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Since a few KS games that I backed years ago are finally coming out, I was looking at what I needed to do to actually play them today (I'm looking at you Battletech and Star Citizen).

My current rig sports a Core i7 2700k (I think Ivy Bridge, but it's been so long, almost 6 years ago), and an Asus motherboard which was one model below the premium version of the top end chipset of the time. (I'm doing this from memory at work, so bear with me )

I've got a Geforce 560Ti (didn't want to spring for the 580 or 570 at the time, had plans of adding a second one).

What's the best upgrade path, since I'm mostly concerned with video fidelity. I've got one of the Korean IPS 2560x1440p monitors from back in the day that's served me well so far.

I'd like to upgrade the video card first, but how far up can I go, before it becomes not worth it from the CPU bottlenecking perspective?

What chipset is it? I'm a little confused by your post. If you haven't already, assuming you can, OC it. You may need a new cooler if you are using the stock one (I think they came with a cooler). Honestly, it's pretty old and due for an upgrade but you might be able to milk it a little while longer if the games don't need much grunt.

After that, the 1060 6GB is finally coming down in price and would be a good choice for easier games. At today resolution, depending on the game, you may need a 1070. If look up what people are getting for FPS in the games you are looking at to see just how much GPU you need.

Sorry about that, it was the latest chipset that was released with the Core i7-2700K circa 2013. I used to OC it to about 4.2GHz, but then backed it off when I wasn't doing anything demanding after a while. I can't remember the chipset number at work now, I'll see if I can get it when I get home. Basically the chipset is the same, but Asus had a fully featured mobo with 2.4GHz and 5GHz antennas. The one step down only had the 2.4GHz antennas, and one block fewer USB ports. I want to say P or Z270.

I know that the machine is long in the tooth, but considering I don't play many games these days, I didn't want to spend more than a few hundred bucks on upgrading now. If I go through the full upgrade cycle, I'll probably talk myself into spending $1500-$2k

I would get the fastest GPU you can afford that won't blow up your power supply. An overclocked 2700k should still do fairly decently, and pretty much any GPU you can get now will be significantly faster than what you have. If there's a little performance left on the table because the rest of the system can't keep up, then I don't really see that as a big deal. That just means you'll get a little bit of a "free" upgrade next time.

druidcent wrote:

My 2011-2012 rig sports a Sandy Bridge Core i7 2700K and a GeForce GTX 560Ti.

Good news: Your 3.5+ GHz four-core eight-thread Sandy Bridge processor and Z77 motherboard are still okay for gaming today.
https://ark.intel.com/products/61275/In ... o-3_90-GHz

Bad news: The cryptocurrency mining craze has not yet fully collapsed and graphics card prices are still inflated well beyond their MSRPs.
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video ... ice&page=1

GTX1070 for $480 after MIR is a good card that will last a while at 1440p.

Otherwise, a GTX1060-6GB or RX580-8GB would be enough for now @ $320. I game on an RX480-8GB at 1440p and I get decent framerates (60-90fps is typically my target)

Nvidia's Turing architecture (GTX11xx) is said to be launching in July. The GTX1180 will lead the pack. If this launch is like Pascal, it may take 1-2 months to see the GTX1170 and another month after that to see the GTX1160.

DPete27 wrote:

GTX1070 for $480 after MIR is a good card that will last a while at 1440p.

Why wouldn't he want a GeForce GTX 1070Ti instead of a 1070?

I wouldn't worry about your CPU. At 2560x1440 almost every game is going to be GPU bottlenecked, to the point that an vastly inferior processor like an i3-2100 dual-core is still up to the task of extracting around 85-90% of a modern GPU's potential in many games.

• GTX 1060s and RX580s are coming down in price, but still a little inflated. Those are probably the minumum for modern 60fps gaming on your 1440p monitor at high+ details.
• Vega 56 and GTX 1070 are still so much higher than their MSRP that I wouldn't bother hunting for those models unless you see one at around $400 MSRP.
• One to lookout for is the 1070Ti, which was a bargain at the MSRP of $450 and can occasionally be found for under $500 now. I've missed a few deals at $475 recently, but keep your eyes peeled.

Like DPete27, I've gamed at 2560x1440 with an underclocked RX480 and managed to hit 60fps without turning down too many of the detail sliders. Ultra settings are usually stupidly inefficient anyway and you lose very little visual quality by tweaking a few settings in most cases.

If your motherboard supports it (and beware, my Asus board did not when I tried to upgrade; the Asus website claimed it did, but the early board revision said no dice and refused to POST), you can pick up a used i7-3770 for about $50 on eBay or an i7-3770K for about $100. That gets you one CPU generation ahead of where you are now, and perhaps slightly cooler operation, and your i7-2700k is still worth enough to overclockers that you might be able to finance the entire CPU swap, including sale fees, by flipping it back into eBay.

You didn't mention RAM or SSDs. Do you have at least 16GB RAM now and an SSD for your OS drive? If not, that's two other possible upgrades. Again, given the age of the machine, you might consider picking up used equipment off eBay rather than upgrading new, since almost nothing you can put in there will be transferable to your next major build. I've refurbished a dozen-odd laptops using Intel 320/510/520 series SSDs off eBay, and the Intel SSD toolbox generally comes back with 75% or more life expectancy remaining.

For everything else, there's GPU.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

DPete27 wrote:

GTX1070 for $480 after MIR is a good card that will last a while at 1440p.

Why wouldn't he want a GeForce GTX 1070Ti instead of a 1070?

GTX1070Ti is about 10% faster than the GTX1070. At the time of writing, the Tis were 10-15% more expensive.
Also, I was simply trying to suggest the entry spot for long-term 1440p gaming. Yes, the Ti is better, and the 1080 is better yet, but....

Being lucky enough to run a 2700K (with Hyperthreading) and to have it still working, as others have mentioned above, best to keep what you got and look toward the GPU.

And as others have mentioned, GPU prices are still wonky- and on top of that, Nvidia's next-gen are just around the corner, so pushing for more than you need just to get your games running is a bit foolish if you're going to buy right now. Only thing to make sure you don't skimp on is VRAM, get 8GB+.

[also, any CPU upgrade that isn't a drop-in Ivy like the suggested 3770K is going to necessitate new RAM, and that pricing is pretty wonky too!]

Thank you!! It's the Z77 chipset.

I've got 32GB of RAM.. (I splurged way back when and RAM prices had dropped), with an SSD for the OS and Game drives. I'll probably pick up a 1TB SSD and 4-6TB spinning drive in 4-6 months, so I can consolidate some of the old drives running on this machine..(I'm surprised they aren't dead yet )

Thanks for the tips on the i7-3770 series.. I'll focus on the GPU first.. Gonna check with some old friends at Nvidia to see if anything has fallen off a truck