PLEASE HELP - should change my entire system or just upgrade

[lexluthermiester]

I currently have a Full size Cooler Master HAF X case with the following build components
ASUS P9X79 Pro motherboard
Intel i7 3820 3.6 GHz. CPU - Socket 2011 LGA
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 gpu - 2 GB
2 X 4 GB sticks of Kingston DDR3 RAM - 799 MHz
1 TB Western Digital Hard Drive - old and tired
Running windows 10 64 bit OS

My 2 cents, you have a decent system with potential.

Your i7-3820 is showing it's age. An upgrade would serve you well. As long as your BIOS is up to date you can drop in a Xeon and get a big boost.

P9X79 PRO - Support

www.asus.com

For example a Xeon E5-2667V2 is an 8core CPU that runs at 3.3 and gives an all turbo boost of 3.5ghz. That CPU will almost double your CPU performance.

Xeon E5-2667 v2 3.3GHz 8c 25MB CPU LGA2011 X79 Motherboard 3.6Ghz Turbo | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Xeon E5-2667 v2 3.3GHz 8c 25MB CPU LGA2011 X79 Motherboard 3.6Ghz Turbo at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Your RAM is easily upgraded just buy a 2x4GB kit to double your RAM to 16GB.

"Lot of 2" Micron MT8JTF51264AZ-1G6E1 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800U DDR3-1600MHz RAM | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for "Lot of 2" Micron MT8JTF51264AZ-1G6E1 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800U DDR3-1600MHz RAM at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Get an SSD and add it into your system but keep your 1TB Western Digital for mass storage. Avoid anything that is QLC NAND based. If the listing doesn't clearly state it has TLC, keep looking.

In this current market, GPU's are extremely pricey, even used. Your GTX 760 is an older but solid card. If you want to upgrade sooner look for a GTX 780 as such will give a solid boost over what you have now and will tide you over until GPU prices come down.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB GPU VRAM Graphics Card PC Gaming | eBay

Nvidia GTX 780 Graphics Card. Serial number recorded. Always online! Works great. Excellent condition.

www.ebay.com

The ebay links are just examples but should give you a good idea of what to look for.

 

[Morbius2021]

While I commend those recommendations as possible options, the mainboard is nearly a decade old.

I would not recommend buying more old components to upgrade your already ancient system board at this point.

There are risks associated with that path. Bios updates might be needed and sometimes on older gear can brick the system.

These efforts will only bring diminishing returns.

This is the path you would likely take when you have 3-5 year old hardware. and are looking to extend its life to 5-7 years.

Please do yourself a favor and replace the SYSTEM, even with a faster CPU and upgraded memory amounts, you will still be running a 10 year old system.

 

[nanotech]

Thank you all again
@Morbius thanks for the really detailed analysis
Perhaps you make a very relevant observation about the vintage of my system
I will take heed of everyone's advice
Hope I make some good decisions
Much obliged guys : )

 

[Colddecked]

Good Morning,

I have been building systems for about 30 years now, and while I understand the need to extract as much productivity out of your system as you can. There is a limit.

At some point you spent a considerable amount of funds on the system you currently have. The board and CPU you have were considered upper level gear back when they were originally released but lets take a closer look at your gear:

That CPU was released in 2012, so its just about a DECADE OLD. The mainboard is also from that same period.

It is a testament to how well made some of that gear was but if this is truly used for business than I would suggest its well past time for you to invest in some new gear.

You did however wait a bit too long given the sorry state product availability is in right now.

but there are a lot of helpful folks around, myself included that can help you find what you need.

Put plainly, you need a NEW SYSTEM, not upgraded parts and pieces. Its slow because all the parts in it are 10 years and 5 generations+ old.

that is par for the course for gear of that vintage. Nothing wrong with using it provided you understand the limitations and the expected performance you will get from it.

What I don't know is your budget, or if you can afford to replace your system, if you can, do your self and your business needs a favor and do that. .

I would suggest the following components as a place to start:

Availability is not guaranteed given todays shortages and increased pricing, but given what you had, here is something that will perform well given your previous standards:

Asus Strix X570-e Gaming
AMD Ryzen 5800X
(2) 16GB DDR4 3200Mhz Dims n- 32GB Ram total.
Sabrent Rocket Plus 1TB M.2 PCI-e 4.0 SSD
Phaneks Enthoo Pro Metal panel case Full tower, good cooling and not RGB infected
Windows 10 Pro - if needed or if you don't already have it.
850Watt ATX Power Supply, get something quality so you don't have to replace this later, ideally, if you can spend the extra get a 1000Watt, it will give you the needed power for a better video card later.
Video card, I wish I could make any kind of recommendation here, there just isn't much available, you could actually use your existing card although it will be disappointing.
If we are just making solid recommendations, and you can find one at a price less than a kings ransom, the 3070 RTX is a great card.

