Finding Optimal Upgrade Paths

[T K]

Greetings!


Some time ago, taking into account information and advice received from here, I put together a system…
- Case: Fractal Design Define R4
- PowerSupply: ( broken after a bit less than 7 years ) Sea Sonic Platinum Series 520 Fanless
- Cooling: Noctua NH-C12P SE14 - Processor cooler
- Main-board: Asus Socket 1155 Z77-A
- CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz 6MB
- RAM: 4 * Crucial Ballistix Tactical - 4 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL8 - 1.5 V
- SSD: Samsung 840 Pro Series - 256 GB - 2.5" - SATA-600
- HDD: Seagate Pipeline - 2 TB - 3.5" - SATA-600 - 5900 rpm - buffer: 64 MB
- VideoCard: MSI GeForce GTX 760 (N760TF2GD5/OC)

What upgrade paths have become viable meanwhile?


The main areas of use have remained similar…

• game development( including testing ), programming, 3D modelling, image and video editing, rendering, some engineering, research, learning and such

Specific technologies may have diversified a little.

Usability of the Current System

• In case of many real-time or interactive tasks, the GPU tends to turn on fans and get to a more noisy state quite quickly. In this case, I usually tend to stop( or temporarily switch away from -- works only in some cases ) such tasks or put the whole computer to stand-by, to cool off. This means that it has not been easy to make use of the whole capacity.
• The CPU and general cooling produce ( somewhat less ) noise all the time. It has seemed that more performance would be useful.
• It has seemed that more RAM could be useful.

Possible Upgrades
CPU Socket
It seems that LGA 1200 is the latest well-compatible with this cooler.
LGA 1151 also supports DDR3 memory. However, in order to upgrade its capacity, it seems that all new memory would be needed anyhow ( if all modules would need to have the same size and there would be no more than 4 slots total ).

CPU
Have been looking at newer models with similar and lower power consumption as an estimate of what the current cooling capabilities could handle, without being louder and hopefully allowing more silence.
It is possible to obtain...

• Intel Core...
• • i5-11400F for ~123 €
• • i7-10700 for ~213 €

RAM
Have been considering at least 24 GB, for now.
Possibly, ( at least initially ) 2 modules of...

• Fury, Performance Gaming, DDR4, 16GB, 2666 MHz, 260-pin SO DIMM, CL 15, Nominal voltage 1.2 V

Main-board
Possibly...

• Gigabyte Socket 1200 Z590 Gaming X ~132 €
• Asus Socket 1200 Prime B560-Plus ~148 €

GPU
I've been told that "newer video cards' noise is minimal" and "the concern of noise was actual 4..5 years ago". To what extent is this true?
For example, there has been an offer of AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT GPUs for 360 Euros ( possibly somewhat cheaper now ). Would this be useful towards quietness?

PSU
considering replacing the one that suddenly exploded with a
- SeaSonic Prime Fanless 600W Titanium


Do any combinations of such components look reasonable?
Maybe something else could have a better relationship between quietness, performance and cost.
What bottlenecks could be anticipated?

Thank you in advance!


All the best!

[CA_Steve]

Welcome back.
- How many euros do you wish to throw at the problem? That will help constrain what we look to replace.
- You might wish to look at the current generation of AMD CPUs for better performance/watt. Something like the Ryzen 5 7600 would use roughly the same power as your Ivy Bridge CPU and be 3 to 5x faster for CPU bound tasks.
- Do you have a feel for how GPU-bound you are for your various apps / how much of an uplift you want? Noise is mostly a combination of the quality of the cooling solution and the TDP of the GPU. Even back in the 760's day, there were fairly quiet solutions. Getting something in the same wattage range might be a few dBs quieter, but not lots. The biggest difference is most cards' fans are off until there is a 3D load.

