Urgent advice - Upgrade on computer

[Nigel H-J]

Hi chaps, just need advice before this Monday as will be taking computer in to repair shop as it has broken down twice in as many weeks and have not been able to use it. Babs has suggested to upgrade which in turn, will be cheaper than getting a new one. This computer is now 6 years old and I really need to know which CPU to get as well as graphic card which is the latest to have failed. Found my wife's old laptop which I am using for just surfing.

My present specs are - i7-3400K - 36Gb RAM - and the RTX2070 that has now failed.

For long term which CPU i9 or above? Extra Ram or leave it as it is? Now the important bit,- Which Graphic Card. Basically I am hopeful that my power unit may stay but the motherboard will have to be uprated (I think) as will the cpu.

Any help will be appreciated but have been without the computer for just over 2 weeks and made an appointment to see the computer guy Monday morning so if any advice can be given earlier will be extremely helpful.

Regards
Nigel.

[TSR2]

Hi Nigel, current thinking seems to be the AMD CPU's (intel have had issues with the desktop 13 and 14 series CPU's so I'd avoid - never thought I'd say that) - I don't know much about the AMD CPU's but I've read good things about the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. On the Graphics card front how many monitors or are you going to use to you plant to use a VR headset?
32GB RAM is fine.
PSU is important and will depend to some extent on the Graphics card. An 850Watt might be fine, but most important is that its a good branded manufacturer, Coolermaster, MSI etc

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Ben, many thanks for your reply. The information you have given is helping a great deal as I really don't know which is best TBH. I even thought that the i9 processor would be better but now I am looking to buy from the list you have given me, I had no idea of the issues that intel was having with their CPU's.

Just found my order from Scan Computers and I think this one relates to the Power Unit: 3XS 650WCorsair RM 650X ATX PS. If so then would the 850 Watt be sufficient? From current pricing it may be a RTX 40-- something.so might need a higher Power Unit?

Sorry about the urgency but I needed help so that I have some understanding about what I need to ask for on Monday, Obviously, going to AMD will certainly mean a new mother board as well which I have taken into consideration.

VR will be used occasionally and at times I use a small monitor used for Pilot2ATC, not for the actual flight sim giving extra views such as external etc.

Regards
Nigel.

[Paul K]

If it were me, I'd come up with a budget and tell the repair shop to do what they can. I'd make a few stipulations, such as a RTX4090 GPU, and AMD processor ( which might mean a new motherboard ) and at least a 1000W PSU, if not bigger. The 4090 takes some oomph, so a slightly over-the-top PSU would be good insurance. If you are getting MSFS2024, the ideal spec is 64Gb of RAM - most people are saying 32 is more than adequate, but RAM is cheap so if there's anything left in the kitty, I'd go for 64.

I have an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU by the way. Its getting a bit long in the tooth, but has proven to be excellent for MSFS and other games.

[Tako_Kichi]

I built this system (and an almost identical one for my wife) a couple of years ago now. I had been an Intel guy for years after starting out with AMD stuff but like Ben said I ran into research that pointed out the issues Intel were having plus it was towards the end of the Covid related supply chain problems so Intel chips were harder to find than rocking horse poop!

I went with an AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor @ 3893 Mhz (8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)) on a Gigabyte B450 AORUS M motherboard. I used Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3200MHz ram and had a SATA III 500 GB SSD for the OS (Win 10) and a 1 TB M.2 SSD that was going to be purely for Steam games. I already had a 4 TB HDD that I re-used for general storage and non-Steam games and I re-used my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 video card. The PSU was a Corsair RMx Series RM750x 750W.

This rig has taken everything I can throw at it in terms of heavy simulator usage, be that flight sims (FSX, P3D), truck sims (ATS and ETS2), racing sims (Asseto Corsa, DiRT series, Project Cars, Forza), farm sims, battlefield sims (ArmA 2), etc., and it has never even blinked or hiccuped once! It has been by far the best rig I have ever built (and I've built a few). The only issue I have had with it was with the front cooling fan where one fan motor in a twin fan system got noisy and the bearings got 'lumpy' when hand turned, I replaced the fan(s) and it's been fine since.

Good luck with your new system.

[TSR2]

As Paul said, budget is key Nigel. If its the 4090, its a lot of cash, then add in a good quality power supply too, plus all the other bits and bobs and it becomes a huge sum. Its a new PC in effect rather than an upgrade.

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Larry, as you have seen from the previous posts I am now definitely going AMD especially now that you have written of your build. Hopefully, the prices will be in my range but if not, can always just do the necessaries. As far as I am concerned and from every-ones input, I now have a much clearer idea of what I should be looking towards.

As Paul said, budget is key Nigel. If its the 4090, its a lot of cash, then add in a good quality power supply too, plus all the other bits and bobs and it becomes a huge sum. Its a new PC in effect rather than an upgrade.

Thanks Ben and Paul, one thing I did note that this company does compete quite well with larger ones especially on price, so will have a talk with them and see what upgrades they would suggest and take it from there.

Regards
Nigel.

[TSR2]

Hi Nigel, get a full itemised component list before you hand over a penny (including the brand of each of the components). Something i read on another forum was that some of the 4090’s suffer from capacitor whine. A sort of high pitch whine. I’ve no idea how audible it would actually be, but it was suggested that the Gigabyte 4090’s didn’t have the problem.

[Charlie Bravo]

Hi mate,

I recently wrote a few bits down for someone I used to work with to guide him with his pending upgrade.
I'll copy and paste some of it here for you.
....................

Processors.

The latest generation of Intel processors plus I think the previous one, all have stability issues at present. It's been an ongoing thing that has plagued them, with Intel issuing new BIOS defaults to the motherboard vendors in a bid to stop the problems.
The majority of tech websites and YouTube channels are saying to avoid Intel as it stands which I think is good advice.

