Comparing upgrade to a new system
Comparing upgrade to a new system
I own an older setup, an I7-4790K with 6700XT, a small SSD and large HD, around seven years back.
I think the intermittent issues might mean the storage components are deteriorating. That’s why I’m considering replacing them.
The games run fine enough, but the load/disk feedback suggests a bigger SSD would help instead of switching to HD.
I’m weighing two options: a new system possibly with 9800x3d and a GPU, or upgrading the existing drives.
It’s worth thinking about which choice makes more sense.
While swapping storage in would be simpler we're talking a platform that is over a decade old now. I think it really depends on what all you do with your system as to whether it's worth it (time and money) to build new.
Just some general notes:
Quad core CPUs are really past their prime at this point and we're starting to see that even with modern architectures they're just not keeping up in games across the board. This would indicate that games are getting better at spreading out their workloads across available cores.
If you emphasize graphics over frame rate then the amount of CPU you need is going to be lower. Aside from factory/city builders in late game the first time I remembered seeing CPU bottlenecks with the retired system in my signature (i7-6900K) was in the largest
Starfield
city.
If you're thinking of going AMD then getting a cheaper CPU and waiting on Zen 6 is an option and if the rumors are accurate that they're moving to 12-core CCDs then that ought to be more futureproof. This is absolutely not to say anything negative about the 9800X3D as it's the best gaming CPU available right now, but the 8 cores/lower clocks can be a limitation under very specific circumstances.
Myself I would probably build a new system of some sort rather than upgrading what you've got.
Thank you for your feedback. The concept of a small new system to wait for Zen 6 doesn't look very appealing, as it could simply be to wait for Zen 6 directly. I wasn't even familiar with Zen 6.
You only need to replace the CPU, but I see no reason not to. I think AMD probably won’t alter their chipset plans either. It’s unlikely they’ll release an upgraded model with Zen 6 anytime soon, given their typical two-year development cycle and the fact that the first Zen 5 chips came out in August 2024—so a Zen 6 should appear in summer or fall 2026.