Is an upgrade worth my while?

BrandNewMedium

Hi folks

Currently running a gaming machine that I built myself, I mostly play Trainz: A New Era, it's a train sim and world builder. I built this machine about 5 years ago and have upgraded on or two bits over the years but the new game versions have it slightly sluggish.

Current spec:

ANTEC 1200 Tower ATX
CORSAIR TX 850 Watt
INTEL Core i7 960, 3.2 GHz LGA 1366 Socket, L3, 8 MB Cache
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2, Socket 1366 ATX, UDMA133, SATA-300 (RAID) eSATA
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 4.0 GB-GDDR5, SDRAM
12 GB, G.Skill DDR3, PC3-10666 (1333 MHz) CL7-7-7-18, Triple C

I'm wondering if a GTX 1080 is worth while in a straight graphics card swap or should I be looking at getting a new i7 and motherboard?

Something I've been contemplating is a monitor replacement, my current monitor is a few years old and nothing special. Is it a factor at all?

No real budget problems, I'd spend 1500 on an upgrade if it was going to make it worth the spend.

Any advice?

Digital Solitude

1080 would be totally wasted with a 960, wasted at 1080p anyways, presuming thats the res you're at.

I'd say hold on a few weeks and see what Ryzen brings and then go for a CPU upgrade, 970 should still be fine

BrandNewMedium

Digital Solitude wrote: »

1080 would be totally wasted with a 960, wasted at 1080p anyways, presuming thats the res you're at.

I'd say hold on a few weeks and see what Ryzen brings and then go for a CPU upgrade, 970 should still be fine

Cheers, I've always been an Intel guy so if a processor and board upgrade makes more sense, even with Ryzen I'd probably go for an i7.

So perhaps my best route here is an i7, new board, new RAM and stick with the 970?

Digital Solitude

Brand loyalty is a bit of a sillyness but it's your PC.

I don't think you'd need to do full i7, I'd get a B250 board with an i5 and 8gb DD4, would run you about €350 being generous. Add about €100 if you want an i7

TerrorFirmer

The i7-960 is still pretty fast (relatively speaking, would still run the latest CPU heavy games like Battlefield 1, Fallout 4, etc quite well with a good card, which you have), when you say it's sluggish what is the issue? Low framerate? Because looking at the requirements for that game, your spec should cut through it like butter. It doesn't appear to be overly demanding.

The i7-960 old, but it's still good. All 1st gen Intel i7's still hold up well enough especially the faster clocked ones. If you've gotten this longevity out of your current machine, I'd be inclined to recommend you the same again - i7-7700K and 16GB DDR4 on a B250/H270/Z270 board depending on what features you want.

K.O.Kiki

Upgrade the GPU maybe (980 Ti / 1070)

Overclock the CPU

Get a 250Gb+ SSD

wotzgoingon

You would be better off getting a Xeon X5660 or similar and overclock it to 4.2-4.4GHz. It is a 6 core 12 thread CPU. I have one myself and it is perfect. I was thinking of upgrading to a Ryzen CPU but tbh there is nothing wrong with this PC. It plays all games flawlessly.

K.O.Kiki

wotzgoingon wrote: »

You would be better off getting a Xeon X5660 or similar and overclock it to 4.2-4.4GHz. It is a 6 core 12 thread CPU. I have one myself and it is perfect. I was thinking of upgrading to a Ryzen CPU but tbh there is nothing wrong with this PC. It plays all games flawlessly.

Just had a look at the eBay prices of those, insane how cheap it is!

wotzgoingon

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Just had a look at the eBay prices of those, insane how cheap it is!

I know. They were over a grand when new for server applications. They overclock brilliantly also, 100% stable. They perform once overclocked as good as the i7 990X which is the best CPU for this 1366 platform.

Samuel T. Cogley

Even if you're an Intel fanboi, still wait for Ryzen. Pricing should get a shake-up (hopefully).