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Upgrade advice.

Omyth
Level 7
Hello everyone.

So currently im running a rather old rig I build about 4 years ago. im looking to upgrade a bit without hurting the bank.

I will keep my PSU and case. Id like to upgrade my MB, CPU, Ram, And GFX card. The entire system is water cooled so im going to need to redo that as well.

im currently using:
Maximus VI Formula
i7 4770k
2x GTX 770's
16GB DDR3 ram

So obviously I am going to just reuse most things like res/fans/both rads. Any advice is appreciated, and thanks for reading. 🙂
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28 REPLIES 28

Korth
Level 14
The obvious upgrade is to a Z270 MAXIMUS IX or STRIX motherboard, along with i7-7700K and a dual-channel DDR4 kit.

Your existing CPU block/cooler might be compatible with LGA1151. Or it might require you purchase a socket-refit kit (which should be cheaper than replacing the entire cooler). Chances are LGA1151 wasn't around when you bought it, but if your block/cooler is still on market then the advertising will be updated with LGA1151 (in)compatibility.

To be honest, you'd gain almost as much general performance by upgrading your i7-4770K to an i7-4790K and your memory to a dual-channel 2x8GB DDR3-3100 kit (the best officially "supported" by your M6F mobo, although in reality you should expect maybe only up to DDR3-2133-ish or DDR3-2400-ish performances with a modestly-overclocked "average" CPU part).
The only "weak" hardware on your rig (in "dire need" of upgrading) is the two (230W) GTX770 cards, you'd get better gaming fps (and dramatically reduce power/heat) by replacing them both with a single (150W) GTX1070. Your M6F is a fine mobo, so there's actually no requirement to upgrade it, as long as it keeps working and you can still upgrade to top-spec LGA1150/DDR3 parts for it.

i7-4770K = 22nm LGA1150, 4C/8T, 3.50GHz~3.90GHz, 8MB, up to 32GB dual-channel DDR3-1600, 16xPCIe3, 5GTps DMI2, 84W (72.72C)
i7-4790K = 22nm LGA1150, 4C/8T, 4.00GHz~4.40GHz, 8MB, up to 32GB dual-channel DDR3-1600, 16xPCIe3, 5GTps DMI2, 88W (74.04C)
i7-6700K = 14nm LGA1151, 4C/8T, 4.00GHz~4.20GHz, 8MB, up to 64GB dual-channel DDR4-2133, 16xPCIe3, 8GTps DMI3, 91W (64C)
i7-7700K = 14nm LGA1151, 4C/8T, 4.20GHz~4.50GHz, 8MB, up to 64GB dual-channel DDR4-2400, 16xPCIe3, 8GTps DMI3, 91W (100C)
(looks a lot less impressive when you consider that most i7-4790K and i7-7700K parts overclock up to roughly the same 4.8GHz~5.0GHz)
(SKL and KBL have smaller lithography and higher TDPs ... where'd all the extra silicon go? ... into the useless fancy new iGPUs, lol, yay).

And don't forget about AM4/Ryzen!
Your i7-4770K is roughly equivalent to an R5-1500X, but many better Ryzen CPUs are available, and Ryzens cost substantially less than their Intel counterparts. AM4 motherboards - all newer than your M6F - also generally cost less than their Intel counterparts, aside from extreme offerings like the ROG C6E.

I don't think this is a good time to buy GPU cards, though. AMD Vega and NVIDIA GTX 20 Series (and Volta) are just around the corner. And bitcoiners have apparently driven GPU demand (prices) up in recent months. The best NVIDIA GPU cards currently cost too much. The best AMD GPU cards aren't inflated as much but they also aren't as powerful; replacing your GTX770 cards with RX580 cards would be a "good" upgrade that costs as much as a "great" one.

If your rig still does whatever you do fast enough and well enough then upgrade it later, once more Ryzens and (upcoming) Coffeelakes (and upcoming GPUs) have started flooding the market.
If it's starting to slow you down or look ghetto then get new GPU card(s). (After bitcoin value declines and people start pulling out because so many people have gotten involved that per-capita "revenue" become negligible trying to hash on GPU-based hardwares.)

On the plus side, today's GPU cards consume less power than yesteryear's GPU cards. So it's unlikely you'll need to upgrade PSU.
On the down side, if your GPU cards are watercooled you'll need to factor in added cost of waterblocks (or hybrid/watercooled) cards.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

I would ask why you feel the need to upgrade. For most tasks, your system is absolutely fine and capable. Skylake and Kaby Lake chips are faster than your Haswell but, in reality, not remarkably so for most tasks. Cannon Lake will likely be a worthwhile upgrade for you when it comes out. Certainly, 6 cores in the mainstream desktop is compelling and word is that they'll be about the same prices as a current 4 core Kaby Lake.
Now, you didn't mention what kind of drives you have in your system but if you don't have an SSD for the boot drive, that would absolutely be a worthwhile upgrade. And, as the other reply mentioned, upgrading your GPU would be the best thing to do for gaming performance and you'd have the side benefit of a cooler and less power hungry system. A GTX 1050 (~$170) or 1060 (~$230) would still give you better graphics and they don't seem to be as interesting for the cryptominers as the GTX 1070. Heck, with prices as they are, if you are thinking of laying out the $$ for a 1070, you might as well get a 1080 for $20 more.

