Hello. I've had this PC (well half of it at least) since 2009; I was an i7 920 with 3GB DDR3 , GTX 260 Core 216 and 1 TB ATA HD on Windows 32-bit Vista via a mom/pop chain of computer stores that in hindsight, probably installed used parts to cut corners for their pricing.
The build quality wasn't great, the thermal paste was a mess and CPU was always running very hot, but I really didn't care enough as all I did was work and run some low intensity games for several year. Last year, I did some large tinkering. Upgraded to Win 7 64-bit; Reseated my CPU with thermal paste, swapped out the old tri-channel 3GB DDR3 with 2x 6GB kits for 12 GB and got a MSi GTX 760 2GB Gaming Edition - Although initially happy, I regretted my choice of card somewhat as I realized some of the games I already owned could easily max out 2GB VRAM on ultra settings and I was experiencing performance lags so I had to turn setting down.
Total cost plus tax (12% up here in Canada) ran about C$550 . It was a good boost to my performance, and I was able to OC my i7920 with the stock cooler up to 3.2ghz with the voltages set to auto. It felt like an entirely new PC after the upgrade.
The Mainboard is quite old, supporting the old i7 socket so I feel upgrading CPU and going for an SSD on my current rig is a bit of waste and probably risky given my personal confort level with doing the upgrades myself.
My initial plan was to ride out the CPU, with minor tweaks for another 12-18 months then get a new system.
Fast forward a year later, I was able to find a buyer for my 760 and upgraded to the MSi 970 4GB OC for a new additional investment C$300 after tax (yes I paid nearly $60 on taxes there); while genuinely satisfied, I'm also feeling a bit of buyer's remorse for the 970 ..heh.
In the interim, I've been paying some attention to CPU component announcements and understand AMD is prepping their new Zen chips and Intel has skylake on the way. Zen is in 2016 and Skylake is sometime later this year. So I need advice, on perhaps some positive reinforcement as to how much longer I should keep this current rig.
My revised gameplan is wait for the Intel Skylake chips to hit and pick one of the better tiered CPU from the Gen 1 lineup some months after launch to get more reasonable pricing, while having a lookout at Zen in 2016.This should probably put me into the middle to late of 2016 for my next build, which would extend my initial 12-18 month plan last year to 24-28 months.
I also feel by going with Skylake instead of the current Haswell/Broadwell chips that I can have a system that's configured more towards future needs. Also with DX12 coming it's probably also a good idea to pick up a new GPU next year for that, or I can always SLI my current 970s.
Obviously what my current system is lacking is a stronger CPU with better single core performance to help with my gaming and a proper SSD configuration for overall system performance.
tl;dr - have 6 year old going on 7 year i7 920 based set-up that I spent some money on this year and last year with an initial plan to build an entirely new system in late 2015 but with my spluring on a GTX970 this year and with skylake and zen hitting in late 2015/2016 I feel I should just wait.
Is this reasonable? If not, which current CPU offering should I pick instead to build my next system around? My goal is to keep the same basic CPU configuration for the next 5 years, and upgrade RAM and gfx card as needed.
Further what sort of SSD configuration should I look into. 250 GB- 500 GB SSD configuration seems quite popular for OS and critical apps , but this is often paired with a SATA HD for mass storage. Is it recommended to put my Steam library in the SSD or keep them in the larger SATA drive instead?
The build quality wasn't great, the thermal paste was a mess and CPU was always running very hot, but I really didn't care enough as all I did was work and run some low intensity games for several year. Last year, I did some large tinkering. Upgraded to Win 7 64-bit; Reseated my CPU with thermal paste, swapped out the old tri-channel 3GB DDR3 with 2x 6GB kits for 12 GB and got a MSi GTX 760 2GB Gaming Edition - Although initially happy, I regretted my choice of card somewhat as I realized some of the games I already owned could easily max out 2GB VRAM on ultra settings and I was experiencing performance lags so I had to turn setting down.
Total cost plus tax (12% up here in Canada) ran about C$550 . It was a good boost to my performance, and I was able to OC my i7920 with the stock cooler up to 3.2ghz with the voltages set to auto. It felt like an entirely new PC after the upgrade.
The Mainboard is quite old, supporting the old i7 socket so I feel upgrading CPU and going for an SSD on my current rig is a bit of waste and probably risky given my personal confort level with doing the upgrades myself.
My initial plan was to ride out the CPU, with minor tweaks for another 12-18 months then get a new system.
Fast forward a year later, I was able to find a buyer for my 760 and upgraded to the MSi 970 4GB OC for a new additional investment C$300 after tax (yes I paid nearly $60 on taxes there); while genuinely satisfied, I'm also feeling a bit of buyer's remorse for the 970 ..heh.
In the interim, I've been paying some attention to CPU component announcements and understand AMD is prepping their new Zen chips and Intel has skylake on the way. Zen is in 2016 and Skylake is sometime later this year. So I need advice, on perhaps some positive reinforcement as to how much longer I should keep this current rig.
My revised gameplan is wait for the Intel Skylake chips to hit and pick one of the better tiered CPU from the Gen 1 lineup some months after launch to get more reasonable pricing, while having a lookout at Zen in 2016.This should probably put me into the middle to late of 2016 for my next build, which would extend my initial 12-18 month plan last year to 24-28 months.
I also feel by going with Skylake instead of the current Haswell/Broadwell chips that I can have a system that's configured more towards future needs. Also with DX12 coming it's probably also a good idea to pick up a new GPU next year for that, or I can always SLI my current 970s.
Obviously what my current system is lacking is a stronger CPU with better single core performance to help with my gaming and a proper SSD configuration for overall system performance.
tl;dr - have 6 year old going on 7 year i7 920 based set-up that I spent some money on this year and last year with an initial plan to build an entirely new system in late 2015 but with my spluring on a GTX970 this year and with skylake and zen hitting in late 2015/2016 I feel I should just wait.
Is this reasonable? If not, which current CPU offering should I pick instead to build my next system around? My goal is to keep the same basic CPU configuration for the next 5 years, and upgrade RAM and gfx card as needed.
Further what sort of SSD configuration should I look into. 250 GB- 500 GB SSD configuration seems quite popular for OS and critical apps , but this is often paired with a SATA HD for mass storage. Is it recommended to put my Steam library in the SSD or keep them in the larger SATA drive instead?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram