Hardware & Technical Is this worth upgrading?

[Jezzah]

My system is about 5 years old aside from extra ram and a 980ti GPU.

My cpu is an i7-3770k running at 3.5ghz and motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth z77.

Like I said it's about 5 years old now. Those two components. I was thinking about upgrading the cpu to something more recent. Is it worth an upgrade? If so cost isn't a big issue.

Cheers tech savvy forum people's.

 

[Kemo]

My system is about 5 years old aside from extra ram and a 980ti GPU.

My cpu is an i7-3770k running at 3.5ghz and motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth z77.

Like I said it's about 5 years old now. Those two components. I was thinking about upgrading the cpu to something more recent. Is it worth an upgrade? If so cost isn't a big issue.

Cheers tech savvy forum people's.

interesting, my specs are similar (except with a GTX1080) - I've not felt the need to upgrade the CPU yet, even playing ED on a CV1, everything works as well as it could.

I'm waiting until something comes along that really taxes my CPU, currently there's not much out there yet that does, so i'll continue with the old tech for the mo.

But interested in what others feel on this...

 

[Jezzah]

Thanks for reply anyway I'm not in any particular rush really like you say it's playing everything pretty well..not ultra stuff but still OK. Just felt with it being 5 years old ish I was getting well behind curve.

 

[Zieman]

i7 3770K & GTX 980ti should run E: D on Ultra settings easy @1080p, and quite well @1440p too. If you up the resolution to 4k (2160p), then in stations and on planet surfaces (especially planetary bases) your PC will struggle on Ultra settings, but otherwise should be ok.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Refresh the thermal paste, check for any bad capacitors (I doubt you'll have any), plop in a newer graphics card and enjoy

I don't think you'll see much difference though - that rig is perfectly capable.

 

[SMcA]

I'm waiting until something comes along that really taxes my CPU, currently there's not much out there yet that does,

I've been using PovRay for almost 20 years. That will suck up every CPU tick you can give it.

To OP
If you can get a good framerate on the highest quality settings then you won't need to upgrade.

 

[MickyG1982]

My system is about 5 years old aside from extra ram and a 980ti GPU.

My cpu is an i7-3770k running at 3.5ghz and motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth z77.

Like I said it's about 5 years old now. Those two components. I was thinking about upgrading the cpu to something more recent. Is it worth an upgrade? If so cost isn't a big issue.

Cheers tech savvy forum people's.

Well, honestly you already have the top end i7 installed, other than changing it for a Xeon (pointless) your only real option would be to change the motherboard, processor and RAM to Kaby Lake.

 

[TOGSolid]

interesting, my specs are similar (except with a GTX1080) - I've not felt the need to upgrade the CPU yet, even playing ED on a CV1, everything works as well as it could.

I'm waiting until something comes along that really taxes my CPU, currently there's not much out there yet that does, so i'll continue with the old tech for the mo.

But interested in what others feel on this...

I have the same setup with the Sabertooth z77, an i7 3770k, 16GB of RAM, and an ASUS STRIX 1080 and my rig demolishes everything I throw at it. I've even got a 4k screen and my rig handles it with no problems. Much like you I've seen zero reason to touch anything else in my system after my 1080 upgrade (I was running SLI 670s). I am mildly tempted to throw a 1TB SSD in there to use as a game drive just for laughs but that's about it.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

My system is about 5 years old aside from extra ram and a 980ti GPU.

My cpu is an i7-3770k running at 3.5ghz and motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth z77.

Like I said it's about 5 years old now. Those two components. I was thinking about upgrading the cpu to something more recent. Is it worth an upgrade? If so cost isn't a big issue.

Cheers tech savvy forum people's.

From a poor person perspective, it's not worth upgrading yet. Lol
Your PC is waaaaaaaay better, and slightly newer than mine, and i still haven't done an upgrade.
CPUs last for ages really, i was running an Intel Q6600 quad core 2.4ghz for ages. Lol
While the 1080 ti GPU is much better, at £500~(or whatever) it's probably not worth it unless you can actually see the performance difference.
In all likelihood, you're already gaming at maximum in all areas anyway... So, not really worth it. Not yet anyway.
I always aim to skip a couple of generations of GPU (about 8 in this case!), And even more CPU generations. (I usually upgrade each time RAM changes).

