Help me update me olde rig (it's from 2009/2010)

[fatal4you]

Me old friend is getting a little dated. Lately my monitor shows signs of nearing the retirement age. It's still usable though. But for the day it starts biting the dust I looked a bit into new monitors to be prepared.

Mainly I use my rig for working (code, Excel, stocks) and on Sundays mornings for Assetto Corsa (all settings to low, max 4 opponents and sometimes I get CPU heat warning).

These ultra-wide monitors look cool. Should I get a 49 inch ultra wide? Or is it to big? I like to sit far away from the monitor (110cm), would love to sit even more far away from it. Don't need that Gsync, FreeSync is good enough as I will be using AMD/ATI graphics card in any case (NVIDIA can respectfully **** themselves for their lack of good Linux drivers). Or would 2 or 3 smaller monitors be better?

But such a large monitor will probably overpower my old graphics card. Honestly, I'm not up to speed on today's hardware.

Here are my current specs:

Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM (link)
CPU: Intel i7-920 8 Cores @2,67 Ghz (link)
Motherboard: MSI ATI Raedon r5770 Hawk (link)
Memory: 12 GB
SSD: Fairly new, bought this year

So, what would you do if you had my rig to upgrade? Budget-wise I'm flexible but I prefer to only replace broken components and keep using what I have until it breaks. My goal is to keep playing Assetto Corsa.

Thanks.

 

[Terry Rock]

It is a very difficult time currently to upgrade anything in the PC world.
Aside from memory and harddrives, everything else is doubly expensive right now.
What core speed are you running that I7-920?
If you have better cooling than the Intel stock unit, you can bump things up there a little while waiting for pricing to stabilize.
It is really a waiting game now to see if saturation over time, will bring pricing back to any sense of normalcy.
The big players are also engaging in some really shady tactics to keep prices elevated due to shortages.

 

[David Turnbull]

If your realy set on keeping the majority of your componants (which tbh do all need upgraded) then you can consider throwing in a Xeon x5680 CPU, your most likely on the x58 chipset and the Xeons are a cheap upgrade, they can be had between £30-£50 on Ebay and are 6 core 12 thread and massively overclockable, pair one of these with a cheap AMD 580 graphics card (I think anything higher would end up being bottlenecked by the CPU) and youd have a good upgrade for minimal outlay.

Monitor wise you could then use any 1080p monitor and it should run happily enough, any higher res would be pushing it.

 

[fatal4you]

It is a very difficult time currently to upgrade anything in the PC world.
Aside from memory and harddrives, everything else is doubly expensive right now.
What core speed are you running that I7-920?
If you have better cooling than the Intel stock unit, you can bump things up there a little while waiting for pricing to stabilize.
It is really a waiting game now to see if saturation over time, will bring pricing back to any sense of normalcy.
The big players are also engaging in some really shady tactics to keep prices elevated due to shortages.

Can you elaborate on why it's a difficult time to upgrade? Is it because of Corona, is everyone upgrading their rig right now?

The i7-920 runs at stock @2,67 Ghz. It also still has the stock fan on it. Do they still make compatible fans for this CPU? Water cooling maybe? I know that this CPU can be overclocked.

If my monitor keeps running I have a lot of time to wait.

 

[fatal4you]

If your realy set on keeping the majority of your componants (which tbh do all need upgraded) then you can consider throwing in a Xeon x5680 CPU, your most likely on the x58 chipset and the Xeons are a cheap upgrade, they can be had between £30-£50 on Ebay and are 6 core 12 thread and massively overclockable, pair one of these with a cheap AMD 580 graphics card (I think anything higher would end up being bottlenecked by the CPU) and youd have a good upgrade for minimal outlay.

Monitor wise you could then use any 1080p monitor and it should run happily enough, any higher res would be pushing it.

I couldn't find a graphics card named AMD 580? Do you mean a specific model?

Would this 1080p monitor work? Samsung C49HG90DMU

 

[Turk]

There comes a point when your essentially flogging a dead horse when it comes to old PCs. At the 10 year point I'd be looking at a new CPU and motherboard, which usually means new ram too.

