Retro's PC upgrade

[Retro]

It's high time that I upgraded my PC as it's now really needed and here's why.

I built a 2700K based PC with 16GB RAM back in November 2011 which was so good and fast in games, plus further CPU performance improvements per generation were so marginal, that it just wasn't worth upgrading. So, by late 2023 it was somewhat overdue to say the least, but I still didn't get round to it for various reasons. To be honest, other than a few of the very latest games, performance was still reasonable and with the variable refresh rate monitors that we have now, gaming at the highest frame rates really isn't the priority that it once was since there are no dropped frames with VRR that lead to annoying judder / stutter, so all you see is smooth gameplay. This has to be one of the best innovations in PC gaming of the last decade.

Then, one day in December, with the PC idling on the desktop, the motherboard suddenly died with a literal bang! The screen went black and multiple loud thumps sounded through the speakers, plus a slight telltale burning smell. Unsurprisingly, it didn't respond to the power switch after that. After a bit of basic troubleshooting, I confirmed that my trusty PC of 12 years was dead. It may not seem like it when a PC is new, but all hardware has a certain lifetime which will be reached sooner or later and now mine had finally reached it.

Note that while the CPU and supporting components had remained constant, I'd upgraded the graphics card many times, with the latest being a now aging MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio and a damned fine card that is, too. With fan stop in 2D mode, it's so cool and quiet, even when gaming hard. That will also need replacing, but not until the NVIDIA 50xx series are out, which will be around the middle of next year and the price will make a big difference to what I get. For now, I just drop the resolution and details down if I have to. Again though, not such a pressing requirement with VRR.

Luckily, I'd bought a used lower end rig off a friend to use for file backups, but hadn't pressed it into service yet, so replaced my 2700K rig with that as a stopgrap measure. It consisted of the following:

• CPU: Intel i5-4590 at 3.30GHz. While two generations newer, this has a lower clock speed than the 2700K, isn't overclockable and has only 4 cores without HT. Yeah, I can notice the difference, even on the desktop. Oh and W11 says No to running on it
• Mobo: Asus mATX
• RAM: 8GB DDR3
• Cooler: Budget Cooler Master

I replaced the RAM with the 16GB from the old rig, which still worked just fine despite the sudden death of the motherboard, which I'm still using to this day and as I write this. Must say it's been rock solid stable and with good CPU temperatures too, so a great workhorse. Gaming performance could be rather better though, it's definitely worse than the 2700K and Windows 11 can't be installed on it without a bodge, so, today, I've finally, finally pulled the trigger and bought the replacement parts! This upgrade has literally been years in the making and I must have skipped a good three upgrades or so over the years which has saved me a lot of money.

So, what to replace it with? It was a choice between the new AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, or the Intel i9-14900K for the heart of my new PC. It took me a while to make up my mind due to various factors, but while the AMD is currently king of the hill for gaming performance by a significant margin (see reviews) it's not widely available yet and isn't necessarily as fast as the Intel in other tasks. Plus, I want to upgrade my PC right now, especially as I've just bought the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 which I'm playing online with friends. Performance in that game with my current rig is poor, with 20-40fps on average, leading to lots of stutters, hitching and unevenness, even with VRR as the framerate is just too low. Heck, I did a quick benchmark at 1080p which showed the CPU to be 100% the bottleneck! It's high time to upgrade, hence, I went with the 14900K.

So, today, 18.11.24, I finally pulled the trigger and bought the components I needed, delivery due tomorrow. I was able to buy all of them from amazon.co.uk, no Marketplace, ie directly off Amazon which has reliably ensured no problems for me over the years, unlike Marketplace. They are:

• £438.99 CPU: Intel i9-14900K
• £249.99 Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI
• £154.99 Crucial Pro DDR5 64GB (2x32GB, CP2K32G56C46U5)
• £127.95 Noctua NH-D15 G2 (standard)

£971.92 grand total. Ouch!

This is what it takes for a no-compromise system though. I could have gone with 32GB RAM, but I want 64GB because I can and will also help with running virtual machines, so what's the point of saving a few pounds, but then hankering for the better product from day one? It's a recipe for immediate frustration and it's really not that much extra money in the long run.

