Time for an Upgrade?

[Ira Robinson]

Hi guys. Thinking of pulling the trigger on an update since it's been a few years since the last one.  Here is what I am currently using:

Intel Core Ivy Bridge i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40 GHz  3.40GHz

24 GB of memory (I don't remember which kind)

GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card[font=]2 Dell & 2 Acer Monitors

What I need to know is which motherboard should I upgrade to?  Since everything is on sale this weekend I have a chance to pick up some stuff at a fairly inexpensive price, but just because motherboards are selling for as low as $200 I don't want to buy junk, or something that I'm not going to see a difference in performance from.  But I also don't want to go out and spend money just to spend it.

So what say you all?  Is there any way this discussion can come to a consensus?   lol
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[Elai Kindler]

Confused a little, are you planning on getting a new motherboard for your old 3570k? Or are you looking for a good motherboard to pair with a new or fairly new CPU?

[Ira Robinson]

Confused a little, are you planning on getting a new motherboard for your old 3570k? Or are you looking for a good motherboard to pair with a new or fairly new CPU?

I don't know what I am thinking of doing. Is just a new motherboard the wrong way to go? I am not buying a new computer. I want to upgrade this one is all I know.  Assuming that is financially smart, of course.

[Ryan Parry]

A new motherboard for your current CPU isn't going to give you any performance increase at all. A new motherboard and a new CPU, that will do the trick.

The Intel i5-8400 and a H370 are good if you don't overclock.

If you do overclock, you can go with the i5-8600K and a Z370 board, or spend the extra for the i7-8700K.

AMD has good offerings as well, the Ryzen 5 2600 or a Ryzen 7 2700 are bother good CPU's you can pair with a X470 or X370 board. Ryzen likes fast RAM though.

[Elai Kindler]

It really depends on your workload. Is this computer mainly for some light games, maybe a flight sim, and word processing? Or are you looking for a more hardcore computer that would be faster for rendering, and other large CPU/GPU based applications?

If you are looking for a computer that could handle games like let's say P3D or X-Plane 11 with lots of add-ons on high settings, I would look for a Ryzen processor that can help increase your FPS because of it's larger core/thread count. Maybe a Ryzen 5 2600x or 2700 could do the trick.

However, if you are looking for something on the more basic side to play games at medium settings, and other light applications. An I5-8400 or 8600 may be your best choice.

[Krikor Hajian]

The biggest way to get a performance imrpovement, especially with ESP-based flight simulators, is to upgrade the CPU, as others have said. This is going to be a more expensive upgrade, as it will also require a new motherboard and potentially new cooling system (or more components, depending on comparability).

That said, intel processors tend to work well for flight sim as more cores don’t really help and the high clock speeds and single core performance are really good. The i7-7700K or -8700K are about the best you can get (with the 8700K being a little bit newer, having two additional cores, and being a little more expensive) for FSX/P3D. They both run well with X-Plane as well.

With that said, you’re looking at considerably more investment than $200. You’d need to get a seperate cooler with either of those options, although even some decent air cooled options are pretty cheap.

If you’re just looking for something to speed up your machine a biwith go every day tasks, this is definitely not the way to go.

[Mark Hubbert]

Ira, I just gave you a big raise, spend that money.  Build you a big and bad computer and then take the lovely wife out to dinner as you beg her for forgiveness.   

[Don Desfosse]

Wait!  I told you I gave him a big raise just before I retired.  And now he got another one?  Oy!  Lucky son of a gun!

[Ira Robinson]

Schscchh!   Jeez you guys, she doesn't know about the raise yet, which is why I can't buy a new computer.  She'll see the new box and not have to wonder what's up.  But if I can sneak some new components into the old box she won't ever know  ; )

[Brad Littlejohn]

Like with the others are saying here, you're looking at a cascading effect with what you are looking for.

That said, I'm in the same boat as you:

Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard
8GB DDR3 PC16000 memory
Intel Core i5-3570K CPU
Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 290 3GB PCIe video card

If I were to upgrade the motherboard, like you are considering, that may require a CPU AND a memory upgrade. Most have jumped from DDR3 to DDR4 memory, so if you find a motherboard that doesn't, you would be okay as far as that goes. Otherwise, you'll be looking to buy the same amount of memory you already have again. Also, depending on the motherboard and everything else you have, you could be looking at a PSU upgrade as well, so it all will start to add up..

Right now, there isn't that much that has changed as far as the sims go, so you should be plenty fine with where you're at. I mean, I'm running P3D 4.2 with a fair amount of sceneries without any problems (Flightbeam, FSDT, and 1 or 2 from Imaginesim, only 2 real payware aircraft - FeelThere and Virtualcol, Nav data from FSTramp and Navigraph, ActiveSky), and am getting smooth framerates throughout.

The Core i5 was released in Q2 2012, so for it coming up n 6 years old, it's fairly resilient. I only went with it as I could easily turn this box into a Hackintosh by simply doing a reinstall of OS X, as it worked with a Core i3 I was mucking around with. But it's a workhorse. Is it worth it? unless there is some seriously major software update/release that would require it, I'd say to stick with what you have. it won't be any slower than what you currently have unless aforementioned update happens.

BL.