Budget upgrade for a 2011LGA build

wicked_chicken

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
316
I've been eyeing a GPU upgrade with the RTX 30xx series coming out. I've been toying with the idea for some time that I might want to upgrade, but have not kept up with chipsets/features that much. I'm wondering what the best budget upgrade might be for the following system:

Intel i7-3820
Rampage IV Formula
16gb DDR3 PC3-12800
GTX 680

I would prefer the following if possible.

2 NICS
2 M2 SSD
RTX 2070+
6-8 cores

I will not be overclocking. I predominately work in multimonitor setups (2-3x1080p). I do run Plex 24x7 from this machine, so anything that helps transcoding would be nice. I don't need a board as fancy as the Rampage again. Frankly, It was probably wasted on me.
 
The best "budget" CPU upgrade would probably be something like an Intel 10th gen i5-10400 or the i7 10700 (non-k) depending on if you want 6 or 8 cores. These both have the IGP on them so you can use QuickSync for Plex transcoding. I think the 6 core is under $200 depending on where you buy it.
 
The best "budget" CPU upgrade would probably be something like an Intel 10th gen i5-10400 or the i7 10700 (non-k) depending on if you want 6 or 8 cores. These both have the IGP on them so you can use QuickSync for Plex transcoding. I think the 6 core is under $200 depending on where you buy it.
What's the difference with K vs Non-K? They look very similar?
 
What's the difference with K vs Non-K? They look very similar?

K is unlocked for overclocking. That being said, it's not all about overclocking. The K CPUs generally have slightly higher clockspeeds even at stock usually with higher TDP also. Look at a comparison between the 10400 and the 10600k for example. I ran an Intel i5-8400 for my Plex server for a few years before moving to a Synology NAS device, and it worked great using the Intel QuickSync hardware transcoding.

The other side of things is if you're not going to use the IGP for transcoding and are going to use NVENC or something off your video card, then you don't need to buy Intel at all. Grab a used AMD 3XXX series CPU when someone upgrades to the newer CPU in the next month or so. Might get slightly better bang for the buck that way.
 
K is unlocked for overclocking. That being said, it's not all about overclocking. The K CPUs generally have slightly higher clockspeeds even at stock usually with higher TDP also. Look at a comparison between the 10400 and the 10600k for example. I ran an Intel i5-8400 for my Plex server for a few years before moving to a Synology NAS device, and it worked great using the Intel QuickSync hardware transcoding.

The other side of things is if you're not going to use the IGP for transcoding and are going to use NVENC or something off your video card, then you don't need to buy Intel at all. Grab a used AMD 3XXX series CPU when someone upgrades to the newer CPU in the next month or so. Might get slightly better bang for the buck that way.
I second this. When the 5xxx CPU are available, I feel there will be a lot of CPU in the 2nd hand market that can be picked up for a good price. You can build your new system using this as a core. As long as you don't overspend on other areas, you should be able to upgrade well without breaking the bank.
 
Pick up Intel Core i7-3930K on Ebay for $100, and just ride 6 cores for the next 5 years?

You should be fine with your 16gb ram for several more years (and if not, you can always find two sets of 8x2 DDR3 kids from someone selling the h[whole system off.)

Then spend your entire remaining budget on a new /used GPU.

Sandy-E/ Ivy-E processors are plentiful , there is just a lack of functional motherboards out there. Why throw your perfectly-serviceable motherboard away?

I have heard rumors of an 8-core Xeon processor on those same boards (but require a BIOS update).

Ahh, found it

E5-2667 v2

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...-processor-e5-2667-v2-25m-cache-3-30-ghz.html

Support confirmed here (build 4502)

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/RAMPAGE_IV_FORMULA/HelpDesk_CPU/

You might as well get the most value out of your system you already overpaid for.

Edit: looks like there is a is refurbish listing of this on Amazon fr $170.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-E5-2667-v2-Refurbished/dp/B010LO3DU8

Way cheaper than buying a new 8-core Intel system.
 