Apart from the video card, I have many customers running this exact configuration, we run it as an AutoCAD and Graphics workstation mostly.

Pay no attention to the "gaming" labels on the mainboard, I selected this one for features and reliability, I have yet to get a bad one of these.

It is fantastically fast and responsive and is able to manage heavy workloads.

I love a new PC like the next guy, but for his use case and his emphasis on budget, I don't like your recommendations. There's no need for the massive upgrade you are suggesting. He has obvious bottlenecks in the HD and RAM (get 4 sticks of 4gb for quad channel memory!). If he were to just upgrade those two items, ALOT of his issues go away. If he is willing to tune his system, he could even drop a 4930k/xeon 1650 or splurge for a 8 core xeon 1680, over clock to 4.4ghz, he could use the system for another 10 years if the mobo holds up. If he was straight unwilling to tune the system, then maybe I can see the need for a new system, but there's much more budget friendly options than 5800x/asus x570 strix mobo...

And I would not buy a 780 to hold yourself over, considering you have a 760. Save your cash until gpu market corrects itself...

 

[Morbius2021]

Thank you all again
@Morbius thanks for the really detailed analysis
Perhaps you make a very relevant observation about the vintage of my system
I will take heed of everyone's advice
Hope I make some good decisions
Much obliged guys : )

No problem, happy to help, I know its hard to make the leap, and sometimes, if you are happy with how things are working why fix what isn't broken?

In your current case though, it really does sound like its time to move on and up. Good luck.

 

[nanotech]

Thank you Lexluther ........ also a decent suggestion

I think it is a factor of what I want out of this ...............................

A machine to tide me over for a bit

or

a machine to last another 8 years

All good suggestions

You guys are all the best ......... God Bless you all

 

[lexluthermiester]

If you decide you want to go the upgrade route, chime back in here and we can help you through it.

I would warn against a brand new system build as GPU prices are just out of control. The only way you're going to get a good GPU is in a prebuilt system from a big-box vendor.

If you don't mind spending the extra money, then ignore my above warning.

 

[Shrek]

Just my story and not saying its the best way to go

My main machine is a Core 2 Quad and still serves me well

• I upped the RAM (but think your 8 GB is enough)
• Upgraded the CPU from a Duo to Quad ($25)
• Moved to a hybrid drive

For reliability I recapped the power supply and tested everything for flaws.


But if you have the money, take the advice to replace.

 

[Morbius2021]

I love a new PC like the next guy, but for his use case and his emphasis on budget, I don't like your recommendations. There's no need for the massive upgrade you are suggesting. He has obvious bottlenecks in the HD and RAM (get 4 sticks of 4gb for quad channel memory!). If he were to just upgrade those two items, ALOT of his issues go away. If he is willing to tune his system, he could even drop a 4930k/xeon 1650 or splurge for a 8 core xeon 1680, over clock to 4.4ghz, he could use the system for another 10 years if the mobo holds up. If he was straight unwilling to tune the system, then maybe I can see the need for a new system, but there's much more budget friendly options than 5800x/asus x570 strix mobo...

And I would not buy a 780 to hold yourself over, considering you have a 760. Save your cash until gpu market corrects itself...

Well , I would agree that sometimes just putting in some new parts will indeed wake up a dated system, I think you have missed the fact that this system isn't just dated, but ancient. Investing in more ancient parts , even if they perform better will only result in marginal improvements. He is also using this system for WORK, which means it is critical for his productivity, meaning it cant be down. Buying ancient used gear is great when you are playing, or experimenting, but it cannot be counted on for production systems. That is the key difference here. If this is a production system, and not a hobby system, investing in a replacement is best practice, especially after nearly 10 years.

If you decide you want to go the upgrade route, chime back in here and we can help you through it.

I would warn against a brand new system build as GPU prices are just out of control. The only way you're going to get a good GPU is in a prebuilt system from a big-box vendor.

If you don't mind spending the extra money, then ignore my above warning.

I agree with your statement regarding current GPU pricing, but even if he gets something basic a new system would still be of considerable help.

Just my story and not saying its the best way to go

My main machine is a Core 2 Quad and still serves me well

• I upped the RAM (but think your 8 GB is enough)
• Upgraded the CPU from a Duo to Quad ($25)
• Moved to a hybrid drive

For reliability I recapped the power supply and tested everything for flaws.


