Help me with my PC upgrade!

[FakeSympathy]

Currently, I have the following build:

• CPU - Intel i7 8700K
• GPU - MSI 3080
• RAM - Oloy 16 GB DDR4 3600
• Motherboard - MSI Z370 A Pro
• CPU Cooling - Corsair H60
• SSD- Apacer 250GB + Western Digital M2 1 TB
• HDD- Western Digital SATA 1TB
• PSU - Super Flower Leadex III 850W
• Case - Corsair 4000d
• Fans - Three fans; two in the front and one in the fact

My i7-8700k has served me well, but it has started to show its age with the performance. I believe it's time for a replacement. I had my eyes on either 7900x or 7700x, and I realized that I may also need new MB that is compatible, CPU cooler, and a DDR5 RAM.

This is a sample build I came up with, with my choice between 7900x or 7700x

CPU​	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor​
CPU Cooler​	*ARCTIC Freezer 50 CPU Cooler​
Motherboard​	Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM5 Motherboard​
Memory​	*G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory​

I also came up with intel CPU build, with my choice either being 13600k or 13700k

CPU​	*Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor​
CPU Cooler​	*ARCTIC Freezer 50 CPU Cooler​
Motherboard​	MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard​
Memory​	*G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory​

Budget-wise, it seems like intel is the better choice, but I heard some shady things with their products as of late.

What would be a good choice for the CPU? It'll mostly be for gaming but on the high end. Also could use a comment on other parts I've picked out

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'd avoid the gigabyte motherboard. Gigabyte is on my shitlist. This isn't due to any issues with their motherboards mind you (the motherboard is probably completely fine), but because they were found to be purposefully bundling defective (exploding) PSUs with with graphics cards during the graphics card shortage a year ago to get rid of unsellable stock. Super shitty of them and a good reason to never buy anything from the company again. My previous 2 graphics cards have been from gigabyte and I won't be buying from them ever again.

As far as the rest of the parts go, I would probably pick the 7700X over the 7900X if you're just looking for gaming performance. The 7700X has very similar single core performance compared to the 7900X, which is the most important part for gaming, with the 7900X only turboing to a 4% higher frequency. the 7900X has more cores, but that's generally not super useful for gaming, and the 7700X is both cheaper and uses almost 40% less power, which is important if you're going to be sticking with your current power supply.

The memory seems fine. I don't have a lot of experience with Arctic's coolers, but I heard mounting them can be kind of a pain. Seems like it would probably have about similar performance compared to the Noctua NH-D15, though maybe a bit noisier

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

You will definitely need the new motherboard for compatibility. Zen 4's the new stuff, and the first time AMD has put the pins in the motherboard like Intel rather than on the chip. (The good news is, AMD has a pretty strong track record of not changing the form factor of their CPUs for a few generations, which means that new motherboard could last you a couple upgrades.) Personally, I'm holding off on the next generation until DDR5 issues are ironed out and the price comes down some; I've never liked being on the cutting edge. Maybe in a couple years....

...but because they were found to be purposefully bundling defective (exploding) PSUs with with graphics cards during the graphics card shortage a year ago to get rid of unsellable stock.

Wasn't it Newegg which was responsible for that? I don't remember hearing that Gigabyte had a hand in it. However, their weaksauce response to the exploding PSU issue has put them on my provisional shit list since then.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Wasn't it Newegg which was responsible for that? I don't remember hearing that Gigabyte had a hand in it. However, their weaksauce response to the exploding PSU issue has put them on my provisional shit list since then.

Oh Newegg is on my shitlist as well, and has been ever since they were bought out and ruined by a Chinese company. I miss the Newegg from 10 years ago.

 

[Gordon_4]

Following on from what @Dirty Hipsters said, 32GB is overkill memory wise for gaming. You're better of spending money to get a 16GB kit at a higher speed tier. Other than that, I think Dirty pretty well covered the lot.

 

[gorfias]

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Benchmark

VS:

Intel Core i5-13600K Benchmark

I am surprised. The I5 tested faster and less expensive than the 7700x. I am trying to keep my build as low wattage as possible. The 7700x is 105 watts, the I5 up to 181 Watts.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Following on from what @Dirty Hipsters said, 32GB is overkill memory wise for gaming.

Unless you want to play a certain game ported to PC by flipperhanded dickheads.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Gigabyte can also kiss my ass. Their quality is, to me, questionable (especially in recent years). But one thing that makes them horrible to deal with... is their customer service. It's almost non-existent, and when you can get connected to someone (only through their messaging service, I don't think they have a phone line) they are both hard to understand due to bad English and horribly incompetent at their job. Never again.

I can see the argument with 32GB of RAM being a lot, but I should mention that RAM requirements are only gonna go up over time. If you plan on doing anything RAM intensive outside of gaming the extra overhead will help a lot (and even with some current games that, as Rhombus pointed out, were ported like crap). 16GB will do no problem, I'm just thinking long term with this suggestion. Just make sure it's decent speed or has good timings and you'll be fine.

The 7700x is 105 watts, the I5 up to 181 Watts.

Which is likely why the Intel option got better marks. When you dump out any hope of saving energy just to get your numbers higher, then of course the unlikely option could end up better than the competition. See the new Nvidia GPUs... Those are doing so, SO well with that technique!

 

[FakeSympathy]

Okay, i think I’ll just stick with the 16 GB as well as MB from another brand.

But i want to focus back on the CPUs; get the DDR5CPUs now or wait for the next gen?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

But i want to focus back on the CPUs; get the DDR5CPUs now or wait for the next gen?

Anything pants wettingly interesting about the next gen of CPUs?