[Japanese Capacitor]

It would be best if you typed all of the programs you will use - that would help recommend you best. Then your budget. You could also link two or three prefered shops' sites. I just don't know how prices in euro countries compare to prices in polish zloty and if they are the same in Germany and Spain - with such links we can save ourselves recommending you goods unavailable or not attractively priced in your region, so spend your budget the best.

If we talk about noise, it depends mostly on what Steve already said - strenght of cooling solution confronted with power draw of component. You Noctua's cooler will be noisier and hotter on CPU more power hungry than yours. E.g. coming to GPUs, from my experience in 6700 XT range (200-250W) and with focus on quiet operation you need to go with tripple-fan desing card and rather premium one if you want it quiet and cool out-of-the-box. Cheaper cards may also get fine if you don't mind some tweaking like undervolting or setting fan curve to your likings, but it will cost perfromance or temperatures.

[T K]

Greetings, CA_Steve!

It is good to see the forums back online. Here's what I wrote and attempted to send for quite some time…
( only the first reply was visible here, until now )

- How many euros do you wish to throw at the problem? That will help constrain what we look to replace.

How about something in range of 512..768 , at first?
( By the way... The intent wasn't exactly "throwing" in some sort of reckless sense, but allocating in mindful ways. Precision-throw, maybe )

- You might wish to look at the current generation of AMD CPUs for better performance/watt. Something like the Ryzen 5 7600 would use roughly the same power as your Ivy Bridge CPU and be 3 to 5x faster for CPU bound tasks.

Found a...
Ryzen 5 7600X ( 105 Watts ) ~251 €
Would this also need a new cooler, though?

- Do you have a feel for how GPU-bound you are for your various apps / how much of an uplift you want?

Things have seemed to be less bound by the maximal throughput at highest quality settings and more by the points after which the computer becomes louder ( even at not so high quality ). For example, when editing a real-time 3D application|game|simulation in an interactive way, so that a version of it is running and showing changes as they are made.
Generally, it would be good if various possible applications would at least be (reasonably) compatible|runnable, so that it would at least be possible to try them out. As an example, some implementations of the stable diffusion algorithm need at least 4GB of video memory. Some things utilize Shader Model 6.

- Noise is mostly a combination of the quality of the cooling solution and the TDP of the GPU. Even back in the 760's day, there were fairly quiet solutions. Getting something in the same wattage range might be a few dBs quieter, but not lots.

Is this when performing the same task ( – rendering the same results, with the more modern card being more idle relative to its full capacity ) or at the same load percentage ( , with the more modern card producing something more )?

- The biggest difference is most cards' fans are off until there is a 3D load.

This sounds positive, too. ...Unless some other components would make up for the lack of noise.

[T K]

Hello, Japanese Capacitor!

It would be best if you typed all of the programs you will use - that would help recommend you best.

Some examples could be…
- Sublime Text , Visual Studio Code ,..
- various IDEs , interpreters and compilers
- Blender 3D , FreeCAD , POV-Ray ,..
- Godot , Unreal Engine & Editor , Unity ,..
- raster&vector image|graphics|texture editors
- OpenShot , Kdenlive
- Audacity , other audio editors
- Firefox , Chrome
Various new programs tend to be tried out, from time to time. ( It seems complex to type exactly all. )

[T K]

( tried to edit a post, ended up quoting and creating a new one )

[Japanese Capacitor]

Hello, Japanese Capacitor!

It would be best if you typed all of the programs you will use - that would help recommend you best.

Some examples could be…
- Sublime Text , Visual Studio Code ,..
- various IDEs , interpreters and compilers
- Blender 3D , FreeCAD , POV-Ray ,..
- Godot , Unreal Engine & Editor , Unity ,..
- raster&vector image|graphics|texture editors
- OpenShot , Kdenlive
- Audacity , other audio editors
- Firefox , Chrome
Various new programs tend to be tried out, from time to time. ( It seems complex to type exactly all. )