But if you have the money, take the advice to replace.

Sir you illustrate my point quite well .

If you are happy with the performance of your system, don't fix what isn't broken.

There are a lot of use cases for a Core 2 Quad, I have many of those doing mail filtering and most of them with 4GB of ram.

The systems that does that work really don't need much more that that.

I am not anti legacy gear, just looking to be usage case appropriate.

 

[nanotech]

Someone mentioned an RGB infection
As I can best understand this ......... it means a virus / bug in a hardware piece in the system
Apparently this will cause me endless problems ????
Can someone kindly explain if I understood this correctly and if this is true.
I am told that if this is the case it is best for new hardware ???
How do I know if I have this issue ???
Thank you

 

[Morbius2021]

Sorry that was meant to be a joke,

Much of the current hardware out there includes RGB LED lighting, it adds ZERO functionality but simply makes the new parts SHINY.

Memory, CPU coolers, and cases, almost all provide for this current trend.

The case I recommended has NO RGB "red green blue" LED Lights on it, except for the power switch and the HDD activity light.

If you do have a malware issue though, that can cause massive performance issues.

I would follow the suggestion another user made and get the following utilities to clean things up:

AdwCleaner 2024 - Free Adware Cleaner & Removal Tool | Malwarebytes

Download Malwarebytes AdwCleaner 2024 for free to remove adware, bloatware, unwanted toolbars, and other potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) from your Windows PC. AdwCleaner destroys adware and restores your PC's performance.

www.malwarebytes.com

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download the free versions of both, run the scans and see what if anything they come up with.

 

[nanotech]

@Morbius .....Thanks : ) - i did not catch that joke - due to my lack of knowledge - I get it now

Thanks

 

[Morbius2021]

@Morbius .....Thanks : ) - i did not catch that joke - due to my lack of knowledge - I get it now

Thanks

No problem, I didn't think about it when I originally typed it, sorry if I confused the issue.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

Speaking from experience, if you can afford it, upgrade to a modern system. I know a lot of people are not going to agree with me, but hear me out. Last December I upgraded from a 3930k, 16gb DDR3 1600 RAM, and a 500gb SATA SSD (WD Blue) to a 10850k, 32gb DDR4 3200 RAM, and a NVME SSD (Samsung 980 Pro), and let me tell you, this upgrade blows the 3930k out of the water, both in gaming (which I know is irrelevant to you) and productivity. My WCG crunching results literally tripled. That also translates into productivity performance. The upgrade cost me about $700-800.

These were my WCG numbers with the 3930k-

And these are my WCG numbers with the 10850k-

 

[Morbius2021]

@Morbius .....Thanks : ) - i did not catch that joke - due to my lack of knowledge - I get it now

Thanks

Speaking from experience, if you can afford it, upgrade to a modern system. I know a lot of people are not going to agree with me, but hear me out. Last December I upgraded from a 3930k, 16gb DDR3 1600 RAM, and a 500gb SATA SSD (WD Blue) to a 10850k, 32gb DDR4 3200 RAM, and a NVME SSD (Samsung 980 Pro), and let me tell you, this upgrade blows the 3930k out of the water, both in gaming (which I know is irrelevant to you) and productivity. My WCG crunching results literally tripled. That also translates into productivity performance. The upgrade cost me about $700-800.

These were my numbers with the 3930k-

View attachment 200691

And these are my numbers with the 10850k-
View attachment 200693

Thanks, and in this case I agree.

I have lots of customers that we have done "upgrades" for over the years, the only upgrade we really found added value and real-world performance to their systems was by adding an SSD.

The subjective response by the users was almost always WOW what a difference!

Memory upgrades, while htey help help considerably less.

the thing we got the least bang for the buck from was CPU upgrades.

New systems though, especially when we have multiple core system standards change, i.e. moving from PCI-e 3 to 4, moving from DDR3 to DDR4 and Moving to systems with 8 cores vs 4, that made tons of performance difference.

 

[Shihab]

Well , I would agree that sometimes just putting in some new parts will indeed wake up a dated system, I think you have missed the fact that this system isn't just dated, but ancient. Investing in more ancient parts , even if they perform better will only result in marginal improvements. He is also using this system for WORK, which means it is critical for his productivity, meaning it cant be down. Buying ancient used gear is great when you are playing, or experimenting, but it cannot be counted on for production systems. That is the key difference here. If this is a production system, and not a hobby system, investing in a replacement is best practice, especially after nearly 10 years.

If this was a simple case where productivity correlates linearly with performance, you might have had a point here, but save for compute-intensive applications a la photorealistic CGI and mathematical sims, this is rarely the case.

