find them for less. Just using the shopping tab at Google, I found the GeForce for $250 at NewEgg.
Here’s one more GPU comparison chart:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html