Mixing software you use; will of going 7600X and (according to what you said earlier) assuming similar budget, but not so strict (reasonable spending more if worth it) I would definitely go with Intel, 13600K. It just better performer than 7600X in most applications, from another league if we talk multicore performance, so CPU just better and more flexible, which for You means better service for years to come. Yeah, it's noticeably pricier, but you can and it's even reasonable to save here going with DDR4 platform. DDR5 in general in professional software will give you ~5% boost, more often closer to 0% than 10. 2x16GB of decent DDR4 costs half of 2x16GB DDR5 ones just worth buing over DDR4. Downside of 13600K compared to Ryzens is power consumption, but it's still low enough for big CPU coolers to be able handle it quietly for sure. And you can always noticeably lower power consumption for unnoticable cost of performance - modern CPUs with unlocked power consumption are not clever idea for daily usage. Btw from what I see you even would be able to utilize your Noctua's cooler, just need to order mounting kit: https://ncc.noctua.at/cpus/model/Intel- ... 3600K-1638 It's confirmed in Discontinued Coolers, but Noctua doesn't rate it's performance on this CPU as amazing.

[T K]

Thanks for insights!

from my experience in 6700 XT range (200-250W) and with focus on quiet operation you need to go with tripple-fan desing card and rather premium one if you want it quiet and cool out-of-the-box. Cheaper cards may also get fine if you don't mind some tweaking like undervolting or setting fan curve to your likings, but it will cost perfromance or temperatures.

Found out more about this… It is possible to obtain a Sapphire RX 6700 XT Nitro+ ( for ~300 €, by now ). Does this sound reasonable? This is a model with three fans.

[Japanese Capacitor]

Found out more about this… It is possible to obtain a Sapphire RX 6700 XT Nitro+ ( for ~300 €, by now ). Does this sound reasonable? This is a model with three fans.

In general it's highly unrecommended to go with Radeon GPUs for professional workloads. Better be completely sure that software you use won't lack any features of Nvidia cards and Radeons are well supported generally.

About 6700XT Nitro+ in particular, my friend had this card and was really pleased with low noise next to decent temps. If I remember well, it even has removable, magnetic fans, so nice thing in terms of cleaning.

[CA_Steve]

Let me throw this out there: check out the RTX 4060. It's maybe 12% slower than the Rx6700 XT in gaming, but for many GPGPU tasks like Blender, it's faster and it uses about 1/2 the power of the 6700 XT. So, should run much cooler and quieter with a decent make/model. Not sure how they are pricing in your home area...that's always the kicker.

[T K]

In general it's highly unrecommended to go with Radeon GPUs for professional workloads. Better be completely sure that software you use won't lack any features of Nvidia cards and Radeons are well supported generally.

This is something to keep in mind.

check out the RTX 4060. It's maybe 12% slower than the Rx6700 XT in gaming, but for many GPGPU tasks like Blender, it's faster and it uses about 1/2 the power of the 6700 XT. So, should run much cooler and quieter with a decent make/model.

This looks interesting indeed : )
Perhaps the 12 GB of memory of the RX 6700 XT would be advantageous for longer-term compatibility ( e.g.: with research-stage algorithms that may not have been optimized for smaller amounts of memory ).

Not sure how they are pricing in your home area...that's always the kicker.

found:
- Palit GeForce RTX 4060 Dual 8GB ~323 €
- MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 4060 8GB ~374 €

Looks like the RTX 4060 is relatively new and can be expected to reach better prices or even patched|updated models.

[Japanese Capacitor]

If you want more VRAM, there're also RTX 3060 12GB and 4060 Ti 16GB.

[T K]

I would definitely go with Intel, 13600K. It just better performer than 7600X in most applications, from another league if we talk multicore performance, so CPU just better and more flexible, which for You means better service for years to come. Yeah, it's noticeably pricier, but you can and it's even reasonable to save here going with DDR4 platform. DDR5 in general in professional software will give you ~5% boost, more often closer to 0% than 10. 2x16GB of decent DDR4 costs half of 2x16GB DDR5 ones just worth buing over DDR4.

