What to upgrade first

Hey there, I have a gigabite z77m-d3h motherboard, i7-3770, 16gb hyperx predator(probably 1600MHz) ddr3 ram. All of this is 6 yrs old. I upgraded my gpu to gtx 1060-3GB last year. I’ve saved up some money (around $500) and I’m ready to do some upgrade. I can upgrade to ryzen 5 3600, msi b450 tomahawk and hyperx predator cl16 3200mhz ddr4 16gb ram or I can upgrade my gpu to let’s say rx 5700. What should I upgrade first if you take the age in mind.

Conversation 13 comments

  • simont

    Premium Member
    28 August, 2019 - 11:46 am

    <p>What type of games are you playing? That would help in deciding about CPU or GPU.</p>

    • Lordbaal

      28 August, 2019 - 6:54 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452361">In reply to simont:</a></em></blockquote><p>That all BS, when people say that games play better on Intel.</p><p>With everything the same, except for the mobo and GPU. Gaming is virtually the same. Maybe on Intel you get and extra 15 fps. Which is you get over 60 now, is nothing. </p>

      • wright_is

        Premium Member
        29 August, 2019 - 5:13 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#452626">In reply to Lordbaal:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think that is more about are the games CPU intensive (in which case updating the Mobo, CPU and memory would be priority) or GPU intensive (in which case update the graphic card first).</p><p>Given how many generations old the CPU and motherboard are, I'd be tempted to update them first anyway. Certainly moving from a Core i5-3000 to a Core i5-8000 or Ryzen 3 makes a huge difference on our work laptops, but there again, they also include NVME storage, as opposed to SATA-2 SSDs or hard drives.</p>

        • Lordbaal

          29 August, 2019 - 10:49 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#452680">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>I'm not talking about 10 year old cpu's to todays.</p><p>I'm talking about like a Ryzen 2 or 3000 compare to a 8 or 9th gen Intel.</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    28 August, 2019 - 12:40 pm

    <p>You can't really go wrong with AMD these days – you get way more VFM for your investment. The new Ryzen's will go toe-to-toe with Intel's best for less money, and do everything you need.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      29 August, 2019 - 5:14 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452382">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>Agreed, especially if the software benefits from multiple cores. I don't game, but do a lot of VM work and photo editing, I never notice any slowdowns on my Ryzen 1700 system.</p>

  • Daishi

    Premium Member
    28 August, 2019 - 10:02 pm

    <p>I’d start by asking what your storage looks like? From a 6 year old machine odds are the most perceivable performance boost you could get would be from upgrading to newer, faster storage and at a fraction of the price. </p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      29 August, 2019 - 5:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452648">In reply to Daishi:</a></em></blockquote><p>Agreed, but that would probably also require a modern motherboard with faster SATA ports as well. I was going to suggest adding a modern SSD to the mobo/processor/memory list. If he only has an HDD, putting an SSD would improve the performance on the old system dramatically, but if he already has an (older) SSD that is throttled by the motherboard, going for a new mobo/SSD combo is the way to go.</p>

      • Daishi

        Premium Member
        29 August, 2019 - 8:29 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#452682">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>All true. And that’s why I’d be asking the question. </p>

  • BigM72

    28 August, 2019 - 10:34 pm

    <p>Without being an expert, I think you should see a noticeable impact from switching from a Sandy Bridge era intel chip to a current-gen CPU. This will benefit you outside of games too. The 1060 is a decent GPU.</p><p><br></p><p>As the others say, you don't mention your storage but some high speed, high capacity storage will improve your game load times.</p>

  • codymesh

    29 August, 2019 - 2:28 am

    <p>I would say going from your 1060 gpu to a GPU to a RX5700 would give you a much higher boost in performance than upgrading your CPU. </p><p><br></p><p>Also most games use way more than 3GB of VRAM these days, and the RX5700 will give you better performance even with the settings/resolution turned up, despite being on the same CPU</p>

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    29 August, 2019 - 4:14 am

    <p>Hi. I just upgraded. I did the graphics card first and found the upgrade lackluster. Once I compared my results to the performance other people posted it was clear that the CPU is the problem. You will see an uplift on the new GPU, but you will also see a uplift from your current GPU once you upgrade the platform feeding it. In the end, I should have boosted the platform first and get a little more performance from my old GPU first. So as an exercise, I would look at benchmarks for the Geforce 1060 3Gb and compare to what you are getting now. That should give you an indication of what you have availble potentially. Also, on a six year old system, hopefully you do have some SSD already, that is the single biggest upgrade you can make.</p>

  • wunderbar

    Premium Member
    29 August, 2019 - 10:22 am

    <p>honestly, I'd hold on to the money, keep saving, and then when you have enough saved up do a wholesale upgrade. going from a 1060 3GB to something like a 5700 XT will be a good upgrade, but if you're gaming at 1080p it won't be a massive jump. the CPU upgrade will be significant for all tasks except gaming, so if gaming is your primary use of the machine it's not necessarily a reason to upgrade by itself, especailly when you also need to buy RAM to go with the new CPU and motherboard.</p><p><br></p><p>if you give it a few more months, and then can upgrade everything at once, you'll get a pretty significant upgrade, more so than doing it piecemeal. </p>

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