AMD have just released their 9000 series Zen 5 processors.
Whilst they provide a very slight performance boost compared to the 7000 series Zen 4, the Zen 4 X3D chips still provide the best gaming experience.
The X3D chips have a greater level 3 cache on the processor and many games absolutely love it.
However, one X3D chips stands head and shoulders above the rest and that's the 7800X3D.
It's an 8 core processor with all 8 cores on one chiplet.
The other AMD X3D processors offer 12 and 16 core options but are in fact slightly slower despite higher clock speeds. The reason being AMD can only put a max of 8 cores onto one chiplet so the 12 core has 8+4 and the 16 core has 8+8. The increases the latency on the processor and the additional level 3 cache is only available on one side meaning Windows needs to choose which part of the processor to use properly for the required task. It doesn't always work out and basically the 8 core 7800X3D is far faster.

The 9000 series Zen 5 X3D chips have yet to be announced or released. They are expected later this year or early next year.


Graphics cards.

Ray Tracing is appearing in more and more titles although it can be turned off in some. It'll also be in MSFS2024. It looks very pretty but hits frame rates.

AMD Radeon cards are not great with Ray Tracing at all. Nvidia handles it no problem but there is a performance hit regardless.

AMD are expected to release a new series of graphics cards towards the end of the year or early next year. Ray Tracing performance should be improved.

Nvidia are set to release their new cards early next year but nothing is known about them at all.

If you don't want to wait, let's talk current generation.

Nvidia 4000 series cards.

4060 and 4060ti... Absolutely not. Barely an improvement on the 3060 series.

4070... Faster but still not adequate really plus only 12gb VRAM which these days is starting to show some limitations.

4070 Super... Faster again but still only 12gb VRAM.

4070ti... Good performance but still only 12gb and replaced by the 4070ti Super so not necessarily readily available to buy.

4070ti Super... Finally a step up to 16gb VRAM.

4080... Still available but it was replaced completely by the 4080 Super. 16gb VRAM.

4080 Super... Provides a speed bump to the 4070ti Super and again has 16gb VRAM. It would be between this and the 4070ti Super but there is a price difference of about £150 between the two.

4090... Quite a significant speed bump over the 4080 Super but the same goes for the price. If you have a partner, this is the sort of thing you get delivered when they're out

If you don't care for Ray Tracing whatsoever, the current gen AMD cards would probably be between two options.
The 7900XT and 7900XTX with 20gb and 24gb VRAM.
The 7900XT is around 4070ti Super territory and the 7900XTX 4080 Super. Both are cheaper than their Nvidia counterparts.

At the lower end of the AMD scale are the 7900GRE and below that the 7800XT. They both have 16gb VRAM and rival the 4070 Super and 4070. I wouldn't look further down than that.

Both AMD and Nvidia have upscaling technology as well which is extremely useful. AMD have FSR and Nvidia DLSS but Nvidia is ahead in visual quality and performance there.

That'll do for now.

[Charlie Bravo]

Just some additional info following on from the above.

Motherboards.

AMD currently have 3 motherboard chipsets in use for their 7000 series processors, those being the A620, B650 and X670. They are shortly due to be replaced by the 800 series chipsets but they're not quite with us yet.

A620 is bottom line and they don't allow for any overclocking. The VRM's tend to not be the best either and can lead to higher temperatures and reduced performance. That's not to say there aren't any good A620 based boards but I wouldn't go for one myself.

B650 is the mid range and the one most end up with. They allow for overclocking, have more features, connectivity options etc but some still have dire VRM's. Hardware Unboxed on YouTube have done some interesting videos on that topic.

X670, the high end chipset. They don't tend to offer a great deal more other than some have USB4.
You can also get X670E boards which if I remember rightly have two chipsets on them for additional PCIe lanes... Ideal for lots of hard drives etc.


RAM.

It'll be DDR5 you'll need. Loads of options for that but AMD themselves have said 6000Mhz RAM is the sweet spot for Ryzen 7000 processors.
Looking at prices, 2x16gb DDR5 6000Mhz CAS48 is £86.72 whereas the same but CAS30 is £91.40.
A lower CAS number gives a faster access time which can improve performance.


Power Supply.

In terms of the power supply, I tend to favour Corsair units. There is such thing as a power supply tier list which puts various brands and models in order of quality etc.
That can be found here https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

I certainly wouldn't go near a cheap power supply claiming big numbers.


Hard drives.

SSD's all the way. Depending on the motherboard you end up with, you may be able to use between 1 and 3 m.2 drives. They are nice and easy to connect, use no wires and take up zero space in the case. Some boards support PCIe5 drives but they are expensive and offer no real world speed boost over PCIe4 drives.
In terms of the drives themselves, I usually get one for the operating system itself and one for games... 500gb or 1tb plus 2tb or 4tb. Lots of options available in terms of brands, speeds bla bla bla but I'd go for Western Digital SN850X drives.


Cooling.

For a few years now, I've used an All in One water cooler. It's been brilliant both in terms of it's cooling ability but also the fact that it's silent compared to normal air cooling options.
Something to consider perhaps but again there are quite a few options available and not all are great.


Cases.

Most people aren't fussed with case style but they can make a big difference to cooling and noise levels. Some also look hideous but that's a personal thing I suppose.
Fractal make some very good and very nice looking cases as do Lian-Li and Antec. Well worth some thought.
They do of course also come in different sizes ranging from full size ATX down to ITX which can be tiny.
Going for a full new build is the time to decide what size PC you want as it'll affect what motherboard etc is to be purchased.

I think that'll definitely do for now