Thanks for advice!

have found :
- i5-13600KF ~304 €
- Noctua NM-i17xx-MP83 Mounting Kit 9 €
- Gigabyte Socket 1700 UD Z690 ~180 €
- G.Skill DDR4 Aegis 16GB 2400MHz CL17 1.2V Gaming Series ~28 €
Does such a combination look|sound reasonable?

some other components available :
- i5-13600K ~333 €

- ASRock Socket 1700 Z690 PHANTOM GAMING4 149 €
- Asus Socket 1700 PRIME Z790-P D4 ~193 €

- G.Skill Aegis 16GB 3000 CL16 ~28 €
- G.Skill DDR4 16GB Aegis 2666MHz CL19 1.2V ~28 €

Downside of 13600K compared to Ryzens is power consumption, but it's still low enough for big CPU coolers to be able handle it quietly for sure. And you can always noticeably lower power consumption for unnoticable cost of performance - modern CPUs with unlocked power consumption are not clever idea for daily usage.

by the way : Do you mean by choosing a general power profile from BIOS or via some special under-clocking procedure?

[CA_Steve]

Mmm, not sure I'd go with a DDR4 motherboard and RAM anymore. DDR5-5600/6000 has come down in price, gives a bump in performance over DDR4-3200, and is forward looking. You can get 2x16GB for 100 euros.

[Japanese Capacitor]

Thanks for advice!

have found :
- i5-13600KF ~304 €
- Noctua NM-i17xx-MP83 Mounting Kit 9 €
- Gigabyte Socket 1700 UD Z690 ~180 €
- G.Skill DDR4 Aegis 16GB 2400MHz CL17 1.2V Gaming Series ~28 €
Does such a combination look|sound reasonable?

some other components available :
- i5-13600K ~333 €

- ASRock Socket 1700 Z690 PHANTOM GAMING4 149 €
- Asus Socket 1700 PRIME Z790-P D4 ~193 €

- G.Skill Aegis 16GB 3000 CL16 ~28 €
- G.Skill DDR4 16GB Aegis 2666MHz CL19 1.2V ~28 €

Don't go with F CPU, some apps largery benefit from having integrated graphics with probably video editing being most spectacular where iGPU gives few dozen of percents better performance.

Do you know that Z690 may need bios update to just work with 13600K? If so, options are doing it yourself (easy, but pendrive and 12th gen CPU needed) or paying somebody for doing it what may consume your savings with going older chipset. There're also boards with feature not needing CPU to update bios, but these tend to be more expensive than ones you typed.

In most, if not all, professional software there's no benefit bigger than ~5% from going with fast ram. But I don't know how about real garbage like ones you typed above... Go some 3000 CL15 or 3200 CL16 and it will be like I said for sure. This 3000 CL16 should be all right too. From my own experience these are also speeds which shouldn't be problematic when however increasing capacity and dimms number in the future.

And by lowering power consumption I meant undervolting or easy, fast and 100% stable limiting power consumption to chosen number.

[T K]

Mmm, not sure I'd go with a DDR4 motherboard and RAM anymore. DDR5-5600/6000 has come down in price, gives a bump in performance over DDR4-3200, and is forward looking. You can get 2x16GB for 100 euros.

Alright. Now, have been considering more again also combinations including DDR5 RAM.

Don't go with F CPU, some apps largery benefit from having integrated graphics with probably video editing being most spectacular where iGPU gives few dozen of percents better performance.

Thanks, I also was wondering about whether you meant specifically 'K'.

There're also boards with feature not needing CPU to update bios, but these tend to be more expensive than ones you typed.

e.g.: About one of them, it is written
- "Q-Flash Plus Update BIOS without Installing the CPU, Memory and Graphics Card"
at https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z690-UD-rev-1x .

But I don't know how about real garbage like ones you typed above... Go some 3000 CL15 or 3200 CL16 and it will be like I said for sure.

btW: In the initial post, I wrote about
- Fury, Performance Gaming, DDR4, 16GB, 2666 MHz, CL 15, 1.2 V
but this seems to have become unavailable meanwhile.