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Overclock for now. You're leaving a lot on the table in untapped potential right there, Even then you will be bottlenecking games beyond a NV 1080 gpu with a 3930K or any similar 2011 socket upgrade, a 3930k wont be that fantastic of a leap from the i7-3820 anyways, wait for the new AMD 5K rollout. Used stuff should be better and cheaper then. Worst case scenario last gen 3k AMD CPU will be worlds ahead from a SB-e and still feed any modern GPU 2080 3080 ect. Don't waste your time - effort and money on essentaily a side-grade.
 
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K is unlocked for overclocking. That being said, it's not all about overclocking. The K CPUs generally have slightly higher clockspeeds even at stock usually with higher TDP also. Look at a comparison between the 10400 and the 10600k for example. I ran an Intel i5-8400 for my Plex server for a few years before moving to a Synology NAS device, and it worked great using the Intel QuickSync hardware transcoding.

The other side of things is if you're not going to use the IGP for transcoding and are going to use NVENC or something off your video card, then you don't need to buy Intel at all. Grab a used AMD 3XXX series CPU when someone upgrades to the newer CPU in the next month or so. Might get slightly better bang for the buck that way.

I second this idea of picking up a used Ryzen 3XXX after the 5XXX launch if you don't mind buying used. Or maybe an Intel mobo + proc combo. Plenty of people will be switching. If you'd rather buy new I'd start looking for price drops. They might not happen on November 5, but there's a good chance some are coming.

The recent Intel non-K chips "overclock" pretty well compared to past non-K chips. They don't really overclock per se, but you can change the power limit on a lot of boards. So those 65W chips like the i7-10700 can be set to run with a much higher power budget. It won't increase maximum speed, but it will let it run in higher turbo boost states a lot longer or indefinitely as long as you have adequate cooling. They won't turbo to 5.something like the 10xxxk chips will, but you can get them to suck down 125W+ like a "k" chip. There aren't a lot of i7-10700 reviews around, but this slightly defective one https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-10700/12.html has an unshackled 10700 trading blows with an i9-10900k running at stock in games and explains the power limit. It's slightly defective because they included just about every chip that ought to be included except for an i7-10700K (or KF or whatever, no "K" series i7-10xxx). I'd like to see it up against an i7-10700k with power limits raised and the same cooling setup and an overclocked i7-10700k.
 
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I've been eyeing a GPU upgrade with the RTX 30xx series coming out. I've been toying with the idea for some time that I might want to upgrade, but have not kept up with chipsets/features that much. I'm wondering what the best budget upgrade might be for the following system:

Intel i7-3820
Rampage IV Formula
16gb DDR3 PC3-12800
GTX 680

I would prefer the following if possible.

2 NICS
2 M2 SSD
RTX 2070+
6-8 cores

I will not be overclocking. I predominately work in multimonitor setups (2-3x1080p). I do run Plex 24x7 from this machine, so anything that helps transcoding would be nice. I don't need a board as fancy as the Rampage again. Frankly, It was probably wasted on me.
I'm on the same platform with a 3930k. I've also got an 8 core in an ECS board for guests to use for gaming.

The best budget upgrade would be to hop onto AMD Ryzen 2nd gen 3XXX series.

The problem I'm having with X79 in 2020 is that USB 3.0 isn't native and we seem to have more USB devices than ever before.

Also, you don't have NVME which isn't a huge deal and PCI-E 3.0 is present but will eventually become saturated.

I wouldn't spend any more money on the X79 platform. Most games I'm playing now are really taxing my CPU. I think 8 years is enough.
 
I'm on the same platform with a 3930k. I've also got an 8 core in an ECS board for guests to use for gaming.

The best budget upgrade would be to hop onto AMD Ryzen 2nd gen 3XXX series.

The problem I'm having with X79 in 2020 is that USB 3.0 isn't native and we seem to have more USB devices than ever before.

USB 3 non-native controllers run just fine for accessing slower flash drives and hard drives. Most people are not connecting anything as complex as external SSDs to their systems.

You have tons of expansion slots you are likely not using, if the 6 onboard ports are not enough.

Also, you don't have NVME which isn't a huge deal and PCI-E 3.0 is present but will eventually become saturated.

SATA6 is indistinguishable for current game load times. Your x79 has two of them!

https://www.techspot.com/review/2116-storage-speed-game-loading/

At-most , you MIGHT see a need for PCIe 3 once console games start pushing their hardware....and thee' s nothing stopping you from using an nvme adapter for a data drive.

