Any upgrade possibilities for my PC?

[winterwonderland]

I recently got great help to build my friend a PC from the always helpful TPU gang, but now I am looking for upgrades to my main PC, which has these specs (same as in my Sys Specs, of course):



Are there any upgrade possibilities to my main PC, perhaps? I was thinking about doubling my current RAM to 64GB or maybe 96GB, but does that mean I must get identical RAM sticks or can I add different RAM 3600 C16 sticks to work with my current ones? I am also thinking about adding another m.2, either 2 or 4TB... Any other recommendations?

I use my PC for livestreaming, video editing and some rendering. Minimal to zero gaming, though...

I also have a backup PC with these specs:

Mobo: ASUS TUF B650 Gaming PLUS WiFi
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
RAM: Kingston Fury Beast 16GB DDR5
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB
Storage: Kingston NV2 2 TB m.2 nVMe
PSU: Cooler Master 650w GOLD
Cooler: CM ML240

Are there any parts on my backup PC that I could add to my main PC, perhaps? Probably not since it's an AMD PC and my main is Intel, so I should leave it as it is, right?

 

[Red Hood]

Your backup PC is on a newer platform, it would be better to upgrade that in my opinion

9900X/9950X for the CPU and like 64GB RAM

Edit - the 7950X is very good as well and fair bit less expensive than the 9950X

 

[dgianstefani]

I recently got great help to build my friend a PC from the always helpful TPU gang, but now I am looking for upgrades to my main PC, which has these specs (same as in my Sys Specs, of course):

View attachment 404943

Are there any upgrade possibilities to my main PC, perhaps? I was thinking about doubling my current RAM to 64GB or maybe 96GB, but does that mean I must get identical RAM sticks or can I add different RAM 3600 C16 sticks to work with my current ones? I am also thinking about adding another m.2, either 2 or 4TB... Any other recommendations?

I use my PC for livestreaming, video editing and some rendering. Minimal to zero gaming, though...

I also have a backup PC with these specs:


Are there any parts on my backup PC that I could add to my main PC, perhaps? Probably not since it's an AMD PC and my main is Intel, so I should leave it as it is, right?

You don't need two mid tier PCs.

Sell one.

If you do livestreaming, video editing and rendering, Intel/NVIDIA is more optimised for those tasks, and the software specifically is optimised for CUDA cards, with video editing software especially, often not even validated with AMD cards. Intel Quicksync is a significant boost for video editing and even live streaming too, leaving GPU free to do other things, like render in background or display 3D content, but you did say you don't game much. Move to RTX 5070 or 5070 Ti, that will greatly speed up rendering tasks, 5060 Ti 16 GB would also be a decent upgrade at a lower cost. The important thing is CUDA, and a large VRAM buffer for the jobs you do.

The best option would be selling both PCs and building based on a 265K DDR5 platform, these 8+12 CPUs are extremely cheap right now, around $250 for CPU, with good mainboards starting at around $150.

Otherwise:

I'd suggest moving to a 14700/900K, both of which can be had very cheaply new these days, much cheaper than 9950X/X3D. You'll need to update your BIOS, but it's a drop in upgrade. This is about half the price as the the AMD alternative, but those AMD CPUs don't have Quicksync, so aren't as good for video editing. From 8+4 to 8+12/8+16 is a significant increase in CPU performance, considering you're also moving to Raptor Lake cores which feature more cache, revised process, higher clocks, and an improved memory controller. You might need that memory controller if you plan to run 4*16 GB RAM at decent speeds.

Swap the 2 TB M.2 into the Intel rig, putting the 1 TB into the AMD rig then sell that, along with the 4 TB SATA drive. Sell the 12700K. Sell the 3060 Ti.

It sucks you're using the DDR4 version of your platform, DDR5 would be better, but you can still move to 64 GB of RAM.

If you don't care about having two GPUs suited to the tasks you do (RDNA 2 iGPU in Zen 5 not suited for video editing), and thus don't need Quicksync (which works in tandem with CPU for rendering, unlike pure CPU or pure GPU rendering), you could skip the GPU upgrade (unadvisable) and go for a 9950X instead, which is around twice the price of the Intel Raptor Lake CPUs I mentioned, but would be somewhat faster at raw CPU rendering. The DDR5 platform also means it's easier to go higher than 64 GB memory, which may or may not matter for your use case. The increased speed of DDR5 over DDR4 doesn't make much difference for your case.