I went with the big Noctua cooler since my NH-D14 has performed so flawlessly for 12 years and in fact has not failed, plus the new one has received superlative reviews.

With the latest Intel 0x12b microcode update fixing the overvolting issues that were slowly destroying the CPUs and resulting lower temperatures, I should even be able to overclock it to some extent, although I'm gonna be careful with that and likely return it to stock afterwards. I prefer long life over a slight gain in performance and a reduced life with a rig this expensive.

Other components in my PC remain the same:

• Case: Cooler Master HAF 922
• PSU: Corsair AX1600i
• System drive: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD
• Data drive: WD Blue 4TB HDD
• Game drive: WD Blue 8TB HDD
• Optical drive: Asus DVD writer
• Sound card: Creative: SoundBlaster Fatal1ty X-Fi (see below)

I have various other drives that I connect to it for backup and testing duties.

I'll be getting an M.2 SSD for it at some point, but not urgent.

I got the seriously overpowered Corsair PSU because I wanted the best quality and most efficient PSU at the time, along with the control software, which is this one and was well worth the £400 asking price. I think other PSUs approach it now, but I'm not sure it's been beaten yet, not even by Seasonic.

Note that the Samsung 256GB drive has worked flawlessly for almost a decade now (how time flies) and has no bad blocks, so perhaps it would be wise to replace it soon before it begins to fail.

I couldn't use the sound card with this mATX board, but I don't think it's going into the new rig either since it's no longer supported by Creative and the outdated W10 drivers have intermittent crackling and distortion problems, plus may not even work on W11. Also, onboard sound is pretty good nowadays, even the one on this old mATX board. Shame, as I really like this card for its fantastic sound quality and its advanced processing features. I'll have to try it and see.


UPDATE 19.11.24

All the parts have arrived, are in perfect condition with all seals intact and I'll be building my new rig soon. Note that I'm going to do some before and after benchmarks, too. I expect the differences to be massive.

 

[Retro]

@Techano you'll be interested in this.

 

[Techano]

I would recommend 2TB NVME 4.0+ for just purely games and application as they do benefit from the read/write speeds and keep your HDD for purely storage files. Hell, maybe make your current PC into a server.

Though I would highly advise against overclocking with the Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPU as they have been evident of being unreliable. Yes, they have the latest microcode, but it's way too early to tell given the whole fiasco. I wouldn't bother until a few years have passed if you purely need the performance bump.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

 

[Retro]

That SSD looks good, so I'll keep it in mind when looking to buy one. I was thinking of the Samsung 980 Pro, but I want to see reviews first. Basically, I wanted to keep the build under a grand as it's really not that critical a component since I already have an SSD and makes no difference to framerates.

I know what you mean about the microcode, but there doesn't seem to be anything bad come of it as nothing in the news or forums about it and the couple of videos I've seen show the CPU to be running cooler due to the lower voltage, so I reckon it will be ok. Don't forget that there's a warranty on the CPU anyway should it start to play up, plus I'm not running it on a dodgy Asus motherboard. I don't trust that brand anymore after their recent CPU cooking scandal (an AMD literally went up in smoke in a Gamers Nexus video) and general practices. I refuse to give them my money for the foreseeable future over this. They must prove to me that they're worthy of my trust, not the other way round.

I agree about the overclocking, best just run the thing at stock. It's fast enough anyway and if I need more speed down the line, it will make a great excuse to upgrade.

I've fixed your overclocking typo.

 

[Retro]

@Geffers apologies, I'd forgotten that you're into this as well.

 

[Techano]

In today's gaming hardware demands, I would differently go with a NVMe ASAP. It won't help with FPS, but it will definitely help with loading times (unless you like to make a cuppa while you load into a game lol).

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[Retro]

Yeah, it will help, but my current boot SSD is fast enough. Also, it has enough space left on it for me to move my current game over to it on a separate partition. Gonna wait until I do the hardware upgrade first.

 

[Retro]

Note that my two data drives are both WD Blues as I wanted quietness and a bit cheaper over performance. Noise was by far the deciding factor, since the PC sits right next to me to the right with the side panel permanently off and they deliver in this respect. Games take a while to load, but it's not too bad.