Assetto corsa isn't that power hungry. You could get a much better PC using current budget parts. It would open up the possibility of using bigger higher resolution screens and multiple screens.

I would guess that outside of gaming the added monitor real estate would be useful to you.

 

[David Turnbull]

the card I meant is the AMD RX580, its available from various place, 4gb or 8gb versions and would be a very good upgrade on what you have, but.. with your present platform youd need the Xeon x5680 to see any benefit to it, you'll be bottlenecked by your present CPU otherwise.

saying a monitor would work is a hard one, because yes, any monitor as long as it has the right connection for your graphics card will "work" but that monitor paired with your 5770 would be a waste as it wont be able to push any decent framerate onto it.

heres links to the parts I was meaning..

Xeon x5680 - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Xe...733546?hash=item5d9101336a:g:pRcAAOSw8aBdZ~~7

RX580 - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Radeon-R...803952?hash=item2d01fbbef0:g:bCkAAOSwk8JeF46-

 

[fatal4you]

There comes a point when your essentially flogging a dead horse when it comes to old PCs. At the 10 year point I'd be looking at a new CPU and motherboard, which usually means new ram too.

Assetto corsa isn't that power hungry. You could get a much better PC using current budget parts. It would open up the possibility of using bigger higher resolution screens and multiple screens.

I would guess that outside of gaming the added monitor real estate would be useful to you.

 

[fatal4you]

saying a monitor would work is a hard one, because yes, any monitor as long as it has the right connection for your graphics card will "work" but that monitor paired with your 5770 would be a waste as it wont be able to push any decent framerate onto it.

Is it possible to turn such a monitor down to 1920x1080 resolution, so that there would be black stripes to the left and right of the picture? Because for me for office stuff the ultra-wide monitor would be great, but I don't need that particular feature for Assetto Corsa. Gaming in 1920x1080 is fine.

 

[Terry Rock]

Can you elaborate on why it's a difficult time to upgrade? Is it because of Corona, is everyone upgrading their rig right now?

The i7-920 runs at stock @2,67 Ghz. It also still has the stock fan on it. Do they still make compatible fans for this CPU? Water cooling maybe? I know that this CPU can be overclocked.

If my monitor keeps running I have a lot of time to wait.

You can push most of the I7-920 to 2.8-2.9 GHz without spending too much for cooling.
I ran AC and RF2 for years on that very same CPU.
I only jumped to the Ryzen after going to WMR.
Parts prices for CPU and especially GPUs are through the roof due to extremely high demand from students and work professionals at home during the pandemic.
It is compounded by mining farms being sold any extra chips for their operation.
The net is that those of us wanting these components are on the end of the list.
I refuse to pay through the nose and am prepared to wait or curtail gaming until I can get something.
In the mean time, I am running all of my sims on a Zotac 4GB GTX770 AMP Edition card.
I replaced the sleeved fans with a pair of dual ball-bearing units and am happy to sit on that for the time being after selling my GTX1080Ti Duke in anticipation of the new cards. I'd actually put the money aside for an AMD RX6800XT.
The GTX1080Ti is now fetching...in some cases...over $900 as an example.
It is crazy.

 

[David Turnbull]

you can buy a corsair AIO cooler that would work fine on that socket, my wife has the H60 on her Xeon x5680 and its overclocked to 3.8ghz for the last couple of years, theres also plenty air coolers that work well with socket 1366.

the I7 can reach 3.8ghz to 4.2ghz fairly easily, before my wife had the Xeon her 920 ran at 3.8ghz for 4 years and was still working fine when replaced.

regards monitor, using that monitor like that would be a waste, any non native res you run it at wont look as good as it would in native.

 

[fatal4you]

you can buy a corsair AIO cooler that would work fine on that socket, my wife has the H60 on her Xeon x5680 and its overclocked to 3.8ghz for the last couple of years, theres also plenty air coolers that work well with socket 1366.

the I7 can reach 3.8ghz to 4.2ghz fairly easily, before my wife had the Xeon her 920 ran at 3.8ghz for 4 years and was still working fine when replaced.

regards monitor, using that monitor like that would be a waste, any non native res you run it at wont look as good as it would in native.