This 3000 CL16 should be all right too.

Thanks!
This one is 1.35 volts ( compared to 1.2 of the others ). I've been recommended ( in these forums ) to seek memories with lower voltage, to help optimize for noiselessness.

If such voltage is okay, then there also is...
- G.Skill DDR4 Aegis 16GB 3200MHz CL16 1.35V XMP 2.0 ~30 €

[Japanese Capacitor]

I won't bother with this awful quoting mechanism of this forum : )


True is that DDR5 ram got cheaper to the point of DDR4 not making much sense. On the other hand not much difference DDR5 makes in performance, so I would just choose the board first and let it determine DDR type.

I meant F CPUs, so ones not having integrated graphics. I didn't mean K CPUs, so ones overclockable and being better in supporting higher RAM speeds.

With Gigabyte UD board I'm surprised it has Q-Flash - unique for budget board it is. I just threw an idea without checking details of boards you chose and I had a reason. Looking at you sitting on your rig for 10 years, I would go with board having PCIe 5.0 both for the M2 drive and GPU. It's best to have your pc supporting as much latest tech as possible, both for professional usage and better longevity. I'm pretty sure than in upcoming years, not even talking five or ten, some apps you use will benefit from such fast drives. With GPU 5.0 is less important, but may come in handy if you happen to buy some x8 or x4 GPU. If I remember well, PCIe 5.0 for both M2 and GPU came with 700 boards and quite cheap, but nice one having both is ASRock Z790 PG Riptide. It's also DDR5 board, so tell me what do you think about this idea, before talking more about RAM.

[T K]

On the other hand not much difference DDR5 makes in performance, so I would just choose the board first and let it determine DDR type.

Sounds reasonable.

With Gigabyte UD board I'm surprised it has Q-Flash - unique for budget board it is.

also:
About another ( cheaper than Gigabyte UD ) one of them, it is written
- "1 x BIOS Flashback Button"
at https://pg.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z690 Pha ... /index.asp .

( This one seemed to be lacking in heat-sinks, according to some reviews. )

It's best to have your pc supporting as much latest tech as possible, both for professional usage and better longevity.

Generally, this seems meaningful.

With GPU 5.0 is less important, but may come in handy if you happen to buy some x8 or x4 GPU.

If such a high-throughput graphics card would also be noisier in normal usage, then I would be less likely to obtain it, though.

nice one having both is ASRock Z790 PG Riptide

Looks interesting.
I found an offer for 233 €.
( btW: This motherboard seems to be lacking support for PS2 devices( like keyboards ). )

Before considering comprehensive PCI 5 support, I also found for DDR5...
- ASRock Socket 1700 Z790 PG Lightning ~196 €

[Japanese Capacitor]

There will be some cheap boards having bios flashback feature - it's just more common among more premium boards.

This Z690 Lightning doesn't look good. On the first sight possibly too weak power delivery for 13600K, but I would need to dig for it in case of being sure and Intel LAN, potentialy one touched with problems of disconnecting. On the other hand I know solution for it, but didn't have an opportunity to check if it really works. And generaly this board is so barebones: everything budget; just few USBs; no heatsinks for M2, so need of buying them when orering just one decent may cost you more than paying extra for overally better board having such or even few of them. And generally such dirt budget boards are the ones cheapest in every regard, so also quality - ones more likely to die after some time. Z790 Lightining compared to Z790 Riptide is mostly a little worse equipped and without 5.0 for drive

With lower standard of PCIe for the GPU you may loose some performance. The same when you pair it with not x16 card. These losses aren't big, but just better no losses. E.g. Z790 Riptide will degrade GPU to x8 when using 5.0 drive, but it may be worth having two times faster drive. And it's not solution for quieter operation of GPU - here determining everything is not buying garbage tier models, cheapest to average models of given card.

You really need PS2? You have some 20 years old keyboard and don't want to spend money on new one or what?