Your PSU is fine, as is cooling and case.

As you can see, the $250 265K is up there with $700 CPUs, but the drop in 147/900K is too, and that doesn't require a platform upgrade, and can be had for $250-350 new.

 

[AVATARAT]

Buy one 5070 ti or 9070 XT, enjoy.

 

[dgianstefani]

Buy one 5070 ti or 9070 XT, enjoy.

Are you seriously suggesting an AMD video card for a non gaming purpose?

 

[Shrek]

Move to the backup DDR5 PC

 

[dgianstefani]

Move to the backup DDR5 PC

Ah yes. AMD 975 VS Intel 1312 CPU bench for the rendering task he does.

AMD mid range (no CUDA) vs Nvidia mid range GPU.

Truly an upgrade for:

I use my PC for livestreaming, video editing and some rendering. Minimal to zero gaming, though...

But hey, it's slightly newer and it's AMD. Plus DDR5 is a bigger number than DDR4, so it must be better right? Never mind that it's a six core CPU paired with single channel memory, and the dGPU/iGPU architectures are not good for the tasks at hand.

Oh. And to get worse performance to the 14700K, a drop in $2-350 depending on deals upgrade, he'd have to spend $360, and still wouldn't have Quicksync.

Sarcasm aside, and with no I'll intent meant, this is a very clear "sell both" or "upgrade the LGA-1700 system moment. If he was a gamer it's a different story.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

Both are still great for gaming, just keep one (keep the intel one, higher sales on the Ryzen build, coz the hype), buy a new GPU (can't go wrong that the 12700K still fares great with 1440P gaming) probably your choice (AMD or NVDIA) and enjoy..

 

[dgianstefani]

Neither of the 2 are great for gaming, just keep one (keep the intel one, higher sales on the Ryzen build, coz the hype), buy a new GPU (can't go wrong that the 12700K still fares great with 1440P gaming) probably your choice (AMD or NVDIA) and enjoy..

Did you actually read the OP? He doesn't game.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

Did you actually read the OP? He doesn't game.

Oh, then swap parts from the least important system then to beef up whichever system he wants to keep, thought he was gonna be gaming on either, made an edit on the original post, it sounded like nothing was gonna be kept..lol..(wasn't what I meant to say)

just beef one system up, and sell whichever he doesn't like keeping while it still has cash value..

My bad..

 

[Bobaganoosh]

I was about to suggest a 9070/XT, but then saw your use-case lol. For what you're doing, I think dgianstefani gave a great suggestion list.

Looking at prices on PCPartpicker set for Norway:
14900K: 5682kr ($562)
14700K: 4300kr ($425)
Most reasonable comparable AMD: 7950X: 5942kr ($588)

I'd go for the 14700K looking at those prices.
Then for other upgrades:
64GB DDR4 3600, CL16 - that was the cheapest 64GB kit with really good timings/speed and I'm not sure if it's on your QVL, but at 3600, I would think the risk is low and you should be able to hit the XMP button and move on.
5060ti (cheapest 16GB model I see)
5070ti (cheapest 16GB 5070ti I see, but it's quite a bit pricier)

Sell all the other stuff you don't need. RAM is kind of a pain these days where any mis-match will cause them to not run at the right speeds (or you could have compatibility problems), so you really want to buy a matched kit. You can sell the old stuff in that case.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Your main PC is solid, as others have said, getting a 14th gen i7 or i9 along with some more ram and a GPU upgrade would be relatively cost effective.
Your back up PC isn't bad, but your main PC is a really solid foundation

 

[mb194dc]

What do you mean by this ? "livestreaming, video editing and some rendering" exactly what programs are you running and how long are things taking you at the moment ? What do you want to speed up by upgrading ?

 

[AVATARAT]

Are you seriously suggesting an AMD video card for a non gaming purpose?

Yes, I misread it, sorry.

 

[winterwonderland]

You don't need two mid tier PCs.

Sell one.

If you do livestreaming, video editing and rendering, Intel/NVIDIA is more optimised for those tasks, and the software specifically is optimised for CUDA cards, with video editing software especially, often not even validated with AMD cards. Intel Quicksync is a significant boost for video editing and even live streaming too, leaving GPU free to do other things, like render in background or display 3D content, but you did say you don't game much. Move to RTX 5070 or 5070 Ti, that will greatly speed up rendering tasks, 5060 Ti 16 GB would also be a decent upgrade at a lower cost. The important thing is CUDA, and a large VRAM buffer for the jobs you do.