Maybe a silly question, but what would happen if I'd buy a 4k monitor with my old r5770. How different would the picture look, would it all be blurry? Or would it just not be full screen?

This monitor for e.g.:

 

[David Turnbull]

the 5770 wont support 4k monitors through the HDMI as its an older spec of HDMI, it might support it through DsiplayPort but will only be 4k at 30hz, and even this is luck of the draw, it could be glitchy, stuttery or not work at all.

 

[fatal4you]

the 5770 wont support 4k monitors through the HDMI as its an older spec of HDMI, it might support it through DsiplayPort but will only be 4k at 30hz, and even this is luck of the draw, it could be glitchy, stuttery or not work at all.

Hmm, too bad. Seems that a better monitor would also require an update of my beloved r5770.

Would it help to buy another old 5770 from ebay and couple them together? Back in the days this used to be a thing to improve performance.

 

[David Turnbull]

it wouldnt help in that it would allow you to run a 4k monitor, crossfire would still be using the one cards connections and limiting factor is the cards themselves.

like I said before, if you really want to keep the majority of your system and upgrade it for cheap as possible, then consider the Xeon x5680 cpu with a Corsair AIO cooler, a radeon rx580 and then get a new monitor, thats really about the max you can take that system, I know all this works well as my wife has that cpu and graphics card, she runs 1080p and can play things like BF5 all at ultra settings, I also talked a few of my friends into getting the same stuff and they have had no problems with it, for an over 10 year old system they can still pack a good punch.

 

[Jan Larsen]

Budget?

 

[fatal4you]

Budget?

Flexible

 

[Jan Larsen]

Tbh new rig then. Upgrading a system of that age is simply not worth it. My old system was quite a few years newer than yours and the cost of replacing the gpu, mobo, cpu, ram and psu actually outweighted the cost of a brand new system.

 

[demetri]

For a 2-3 year old system you can often get away with upgrading your GPU, but this one is just way too old. There's nothing salvageable there, except maybe SSD (though you will want to get an NVME drive, trust me) and the case. Everything else must go, and I would not trust a 11-12 year old PSU to power a new expensive hardware, so it has to be replaced as well.

I was in a similar situation a year and a half ago, only my system was from 2013 (Ivy Bridge platform) with a GTX 1070 I put into it in 2016 and I basically had to build (I don't buy pre-built PCs) a new rig from scratch and sold the old one for what I could get for it.

 

[RasmusP]

Flexible

Depending on availability:

CPUs to buy in this order (edit: opposite order, lol)
- don't go below 6 cores or 8 threads (4 cores with hyperthreading are okay)

1. Used:
Mobo+CPU+16gb RAM below 160€:
- i7 4770k or 4790k
Mobo+CPU+16gb RAM below 200€:
- i7 6700k
Mobo+CPU+16gb RAM below 230€:
- i7 7700k
Mobo+CPU+16gb RAM below 260€:
- i5 8600k (300€ for 8700k)
Mobo+CPU+16gb RAM below 300€:
- i5 9600k (360€ for 9700k)

These Intels need a good cooler! With good I mean a BIG FAT one to be overclocked. They gain quite a lot when overclocked!

Then new:
Intel: 9600k or 10600k both available for good prices. You barely gain anything for simracing with hyperthreading on the 10600k. I have it, a good friend has the 9600k. Honestly not worth the money I spent compared to him...

For simracing you need single thread performance. So for AMD you shouldn't buy the Ryzen 1xxx or 2xxx.
3xxx are okay, but 9600k would still be quite a lot better for simracing!

New Ryzen 5600x would be the best buy currently but the prices asked for it are utterly insane and not worth it.
If you can wait, wait for the 5600x to drop to around 250€. Then it'll be a good deal!
Before Corona, 3600x would cost 180€, 5600x right now is 360€!

This would be it for the CPU.

Graphics card:
Just buy what's available and what fits your budget. The RX570 or newer: 5700 (xt) seem to be good cards, price vs performance wise.