Korth
Level 14
From the online comparisons I read, *two* (2GB) GTX770 GPUs almost equal *one* (8GB) GTX1070 in terms of raw gaming fps/performance (assuming 100% efficient multi-GPU usage, of course). A *single* GTX1050/1050Ti/1060 (or RX580) GPU would not be quite as good as the *two* existing GPUs, so not really an upgrade unless buying a pair of them.

And agreed - upgrading boot/system drive from HDD to SDD is the most pronounced bang-for-the-buck upgrade option possible.
I did assume @Omyth already has SSD because "slightly outdated" doesn't mean "ancient obsolete fossil". Although my assumption could be wrong.

Cannonlake would be worthy - whenever the 6C/12T parts finally come out.
But there's already 6C/12T and 8C/16T Ryzen parts, lol. And probably more (faster ones) coming soon enough to compete vs the imminent Cannonlakes.

My recommendation is still to keep the M6F mobo - upgrade the CPU and/or DDR3 if it can be done inexpensively - focus on upgrading the GPU(s). No need to replace that mobo unless/until it begins failing or it lacks some particular hardware feature/compatibility you must have. But if you do choose to upgrade mobo/CPU/RAM (and you'd have to do all three together, of course) then an AM4/Ryzen platform is the most compelling choice at this time.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Buellersdayoff
Level 7
What monitor do you use? If it's 1920*1080@60hz then the best upgrade you'd notice would be a better monitor with higher refresh rate and more pixels + a gpu to match. Considering the motherboard CPU & ram would be not so noticeable.
I built a rig using second hand parts for my nephew that matches your specs and he loves it. I upgraded his mates rig, similar spec, with a gtx1070 a much-needed power supply and an ssd, he too loves that rig. They both game a lot of the time and even stream/record. I recently upgraded from a full loop watercooled 980ti to a decent air cooled gtx 1080ti since with Pascal cards you don't really gain much from water cooling for just gaming (benching maybe). Pascal cards respond well to under-volting @ around .993/1.0v & overclocking the gpu. I'm using a 3440x1440p 34inch 100hz panel and totally happy with my decisions with my upgrade path. Just my two cents and your situation will be dependent on how much cash you can put together.

Thank you all for the great advice. I do have 3 SSD's but running out of room honestly. I just felt maybe the rig was going due to the recent events. The pc is randomly shutting down, and not turning back on until I unplug the power for a few mins then replug it in. I know its not overheating, ive monitored temps and nothing was high enough to warrant them. I check event viewer and all it says was the pc shut down unexpectedly, with all 0's and blank spots for the data. Just seemed odd, and got me slightly worried. It used to do this when I first built the rig, but hasn't done it in years till just last week.

And to further answer questions, yes both GPU's are 2GB and both are water cooled, along with the cpu, and motherboard. the only thing i didn't water cool was the ram.

I have not done anything with the motherboard for years, no upgrading bios or anything like that. The last time I tried to mess with it was when windows 10 was forced onto me, and it broke my motherboards AI Suites comparability. To be honest the pc runs great still and I have no problems playing my ffxiv and watching my anime etc. It was just as I said above the scare of something going wrong with the shut downs.

Buellersdayoff
Level 7
Try to resolve the shut down issue. Then make your decision. Let us know if you need help to trouble shoot [emoji5]

Buellersdayoff wrote:
Try to resolve the shut down issue. Then make your decision. Let us know if you need help to trouble shoot [emoji5]


Im going to need the help because I honestly dont know where to start. It did it to me again 2 times yesterday and when I got it back running, I shut down normally as always went to bed, but when I woke up it wouldnt turn on. I even try using the MoBo start button and nothing. Power is on and everything (MB lights are flashing) but it just wont turn on lol.

Buellersdayoff
Level 7
It won't boot now? Clear cmos, update your bios, check everything (cables, ram, etc) is seated correctly. The worst part with a full loop, diagnosing faults lol.

Buellersdayoff wrote:
It won't boot now? Clear cmos, update your bios, check everything (cables, ram, etc) is seated correctly. The worst part with a full loop, diagnosing faults lol.


yeah thats what I did, i cleared the cmos, reset the bios (it was up to date before i just made sure) and reset default settings, had to reset default boot ssd as well. Now its working but the same as before. wasnt having issues before either till the shut down. so now what do I do when it does decide to shut off on me in the middle of something lol.

I also made sure everything was seated correctly, even took out and reseated the ram sticks. cant really unseat anything else since its all in the loop lol.