 

[FakeSympathy]

Anything pants wettingly interesting about the next gen of CPUs?

I wouldn't exactly say they're pants-wetting, but As I've said on my OP my i7-8700k has not been able to keep up with more recent games. Witcher 3 next-gen update, CP2077, and RDR2.

Okay, probably bad examples of not-so-great ports and optimizations, but you get the idea. I would love to play them at highest fidelity possible without sacrificing the performance 60 fps min. I would love to play them, and other future releases, at highest fidelity possible without sacrificing the performance 60 fps min.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I wouldn't exactly say they're pants-wetting, but As I've said on my OP my i7-8700k has not been able to keep up with more recent games. Witcher 3 next-gen update, CP2077, and RDR2.

Well, if there's nothing super interesting to be gained by waiting for the next gen then you may as well pull the trigger and get the current gen now.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Well, if there's nothing super interesting to be gained by waiting for the next gen then you may as well pull the trigger and get the current gen now.

Tech improves at such an insane rate that if you always wait for the next best thing coming out, you'll never get anything you need/want. Unless you're days/weeks away then it's better to grab what you're looking at currently

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Tech improves at such an insane rate that if you always wait for the next best thing coming out, you'll never get anything you need/want. Unless you're days/weeks away then it's better to grab what you're looking at currently

I'm waiting on direct storage to become a thing on PCs before I make my next upgrade. I mean, technically my computer is already direct storage ready (except that I'm not running windows 11), however since we don't actually have any games on PC yet that use direct storage it's unclear how the performance is going to work out with different PC hardware.

There's going to be a higher load on GPUs, with a significantly reduced load on CPUs and ram, so whenever direct storage finally gets released, and games start being optimized for it then the calculations on how you want to budget out your parts will change as bottlenecks will be different (at least if you're specifically building to game, and aren't looking for a workstation/rendering machine (and there also might be motherboards that optimize for direct storage by changing the positioning of certain traces to better accommodate it).

 

[Gergar12]

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[gorfias]

The new 4070 comes out tomorrow. It is going to cost about $600 which is a bit high. $450 would be more like it.

Odd, I expect it is going to be slower than the similarly priced RX 6950 but run on fewer watts.

TC wants to use a Ryzen 7 7700. A 7800 is out now as well.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I've forgotten about this thread lol. Long story short, I've done my upgrade My pc now looks like the following:

• CPU: i5-13600k
• Cooler: DeepCool AK620
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790
• RAM: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory
• Storages: 250 GB for the OS, one 1 TB HDD and one 1 TB SSD
• GPU: MSI 3080
• Case: Corsair 4000D
• PSU: Super Flower Leadex III Gold 850W

Pretty much all the upgrades I was looking to get, save for a different cooler. Funny thing about the cooler; The CPU kept reaching 90-100C when playing Dead Space Remake, CP2077, Witcher 3 post-4.0, and Control. I tried all the obvious solutions such as reapplying thermal paste, undervolt the CPU, clean every part of my PC, but still was giving me that high temp.

Turns out I installed the cooler wrong


After re-installing the cooler correctly, now everything runs fine at reasonable temp.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The new 4070 comes out tomorrow. It is going to cost about $600 which is a bit high. $450 would be more like it.

Odd, I expect it is going to be slower than the similarly priced RX 6950 but run on fewer watts.

TC wants to use a Ryzen 7 7700. A 7800 is out now as well.

Some reviews that range from "not worth the asking price" to "eh, basically okay for the market we're stuck in":

Spoiler: Clump 'o videos

​

Turns out I installed the cooler wrong

Oof, yeah. You were basically sucking heat away from the GPU and giving it to your CPU. "Front to back" is typically the best method.

 

[Gordon_4]

I've forgotten about this thread lol. Long story short, I've done my upgrade My pc now looks like the following:

• CPU: i5-13600k
• Cooler: DeepCool AK620
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790
• RAM: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory
• Storages: 250 GB for the OS, one 1 TB HDD and one 1 TB SSD
• GPU: MSI 3080
• Case: Corsair 4000D
• PSU: Super Flower Leadex III Gold 850W

Pretty much all the upgrades I was looking to get, save for a different cooler. Funny thing about the cooler; The CPU kept reaching 90-100C when playing Dead Space Remake, CP2077, Witcher 3 post-4.0, and Control. I tried all the obvious solutions such as reapplying thermal paste, undervolt the CPU, clean every part of my PC, but still was giving me that high temp.

Turns out I installed the cooler wrong
View attachment 8504

After re-installing the cooler correctly, now everything runs fine at reasonable temp.

First thing, that looks beautifully clean (sans incorrect but now rectified cooler) and second thing, shit I need to get the other four fans for my case.

 

[FateTrap]

I also came up with intel CPU build, with my choice either being 13600k or 13700k

CPU​	*Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor​
CPU Cooler​	*ARCTIC Freezer 50 CPU Cooler​
Motherboard​	MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard​
Memory​	*G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory​

Budget-wise, it seems like intel is the better choice, but I heard some shady things with their products as of late.

What would be a good choice for the CPU? It'll mostly be for gaming but on the high end. Also could use a comment on other parts I've picked out

For gaming, office work and web browsing, the Intel 12600KF is probably still sufficient for a minimum of 8 years in my experience.
I get very good benchmark scores with this CPU:

This is with RAM at 6000 MHz and no overclock. Suppose I do RAM at 8000 MHz and an overclock then I get similar results to the i9-14900K (stock) with RAM at 6000 MHz:

An Intel 12600KF with RAM at 7200 MHz (or higher) is plenty fast in most games and apps you use most of the time.