Shaving a cumulative 5 minutes off a day's worth of filters and resizing is nice and all, but it's not really worth sinking $1k+ on a new rig. And makes even less when you count that equal (or better) gains could be made by just replacing the storage drive and adding extra memory.

 

[outpt]

if you put a ssd in there now you will swear you have a new system. from there add other verious components as suggested.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

Shaving a cumulative 5 minutes off a day's worth of filters and resizing is nice and all, but it's not really worth sinking $1k+ on a new rig. And makes even less when you count that equal (or better) gains could be made by just replacing the storage drive and adding extra memory.

Upgrading the existing system will get the OP no more performance than I was getting out of my 3930k system. Trust me when I said, the performance difference between X79 systems and Z490 systems is HUGE. Especially considering this computer is a business use computer, meaning it's used to make money, it's worth the upgrade if the OP can afford to upgrade. I'm speaking from first hand experience here.

if you put a ssd in there now you will swear you have a new system. from there add other verious components as suggested.

and if the OP tries a new computer, he/she will realize just how slow his/her x79 system is compared to new.

 

[Morbius2021]

If this was a simple case where productivity correlates linearly with performance, you might have had a point here, but save for compute-intensive applications a la photorealistic CGI and mathematical sims, this is rarely the case.

Shaving a cumulative 5 minutes off a day's worth of filters and resizing is nice and all, but it's not really worth sinking $1k+ on a new rig. And makes even less when you count that equal (or better) gains could be made by just replacing the storage drive and adding extra memory.

I would say it goes well beyond that.

Changing CPU's and doing Firmware updates on 10 year old boards can get really risky, especially for some one who isn't accustomed to do that kind of work.

I have had systems die form the basic act of tearing them down and installing new components. systems can get very fragile when they run that long unchanged.

Other systems do just fine. My point was that its a work computer, so it has to work. A new system presents very low risk in terms of losing the one rig you NEED to work.

The other benefits are clear as well, but in the end, productivity is always the end concern.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

(others posted while I was writing this and I'm too lazy to edit )

I am NOT a gamer - do NOT play at all

I can't believe how many are ignoring that one line. There's no need for a newer GPU or a 850-1000 watt PSU.

I surf a lot with literally 30 windows open all at once

This screams for more RAM.

@nanotech , you are at a fork in the road. You either put a little money into what we all agree is an old system, or you buy something new. If you go the new route, you really don't need much more than an off the shelf "office computer," except that you should have 16-32gb of RAM and make sure it's SSD based.

As for your current system, changing the HDD for a SSD, (seriously, a 1 TB SSD is not expensive, especially when this is being used for work, and going from a 1 gb HDD to a 1 TB SSD makes cloning easy) and adding 8 or 16 GB of RAM will do wonders.

The "best" method of adding RAM to your system is to find out exactly what RAM (make and model) you have and get a couple more. Check the owner's manual to make sure that the RAM is in the correct slots. With that being said, any DDR3-1600 RAM from one of the main manufacturers will most likely work without a problem.

If you were to build a new system using some of your existing parts, you're looking at about $700.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W8mHgt

I didn't use the i5-11400F because I don't think that there is a need for a dGPU. I added an aftermarket cooler, but one really isn't needed.

 

[QuietBob]

Hardware-wise, your PC should still be capable of performing the tasks you listed. I would mostly attribute the perceived sluggishness to the software, like old and bloated Windows install, or background processes stealing resources. That said, an SSD would improve your experience dramatically. If you decide to go the budget route, get a cheap 256 GB drive like the Crucial MX500, and install a fresh copy of Win10 on it. Keep your existing HDD for data storage. If you multitask (run a couple of apps at the same time), your next upgrade shoud definitely be the memory. Get a pair of matching 4 GB sticks for quad-channel operation and expand your RAM to 16 GB.

If you decide to replace your current rig, I would strongly recommend the Intel Core i5-11400, which is currently unbeatable for its price/performance ratio.

 

[bobbybluz]

I still have two X79 rigs, one in daily use for A/V production work. A used Xeon 8 core E5 1680 V2 (overclockable) or 12 core E5 2697 V2 (locked multiplier) will give a huge boost in performance in addition to a SSD and more RAM. The prices on those two Xeons have been in the area of $90-130 on Ebay recently. My two E5 1680 V2's @4.5GHz are very close to my 5960X in a X99 mobo at the same speed. That being said I recently replaced the 5960X with a 16 core E5 2683 V4 Xeon and while having lower clock speeds the extra cores more than make up for it plus it runs a lot cooler.