Just my opinion.

If you have plenty of spare cash, then why not.

 

[Porina]

In terms of hardware performance, if it does what you need it to, there's no need as such. I'm running a 980 Ti still, and while I could get a 1080 Ti, I don't think the performance increase would justify its costs. My previous main system was a 2600k and it made a lot less day to day performance difference than expected when I replaced it with a 6700k. There was a difference under heavy compute loads though.

So, if there is no performance reason, there are non-performance excuses to upgrade. Do you need newer hardware support for things? My current system has UEFI not old bios, which really helps the boot times. The 3rd party chipset USB3 of the old system was rubbish and was very picky about compatibility, no problems at all with the new one. Maybe you fancy a M.2 SSD? To be honest, there is little real world usage difference between it and SATA ones outside sustained large file transfers and benchmarks. If you have the cash, ditch any HDs and replace them all with SSDs. It may be overkill, but I have a combined total over 2TB of SSD in my main system so even my games load slightly quicker

Or, do the cosmetic thing. Your PC isn't a PC unless it has RGB LEDs on everything, and a tempered glass side to show it all off. Plastic windows are so 2015.

 

[Jezzah]

Thanks all for pleasantly putting me back in my box here

I guess I felt that after 5 years I should be sticking something new in there. Glad to be wrong! I will wait a few more years and do a whole system refresh mobile, cpu, gpu the whole damn thing.

Appreciate the advice.

 

[CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned]

Thanks all for pleasantly putting me back in my box here

I guess I felt that after 5 years I should be sticking something new in there. Glad to be wrong! I will wait a few more years and do a whole system refresh mobile, cpu, gpu the whole damn thing.

Appreciate the advice.

Assuming it's just for Elite: Dangerous then the only reason you'd need to upgrade is if you're going to use VR. Other than that it'd be marginal improvement at best, if you plan on using VR then 100% yes upgrade the lot but it doesn't sound like you are. Plus I'm not sure it'd be for you what with the eye patch and all!

 

[Jezzah]

Ha yeah rubbish depth perception. It's for ED and basically any new good games being released from rpgs to fps to space and back.

 

[shadragon]

If on a 1080 monitor, you should be fine. If thinking of VR or 4K monitor, then yes time to upgrade.

 

[TOGSolid]

If on a 1080 monitor, you should be fine. If thinking of VR or 4K monitor, then yes time to upgrade.

Maybe not even then with that 980ti. That's still a pretty beefy card and Elite really isn't that graphically demanding. I get something like 80-90 FPS at 4k in Elite with a near identical setup save for me having a 1080. I suspect the 980ti would still handily crank out around 60FPS no big deal.

 

[Zieman]

Maybe not even then with that 980ti. That's still a pretty beefy card and Elite really isn't that graphically demanding. I get something like 80-90 FPS at 4k in Elite with a near identical setup save for me having a 1080. I suspect the 980ti would still handily crank out around 60FPS no big deal.

In most situations, yes. But not everywhere @ Ultra settings, stating this from personal experience .
- i7 4770K, GTX 980ti, 16GB, SSD, 4k
- Slightly downgraded Ultra settings (bloom OFF, ambient occlusion OFF, FXAA), in game frame limiter & vsync OFF, Nvidia adaptive vsync & triple buffering ON
=> usually stable 60 FPS, dips below sometimes on planets, in planetary bases or in busy stations (oh, and briefly during hyperspace every jump)

 

[TOGSolid]

In most situations, yes. But not everywhere @ Ultra settings, stating this from personal experience .
- i7 4770K, GTX 980ti, 16GB, SSD, 4k
- Slightly downgraded Ultra settings (bloom OFF, ambient occlusion OFF, FXAA), in game frame limiter & vsync OFF, Nvidia adaptive vsync & triple buffering ON
=> usually stable 60 FPS, dips below sometimes on planets, in planetary bases or in busy stations (oh, and briefly during hyperspace every jump)

60FPS Ultra or bust is my upgrade criteria so yeah, a video card upgrade would be in order if they're wanting to go 4K