The best option would be selling both PCs and building based on a 265K DDR5 platform, these 8+12 CPUs are extremely cheap right now, around $250 for CPU, with good mainboards starting at around $150.

Otherwise:

I'd suggest moving to a 14700/900K, both of which can be had very cheaply new these days, much cheaper than 9950X/X3D. You'll need to update your BIOS, but it's a drop in upgrade. This is about half the price as the the AMD alternative, but those AMD CPUs don't have Quicksync, so aren't as good for video editing. From 8+4 to 8+12/8+16 is a significant increase in CPU performance, considering you're also moving to Raptor Lake cores which feature more cache, revised process, higher clocks, and an improved memory controller. You might need that memory controller if you plan to run 4*16 GB RAM at decent speeds.

Swap the 2 TB M.2 into the Intel rig, putting the 1 TB into the AMD rig then sell that, along with the 4 TB SATA drive. Sell the 12700K. Sell the 3060 Ti.

It sucks you're using the DDR4 version of your platform, DDR5 would be better, but you can still move to 64 GB of RAM.

If you don't care about having two GPUs suited to the tasks you do (RDNA 2 iGPU in Zen 5 not suited for video editing), and thus don't need Quicksync (which works in tandem with CPU for rendering, unlike pure CPU or pure GPU rendering), you could skip the GPU upgrade (unadvisable) and go for a 9950X instead, which is around twice the price of the Intel Raptor Lake CPUs I mentioned, but would be somewhat faster at raw CPU rendering. The DDR5 platform also means it's easier to go higher than 64 GB memory, which may or may not matter for your use case. The increased speed of DDR5 over DDR4 doesn't make much difference for your case.

Your PSU is fine, as is cooling and case.

As you can see, the $250 265K is up there with $700 CPUs, but the drop in 147/900K is too, and that doesn't require a platform upgrade, and can be had for $250-350 new.
View attachment 404952

I was about to suggest a 9070/XT, but then saw your use-case lol. For what you're doing, I think dgianstefani gave a great suggestion list.

Looking at prices on PCPartpicker set for Norway:
14900K: 5682kr ($562)
14700K: 4300kr ($425)
Most reasonable comparable AMD: 7950X: 5942kr ($588)

I'd go for the 14700K looking at those prices.
Then for other upgrades:
64GB DDR4 3600, CL16 - that was the cheapest 64GB kit with really good timings/speed and I'm not sure if it's on your QVL, but at 3600, I would think the risk is low and you should be able to hit the XMP button and move on.
5060ti (cheapest 16GB model I see)
5070ti (cheapest 16GB 5070ti I see, but it's quite a bit pricier)

Sell all the other stuff you don't need. RAM is kind of a pain these days where any mis-match will cause them to not run at the right speeds (or you could have compatibility problems), so you really want to buy a matched kit. You can sell the old stuff in that case.

Thank you both for some great suggestions!

I was planning to keep my MAIN PC for a while, and I'd rather upgrade it now instead of selling both PC's and invest in a new one now. So, I'd get a new CPU: 14700, RAM: Would this be better than the CL16, or: https://www.proshop.no/RAM/GSkill-T...nel-2-pcs-AMD-Optimized-Svart-med-RGB/2852484 ? It is the same price as the one you linked.

Regarding the GPU, I see that I have a local store selling ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 5060 Ti OC for about $30 cheaper than the PNY dual 16GB... Would it be worth it, or?

I'll go and make the swap of the M.2's and get around to sell my backup PC. Thanks for the tip!

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Thank you both for some great suggestions!

I was planning to keep my MAIN PC for a while, and I'd rather upgrade it now instead of selling both PC's and invest in a new one now. So, I'd get a new CPU: 14700, RAM: Would this be better than the CL16, or: https://www.proshop.no/RAM/GSkill-T...nel-2-pcs-AMD-Optimized-Svart-med-RGB/2852484 ? It is the same price as the one you linked.

Regarding the GPU, I see that I have a local store selling ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 5060 Ti OC for about $30 cheaper than the PNY dual 16GB... Would it be worth it, or?

I'll go and make the swap of the M.2's and get around to sell my backup PC. Thanks for the tip!