We all have our own opinions. The biggest performance gain for the least amount of $$$ spent would be a Xeon CPU, SSD and more RAM. Your X79 is quad channel memory. Both of my X79's have 64GB each in them. With some bargain hunting everything is easily doable in the $200-300 range. X79 still has life in it with the correct components.

 

[Morbius2021]

(others posted while I was writing this and I'm too lazy to edit )

I can't believe how many are ignoring that one line. There's no need for a newer GPU or a 850-1000 watt PSU.


This screams for more RAM.

@nanotech , you are at a fork in the road. You either put a little money into what we all agree is an old system, or you buy something new. If you go the new route, you really don't need much more than an off the shelf "office computer," except that you should have 16-32gb of RAM and make sure it's SSD based.

As for your current system, changing the HDD for a SSD, (seriously, a 1 TB SSD is not expensive, especially when this is being used for work, and going from a 1 gb HDD to a 1 TB SSD makes cloning easy) and adding 8 or 16 GB of RAM will do wonders.

The "best" method of adding RAM to your system is to find out exactly what RAM (make and model) you have and get a couple more. Check the owner's manual to make sure that the RAM is in the correct slots. With that being said, any DDR3-1600 RAM from one of the main manufacturers will most likely work without a problem.

If you were to build a new system using some of your existing parts, you're looking at about $700.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W8mHgt

I didn't use the i5-11400F because I don't think that there is a need for a dGPU. I added an aftermarket cooler, but one really isn't needed.

Normally, I would agree with you, the only reason I made the recommendations I did , including the high end PS was because this user had his system for "10" years+" that means that the components should be chosen to be both performant, and built for durability, a cheap office system would certainly work, "for the moment" but it wont last 10 years, and the way those cheap office systems are built these days it might not last 5 years. Plus if its proprietary in design it will be a locked box with no upgrade or repair path past 4-5 years.

The system I laid out should last 4-7 years under normal use conditions, and the "granted" overkill PS should run well for the long term.

Cheaper PSU's tend to last about 3.0-3.5 years I have a graveyard of 500-650 watt power supplies from all vendors to prove this .

However, the 750 watt plus units tend to be built a bit better and tend to last longer.

The design wasn't about performance exclusively but about long term durability and service life.

 

[64K]

@nanotech is a new build something that you could afford right now or maybe soon? There's a lot of experience and knowledge on TPU and they can help you put together a build.

 

[Morbius2021]

Hardware-wise, your PC should still be capable of performing the tasks you listed. I would mostly attribute the perceived sluggishness to the software, like old and bloated Windows install, or background processes stealing resources. That said, an SSD would improve your experience dramatically. If you decide to go the budget route, get a cheap 256 GB drive like the Crucial MX500, and install a fresh copy of Win10 on it. Keep your existing HDD for data storage. If you multitask (run a couple of apps at the same time), your next upgrade shoud definitely be the memory. Get a pair of matching 4 GB sticks for quad-channel operation and expand your RAM to 16 GB.

If you decide to replace your current rig, I would strongly recommend the Intel Core i5-11400, which is currently unbeatable for its price/performance ratio.

@nanotech is a new build something that you could afford right now or maybe soon? There's a lot of experience and knowledge on TPU and they can help you.

100% This, lots of helpful folks out here. And there is no shortage of varied opinions on how to proceed, 95% of those are viable solutions in part or in full, in the end the more you know about it the better off you will be. Don't take any ONE statement or view as absolute though, find the facts between the opinion lines .

I love a new PC like the next guy, but for his use case and his emphasis on budget, I don't like your recommendations. There's no need for the massive upgrade you are suggesting. He has obvious bottlenecks in the HD and RAM (get 4 sticks of 4gb for quad channel memory!). If he were to just upgrade those two items, ALOT of his issues go away. If he is willing to tune his system, he could even drop a 4930k/xeon 1650 or splurge for a 8 core xeon 1680, over clock to 4.4ghz, he could use the system for another 10 years if the mobo holds up. If he was straight unwilling to tune the system, then maybe I can see the need for a new system, but there's much more budget friendly options than 5800x/asus x570 strix mobo...

And I would not buy a 780 to hold yourself over, considering you have a 760. Save your cash until gpu market corrects itself...

That's ok for you not to like my recommendations, we are all trying to help given our own perspectives and opinions, what works for you might not work for me, or for the OP in this case. I do not claim to have the "best" or only answer, just what my experience tells me. I have built over 2,000 systems for customers in the last 30 years, I am still doing it so I must be doing something right .