I wouldn't spend any more money on the X79 platform. Most games I'm playing now are really taxing my CPU. I think 8 years is enough.

A man who is still satisfied with a 4-core/8 thread CPU in late 2020 might be a little less demanding.
 
I'm on the same platform with a 3930k. I've also got an 8 core in an ECS board for guests to use for gaming.

The best budget upgrade would be to hop onto AMD Ryzen 2nd gen 3XXX series.

The problem I'm having with X79 in 2020 is that USB 3.0 isn't native and we seem to have more USB devices than ever before.

Also, you don't have NVME which isn't a huge deal and PCI-E 3.0 is present but will eventually become saturated.

I wouldn't spend any more money on the X79 platform. Most games I'm playing now are really taxing my CPU. I think 8 years is enough.
USB 3 isn't native? I'm fairly certain my board has USB 3.

I am not playing AAA titles. The most recent game I play is PUBG, Cities Skylines.
 
The X79 chipset didn't have it, but 3rd party USB3 was very common on X79 boards. I have one with an i7-3820 on it, and it's got third party USB3 from a chip built into the board. Seems to work ok though. I don't think I've ever pushed it's limits. The highest bandwidth things I've plugged into it are external hard drives and USB thumb drives.
 
The X79 chipset didn't have it, but 3rd party USB3 was very common on X79 boards. I have one with an i7-3820 on it, and it's got third party USB3 from a chip built into the board. Seems to work ok though. I don't think I've ever pushed it's limits. The highest bandwidth things I've plugged into it are external hard drives and USB thumb drives.
Exactly. And these things don't require the low-latency of a native USB3 controller
 
The X79 chipset didn't have it, but 3rd party USB3 was very common on X79 boards. I have one with an i7-3820 on it, and it's got third party USB3 from a chip built into the board. Seems to work ok though. I don't think I've ever pushed it's limits. The highest bandwidth things I've plugged into it are external hard drives and USB thumb drives.
Ah, I see what you're saying. Thanks!
 
Welp. The LGA2011 probably died tonight.:mad: I'm not sure if it was the CPU itself or a failure on the part of the Corsair AIO, but I'm sure it's toast. Of course it has to be A) sunday night before work and B) the primary system I use for teleworking.

Prior to the failure, I'd been looking at just doing the CPU, but if I have to start throwing additional money in to patch this up (like for a new cooler), I'm less investing in that coarse of action.

Hands down, what's the cheapest way to 8+ cores at this point?
 
Welp. The LGA2011 probably died tonight.:mad: I'm not sure if it was the CPU itself or a failure on the part of the Corsair AIO, but I'm sure it's toast. Of course it has to be A) sunday night before work and B) the primary system I use for teleworking.

Prior to the failure, I'd been looking at just doing the CPU, but if I have to start throwing additional money in to patch this up (like for a new cooler), I'm less investing in that coarse of action.

Hands down, what's the cheapest way to 8+ cores at this point?


Don't fixate on 8 cores right now - pickup a B550 + Ryzen 5 3600 today, and then upgrade to the Zen 3 5800/5900 when they are clearing stock next winter. I guarantee the total performance of that 6 core Zen 2 will be twice as fast as your current quad-core system.

You will also have the ability to upgrade that to 16 cores (,assuming you buy fast 3200+ dual-channel ram, and a decent motherboard)
 
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I've been milling over this list. I've decided I don't want to mess with stock issues.I suspect GPU pricing may change next week, so that's really a placeholder card. I appreciate any feedback folks might have.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($304.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition 57.3 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased For $0.00)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.00 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB SC ULTRA GAMING Video Card ($556.21 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($124.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1388.17
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-11-14 10:54 EST-0500
 
That price for that 2060S is the same as the RTX 3070. You can really tell that they already discontinued Turing production. by those insane prices.

I would suggest you wait a month on that video card, and see if you cant find better stock of the 3060 Ti (Dec 2) or the RX 5800 (next week). if we finally get stock, that will be a lot-better buy.

You could reuse your 680 until then.
 
DO NOT spend that much on a 2060. For that kind of money you can get a 3070 when they come in stock. If you just have to get a GPU right now then find a nice used 1080 Ti or 5700XT.
 
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