In that case, 12th gen CPUs and 32GB of DDR5 RAM is way overkill for you. You are never going to notice the performance difference of DDR5 or a 12th gen CPU or probably a fast SSD for that matter.
What you do really matters, though. Even a decade-old system might be perfectly decent for some tasks, and very decent with some upgrades. If I had a $1500 budget, I’d spend at least $500 of that on a GPU–but then, I’m a gamer. If I did video editing, I’d spend some bucks on a multi-terabyte SSD. If I did CAD (I do), I’d put 64 GB of RAM in it, even if it was only DDR4.
So the answer varies greatly based on your use case, and we’re still not super clear on that.
If your current system is sluggish even for stuff like web browsing, you don’t Alder Lake to make it feel snappy. A cheap RAM or SSD upgrade might be more than enough. Barring that, there are much cheaper CPU combos that will get it feeling modern.
I’ve already upgraded the RAM but it is DD3 so that’s limited. A new video card, currently a RX 240 w/ 1 GB, wouldn’t do much as the bottleneck is the CPU and bus.
Use case: MS Office, some low-end video editing with Movie Maker. Sound Editing with Audacity and some games but not the latest and greatest needing to run 144fps.
The bus is almost never the bottleneck. PCI-e Gen3 was out in 2010 and it’s still totally sufficient to drive a 3090 Ti. It’s almost the case that the faster the GPU, the less the bus matters, because they can put everything in fast VRAM instead of pulling data over the bus.
The CPU might be a bottleneck, but even then it’s uncertain. If you can crank all the settings down to the minimum and hit 60 fps, then it’s probably not the CPU holding you back.
That RX 240 is holding you back way more than the CPU, even though it’s a bit newer. Even a modest MMO is going to be punishing that, especially with the microscopic amount of VRAM. I wouldn’t want less than 6 GB these days, even for fairly simple gaming.
If I were you, I’d save my money and get something a step or two back from the bleeding edge.
Agreed, and the money I save eventually goes into a new video card.
And when I said bus, I was referring specifically to the SATA drive (old standard). 93.8216% of the time not a big deal but I want windows and my games to boot without have time to run a half-marathon, take a nap, order a pizza, etc.
A PCI-e SSD (NVMe) is absolutely a worthy upgrade for any machine. Gen3 is still very good here. Gen4 is notably faster, but the bulk of the difference is between SATA and NVMe of any kind. And FWIW, I’ve been happy with the Samsung drives, both 980 PRO and 970 EVO. I use those at work. I just think that 500 GB, let alone 250, is tiny 
. I have individual games that are ~130 GB…
Even just replacing your spinning disk hard drive with a SATA SSD will net you a significant speed boost. Windows 10 and 11 seem to expect SSD performance these days.
The 500GB is based on my current usage of half that for all of my stuff. If I need to get more space, I’ll drop the NVMe 3 (250GB) holding all of my documents, convert the current program drive (500GB NVMe4) to my new doc drive and buy a new 2TB or whatever NVMe.
BUT I will look at the cost of that 980 PRO 1TB vs 500GB to see if it makes sense.
Absolutely! They run like dogshit on spinning drives (same with macOS). Seems almost criminal that some companies still sell computers with HDDs (Apple finally stopped).
OK, y’all convinced me. 1TB NVMe4 for programs and 500GB NVMe3 for document storage. Also extra $20 for DDR4 3600 instead of 3200 and considering sticking with 16GB instead of 32GB ($90 cost). The question will be how much of an upgrade the UHD 750 is over my current card.
OK here’s the question (sorry this is turning into a ‘Help me build my PC build’ thread.) I have a B560 board picked out that is perfect for what I need, but will the K processor and 3600 RAM, should I go with a Z590? For $90 would you upgrade the board to a Z590 and 16GB of RAM or B560 and 32GB of RAM?
ETA: mobo upgrade only $20 to Z590. Thumbs up
Unless you’ve given strong evidence to the contrary (what I mean by that is you’re doing something that puts you in the top 5% most demanding computer users), you will not notice the difference between NVMe3 & 4, you will not notice the difference between DDR 3600 and DDR 3200 and you probably won’t notice the difference between 16GB and 32GB.
Just get any old NVMe SSD, maybe start with 500GB and then get another drive if the first one fills up. You definitely don’t need two drives to start off with, just keep everything on a single drive. You can always partition if you want there to be a logical separation.