[T K]

This Z690 Lightning doesn't look good. On the first sight possibly too weak power delivery for 13600K, but I would need to dig for it in case of being sure and Intel LAN, potentialy one touched with problems of disconnecting. On the other hand I know solution for it, but didn't have an opportunity to check if it really works. And generaly this board is so barebones: everything budget; just few USBs; no heatsinks for M2, so need of buying them when orering just one decent may cost you more than paying extra for overally better board having such or even few of them. And generally such dirt budget boards are the ones cheapest in every regard, so also quality - ones more likely to die after some time.

Thank you for pointing out these things!

[T K]

You really need PS2?

I mentioned it mostly just in case, for now. — There also seem to be PS2 to USB adapters, if needed.

DDR5-5600/6000 has come down in price, gives a bump in performance over DDR4-3200, and is forward looking. You can get 2x16GB for 100 euros.

Have found...
- DDR5 Fury Beast RGB 16GB 5600MHz CL40 ~55 €

According to some reviews, "XMP works for 2 sticks but if you go with 4, it will have to be slowed down". So, these may not be very future upgrade -proof.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-revi ... B09N5WSSQD

[Japanese Capacitor]

I just don't see a case of needing PS2 in modern times, so I think it shouldn't affect your buying decisions. One thing is that PS2 just works before USB starts to, so may happen useful with some troubleshooting, but for 20+ years with computers I have never encountered situation needing it, so it doesn't convince me. It's always better to have more opportunities, but there's always border of they stopping making sense. I even had one on my previous ASRock Z390 Extreme 4 and with not even a little shame lost such port with my current one (Z790 Steel Legend).

[T K]

One thing is that PS2 just works before USB starts to, so may happen useful with some troubleshooting

Another thing is that, supposedly, PS2 has faster response time compared to USB.
( I am not concerned about that, though. )

so I think it shouldn't affect your buying decisions.

Perhaps it could be used as a tie-breaker, though, in case other things are equal.

Looks interesting.

( -- I'd agree with this idea of ASRock Z790 PG Riptide. )

[Japanese Capacitor]

PS2 response time really ? I wouldn't think about it and honestly I don't know I'm that awfully uncompetetive gamer who doesn't even play mulitplayer games and I prefer using my mouse wireless than wired when I even know that wired connection is faster... I tested my mouse with this traffic lights click speed test and, no matter how many times I tried, when wireless I wasn't able to score as good as I was scoring with wired. But in real life, playing games, I don't see this difference. Even when often I need to plug my old G403 Prodigy Wireless to charge it when gaming, so few secounds later have direct comparison. That's my take on the topic : )

Z790 Riptide is great balance between being cheap, but offering much and not being dirt budget in terms of quality.

About RAM you asked Steve, it's general rule with DDR5 and even DDR4 - the bigger capacity or more dimms you use, the harder will be to keep stable given speed. Capacity and dimm number are just two aspects going opposite direction to increasing speed of ram. There's also something like QVL list, so list of RAM tested by ASRock with this board and confirmed to work without problems on declared speed (XMP):https://pg.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z790%20P ... #MemoryRPL
Not listed ones may work the same fine or need tweaking, so you can choose something safe from this list or try your luck with something not listed.

But like I said, for you capacity will be way more important than speed. For sure buy set of two dimms to have dual-channel working and in terms of capacity, more is just better, so if you want to cut corners here, better research well how much GB you need - because it always depends on complexity of your own workloads.

[CA_Steve]

RAM capacity and speed: it's all about the capacitive load. More RAM chips, longer circuit traces, additional RAM banks...it all adds more capacitance to the data lines which in turn slows the rise/fall of the data waveform, which in turn determines the max speed the RAM can run at and still be 'in spec'. So, higher capacity RAM sticks with fewer RAM chips will tend to run faster at a given voltage. This also explains why some chipsets degrade the max RAM speed if you use all 4 banks instead of 2.