That all sounds good just make sure both models are the 16GB one if the Asus is cheaper buy it.


To me having to decent secondary PC is worth more than the money I would get from selling the secondary PC, I would rather have something that was serviceable if one goes up in smoke.

 

[Chrispy_]

Regarding the GPU, I see that I have a local store selling ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 5060 Ti OC for about $30 cheaper than the PNY dual 16GB... Would it be worth it, or?

Are you running out of VRAM with your 3060Ti? That would be the most obvious reason I can see to get the 5060Ti. It doesn't offer more bandwidth than the 3060Ti.

Realistically, the only reason to buy a 5060Ti as a non-gamer is for the 16GB VRAM and possibly the latest hardware video encoder.

 

[winterwonderland]

That all sounds good just make sure both models are the 16GB one if the Asus is cheaper buy it.


To me having to decent secondary PC is worth more than the money I would get from selling the secondary PC, I would rather have something that was serviceable if one goes up in smoke.

Are you running out of VRAM with your 3060Ti? That would be the most obvious reason I can see to get the 5060Ti. It doesn't offer more bandwidth than the 3060Ti.

Realistically, the only reason to buy a 5060Ti as a non-gamer is for the 16GB VRAM and possibly the latest hardware video encoder.

Gotcha.

Nah, for now, it seems like I am all good with my current GPU. So, the only things I'd need to upgrade would be the CPU and RAM, since I will not move to DDR5 juuust yet.. It seems like I would need to upgrade everything on the DDR5 PC anyways if I'd drop my main PC and upgrade the DDR5 PC, hehe.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Gotcha.

Nah, for now, it seems like I am all good with my current GPU. So, the only things I'd need to upgrade would be the CPU and RAM, since I will not move to DDR5 juuust yet.. It seems like I would need to upgrade everything on the DDR5 PC anyways if I'd drop my main PC and upgrade the DDR5 PC, hehe.

That would be the alternative wait for Zen 6 and then jump to the ryzen platform once the prices drop a bit lol.

Zen 6 vs Nova lake looks super interesting but I am not going to get excited, Zen5 vs Arrow lake was pretty underwhelming.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

Thank you both for some great suggestions!

I was planning to keep my MAIN PC for a while, and I'd rather upgrade it now instead of selling both PC's and invest in a new one now. So, I'd get a new CPU: 14700, RAM: Would this be better than the CL16, or: https://www.proshop.no/RAM/GSkill-T...nel-2-pcs-AMD-Optimized-Svart-med-RGB/2852484 ? It is the same price as the one you linked.

Regarding the GPU, I see that I have a local store selling ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 5060 Ti OC for about $30 cheaper than the PNY dual 16GB... Would it be worth it, or?

I'll go and make the swap of the M.2's and get around to sell my backup PC. Thanks for the tip!

Nope, the lower the cl# the better. Also the "neo" is optimized for AMD. It may still run fine on Intel, as it says it supports XMP, but it's less of a guarantee that it goes simply.

 

[_roman_]

Use the Backup pc. I would swap the power supply unit before selling the intel pc.

 

[Chrispy_]

That would be the alternative wait for Zen 6 and then jump to the ryzen platform once the prices drop a bit lol.

Zen 6 vs Nova lake looks super interesting but I am not going to get excited, Zen5 vs Arrow lake was pretty underwhelming.

Zen6 is probably 2027. Maaaaybe late 2026, so we're talking 15-18 months away, most likely.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Zen6 is probably 2027. Maaaaybe late 2026, so we're talking 15-18 months away, most likely.

Yeah, but it's not like the 12700k is slow it's still pretty capable.

 

[Waldorf]

@winterwonderland
on intel, if you know what die is being used on your sticks, AND can make sure to get IDENTICAL dies on an equally specced kit, then yes.
otherwise, replace.

@Bobaganoosh
not all neo are, there are specific kits for amd, ignoring i had more Gskill kits not working above jedec (DDR3/4), than those "oh so crappy corsair" modules most here say not to buy.
and so far, havent seen any AMP modules that cant do XMP, most proper kits are even certified for both.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yeah, but it's not like the 12700k is slow it's still pretty capable.

Alder Lake was a good investment 3 years ago.
The shaky start in 2022 due to hetrogenous CPU cores confusing the windows scheduler have been mostly patched and resolved now.