Just get any old RAM and 16GB of it, if you start noticing excessive swapping, then upgrade to 32GB.
I think you’re still stuck in an early 2000s mindset where these kind of choices used to matter but that hasn’t been true in more than a decade. These choices are important for people at the edge of computing but they simply don’t matter to 95%+ of computer users any more. Pick the right CPU, pick the right GPU and pick the right amount of RAM and storage. Everything else has become good enough that the details are irrelevant.
I’m still playing around with 3200 vs 3600 for a $20 per 16GB dollar difference as well as 32GB vs 16GB. I think 3600 makes ssensee but only 16GB for now with upgrading later if needed.
What about a Sapphire Radeon RX 550 for $200? It would be a huge upgrade from my R7 240 1GB and I assume better than UHD750 but it is at best a $100 card but doubled at today’s inflated prices.
Yeah, the markups are sorta unbelievable right now. At MSRP, I’d recommend springing for a $250 RTX 3050. But that doesn’t exist anywhere currently. An RX 550 for $200 seems like a terrible deal–it’s more like an $80 card, and that’s when it was released 5 years ago. But everything else is similarly inflated.
You might look around for combos. Newegg had an RTX 3050 + 1 TB Gen4 SSD for ~$500. That’s not too horrific, though still inflated. Worth looking around at least.
Going off of Amazon I see a new GeForce GTX 1050 ti for $300. Not gonna pull the trigger (yet) but given current card prices it might be the best bang for the buck. Still exploring though but Amazon search is a nightmare.
I wouldn’t spend on a new GPU unless you can swing ~$450 which would get you a Radeon 6600 (non-XT) which is a decent deal for the price. The exception would be if you could get an RTX 3050 for the $250-$300 price range. That’s probably close to impossible and, if you were to buy a marked up 3050 for another $50-$100, you might as well get the superior 6600. Do not get the 6500XT which is a terrible stripped-down garbage card.
I recognize that “Just spend another $200!” is not always helpful but the sad truth right now is that there’s nothing new being sold for under $400 that’s worth buying for the price, RTX 3050 excepted (if you could find it at MSRP). $300 1050tis and $200 RX 550s are… not good value.
On the flip side, that Z590 is a good choice since the B-class boards don’t overclock CPUs and don’t really support XMP. I mean, they technically do and it’s in the BIOS but the board will say “XMP on” while downclocking the RAM back to 2666 or 2933. There’s no good point to spending on a K-class processor and 3600 speed RAM to put in a B-series board.
I’ve been looking at a refurb card as a stopgap but even those are expensive for what they are. The only reason I’m even considering it is the board does not have HDMI and my monitor does not have displayport. Guess I’ll use an adapter
Yeah. I’d spend the $10 on an adapter instead of $300 on a $125 GPU (which is what a 1050Ti cost before all this current nonsense). Sorry.
Here’s the specs of a computer based on how I think Saint_Cad says he uses his current build. Some of the advantages with it I think are:
- Can upgrade the CPU if needed.
- Can add a dedicated GPU if needed but can provide him with HDMI video using the onboard integrated video. Although, I think there’s enough budget left to grab a 6600.
*No features he’s not going to use.
OP and others feel free to edit if you’re interested. It should be editable.
Here’s what I have. Budget was $1500. Goal is a computer that can go a decade with only upgrading the video card and RAM. Another consideration was two different physical drives, one for programs and one for documents, pictures, videos, etc.
Intel i7 11700K - Go blue!
Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Elite - Everything I need and not a lot of extras
Corsair Vengeance 16GB - Splurged $20 to get the 3600 but not the 32GB
No video card
Samsung 980 PRO 1TB - Program storage
Samsung EVO Plus 512 GB - Data storage
Corsair 5000D Airflow Mid-Tower case - A lot of cases make it tricky to have positive pressure. This one makes it a no brainer.
Corsair 750W 80 Gold PLUS (Modular) - Yes, total overkill. Even when I get a top-line video card in the future.
Noctua NH-U12A cpu cooler - This system will not run hot enough for an AIO radiator. This Noctua is more than enough.
Cooler Master MasterFan - OK I’ll have RGB. Not that I want to but these are good fans and the 3 in 1 design makes it very convenient. One in the front and one up top.
be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 - Three for the side “extra motherboard” cooling part of the case.
Total cost before tax and shipping: A few bucks under $1400.
Why?