Update or abstain? Going from Core i7 2600k

[Froberg]

Hi all

I'm on an.. aging.. platform at the moment. Still running my Core i7 2600k with only the GPU being updated since I built the system. ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 mainboard and 16GB of memory.
It's running on an old Corsair Force 128G SSD drive.

I recently upgraded the GPU to Geforce 1080.

I recently came in to a bit of money due to a tax refund, and have long been considering whether or not I should upgrade.
I haven't seen a great many reasons to do so over the years.
Is it worth it now?
I see varying opinions on the subject, but I am really tempted because I want to move to nVME, hoping it'll give me a comparable boost as when I went from HDD to SSD.

Then again, I could just swap out the 128 gig drive for a 256 one and call it a day.

It's a tough choice, with AMD Launching the new ryzen chips, but intell still leading the pack.

I mostly use my computer for gaming and for encoding.

Is it bat- <MODERATOR EDIT FOR PROFANITY> crazy to wait another year, or is now the right time to upgrade? Thanks.

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE !!!

 

[King_V]

From what I'm given to understand, in real-world, everyday use, you won't see much of a benefit in going to nVME from a SATA SSD.

There's not a huge benefit in speed over the course of the last several generations of Intel CPUs.

I think that maybe going with a bigger SSD is the only real way to go, if you're going to do upgrades.

I've been tempted myself to upgrade, though I'm on Haswell rather than Sandy Bridge, but, honestly, I went with going to a SATA SSD and upgrading to a GTX 1080 (after having upgraded to an ultrawide monitor). I also bumped up from 8 to 16GB of DDR3 when I found a deal on some low CL DDR3 RAM.

But, there's no real justifiable gain for the cost of upgrading, in my view.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, going from my aging 27" 1080p monitor to the IPS curved ultrawide 38" monitor (3840x1600) was a splurge that I normally could NOT justify, except that I needed the horizontal resolution to be the equivalent of the dual 1080p monitors I have at work, for those days when I work remotely. The 21:9(ish) aspect ratio is VERY nice for gaming, though.

 

[Froberg]

Apologies for my liberal use of bats and excrement metaphors dear moderator.
King; I am kinda disappointed, as that was the assessment I've more or less reached on my own. Would be nice to get some new H/W, I'm sure you'd agree. But then again, it's a loaded question.
I myself got work to pay for my current monitor, albeit it's a mere 27" UHD Dell monitor. It does the job though.

Maybe I should splurge on a Nvidia shield for the living room instead.

Still looking for differing opinions, if anyone's offerin'!

 

[CountMike]

If it's for gaming, an i7 2600 is a bottleneck for 108o and your only option is to build new system as an upgrade. It all depends how satisfied you are with present performance, nobody can make that decision for you. i7 2600 is fine processor but way behind in features comparing to new ones.

 

[King_V]

If it's for gaming, an i7 2600 is a bottleneck for 108o and your only option is to build new system as an upgrade. It all depends how satisfied you are with present performance, nobody can make that decision for you. i7 2600 is fine processor but way behind in features comparing to new ones.

How so? I'd suggest monitor resolution would determine whether the 1080 is enough, not enough, or too much more than the CPU that Froberg has.

It may be way behind in features, or several generations old, but, for example, in gaming, with all other factors being the same, how much performance gain in gaming would there actually be in upgrading to a Ryzen or Coffee Lake? Certainly not enough to even remotely justify the cost, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[CountMike]

Stronger GPU is, more processor it needs and when you get to high resolutions it's even more important.

 

[King_V]

I suppose it depends on the game. I'm given to understand that, generally, even a Sandy Bridge i7 is more than enough for a lot of games, and going higher resolution is almost entirely dependent on the GPU.

 

[CountMike]

Nobody needs 1080 for games like that are supposed to run on older systems.

 

[King_V]

Running at 4K (as the OP is doing), you probably do, I think.

Borderlands 2, for example, ran just fine at 1080p on lesser video cards, whether it was my son's older Sandy Bridge system, or my Haswell. I was using an R9 285. Once I went to 4k ultrawide (3840x1600), the game struggled to maintain 30fps. Upgrade to a GTX 1080, with no other changes, and it's smooth as silk now (I cap it at 60fps)

 

[zyh1987]

i think it's okay to keep your system, you see about 10%~15% performance improvement in IPC over each CPU generation.

graphic card is a different story. you see anywhere 20%~50% in each generation.

 

[Froberg]

i think it's okay to keep your system, you see about 10%~15% performance improvement in IPC over each CPU generation.

graphic card is a different story. you see anywhere 20%~50% in each generation.

Which is also why I am on my.. third.. GPU upgrade, I think.

I am only on UHD at present, I see no need to go higher any time soon, happy with it as is. I could possibly gain some encoding performance by going with a ryzen build, but I'm not sure if it's justified.

High memory prices are also something of a deterrent, for me, to building a new system right now.

I got the 1080 to ensure I was able to run all games right now, and most future titles, in uHD without sacrificing quality or performance, so far it's been working. I didn't bother with a TI, since that seems to be for 4k gaming mostly.

Maybe I should mention that the CPU is also OC'ed to 4.2GHz, that helps make it competitive.

 

[King_V]

Wait, I'm confused. What resolution is your monitor? I thought UHD = 4K...

 

[Froberg]

Wait, I'm confused. What resolution is your monitor? I thought UHD = 4K...

Huh, guess it could be. At work we always refer to 4k as 4k, 8k as 8k and uhd as the step between 1080 and 4k.

Specifically my resolution is 2560*1440.

After having read up on it, due to your comment, I guess I should have said QHD based on what I just read. But really, when we order a laptop (like I just did in January) or when we talk monitor upgrades in the office, we're talking UHD for that resolution.
Maybe it's country-skewed somehow?

Apologies for the misunderstanding.

 

[King_V]

Could be country-skewed, I suppose. I've barely gotten a grasp of the alphabet soup of designations. Not getting into the weird stuff like WXGA or whatever, as I understand them:

HD = 1280x720
FHD (full HD) = 1920x1080 (also often referred to as 1080p)
QHD (quad HD, because it's sort of like 4 HD screens laid out in a 2x2 arrangement) = 2560x1440. Also sometimes called 2K or 2.5K.
UltraWide 2k/2.5k = 2560x1080
4K = 3840x2160 (basically like quad FHD if you will)
UltraWide 4K = 3840x1600

At least these are the most common ones as I understand them. I'm not quite sure where 3440x(whatever) falls in this scheme.

But, in your case, the GTX 1080 will easily handle everything you can possibly throw at it at 2560x1440. Your system's great as is.

 

[Froberg]

Went ahead and reinstalled today. Running dual 250GB Samsung Evo SSD's instead now. Scrapped the mechanical internal drive in favor of NAS storage. All smooth sailin'.

Thanks for the input.