Upgrading my Rig

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• psychoak Registered Users Posts: 3,414

  July 2018

  Upgrading your ram will probably net you a 1% performance increase. It's a complete waste of time. Buying faster ram in the first place is of marginal utility, something we do more because we're stupid than because it's really a practical option. So long as you're using ram with good timing, that meets or exceeds the processor's supported levels, the only reason to ever replace it is because you need more, or it's degraded.
  
  You should consider the 4790K as nearing end of life, a GPU replacement is practical as a stopgap measure that can be ported to a new system later.
  
  At four years old, it could fail at any time, resulting in any dated upgrades becoming junk items when it does. Any upgrading you do to the system should be parts that can be taken to a future system. Performance wise, it's still just fine, serviceable for even the most demanding games, so there's no need to replace it short of a failure. Unless you need that extra 15%, or the additional cores from newer processors, I'd keep the system until something non transferable fails, potentially even replacing a failed memory stick since it would only be a hundred bucks or so. I would not replace a failed CPU or motherboard, unless you found one dirt cheap, as they tend to go back up in price after they get old, instead of getting cheaper.
  
  It's slightly less efficient on energy usage, but your total cost there is probably less than $100 per year, so a small percent change there isn't worth throwing away a year or two of life. Junk the system if you need better performance, keep it till it fails if you don't.
  
  The monitor. I wouldn't get that.
  
  First, 1440p at 23 inches, is a bit tiny. You have to consider text size, not just image quality. If you're upgrading from 1080p at the same screen size, you'll have to increase the size of the text to match, which results in less visual quality for such things. Graphics will be improved, but every day usage will suffer. If this actually is your sweet spot, dpi wise, you should go ahead and look into a 32 inch 4k display, which are decently priced high volume panels, and only slightly smaller pixel size. You pay a premium for less common display sizes.
  
  Second, Dell monitors, while decent, are typically over priced. That is a run of the mill IPS display, no special features, 60Hz. It's no better than the Acer K2 IPS monitors, and it's certainly inferior to the Samsungs.
  
  I'd get this, for a budget 1440p display. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIACVB5CN6597 I have one, it's a decent picture with a flicker free backlight, inferior to the Samsung SA850 it sits beside, but the Samsung cost me over twice as much.
  
  Bottleneck wise, 60hz isn't going to be an issue. You don't play shooters, 144fps in anything outside of a highly competitive twitch game, is probably not going to help you. Even if your video card will do the performance, it's best to cap the sucker at 60fps and save it the wear and tear of wasted performance.

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• blooded23 Registered Users Posts: 2

  July 2018

  Thank you for all your feedback, Think I will stay with thr current build for now, minus buying a 1080 (i dont have any graphics card as of now) and look at possible cpu / MB / ram upgrades in the year to come.
  
  I have also found this monitor from Massdrop called the Vast: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-vast-curved-gaming-monitor
  
  Seems like the sweet spot between content editing and for gaming, but do the total war games support the ultrawide settings and what would the UI ingame look like.
  
  Thanks again.

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• psychoak Registered Users Posts: 3,414

  July 2018

  Ultra wide is just fine in games these days, loads of people using them. That monitor is definitely nice if it's what you're looking for, VA with a 2ms response is a good spot to aim for, picture wise.

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