2013 Build - start over?

Landlord

New Member
I built a gaming PC back in 2012/2013 with a focus on maxing out Skyrim and similar games of the time. Haven't kept up much with the latest developments but would like to be able to get back into some recent games if I can. My question is, with what I have below would it be advisable to reuse a lot of my current PC parts or would it be more effective for the money to start over and build a new one?

I have a 1080p monitor and don't expect to to go beyond that resolution-wise, at least for a while.

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core

ASRock Z77 EXTREME4 1155 ATX Motherboard

SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive

Also 1TB internal storage HDD

CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 V2 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL

EVGA GTX560TI 2GB PCIE DDMH


Thanks guys!
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Take a look at the gaming benchmarks for the 2500K in modern titles:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2773-intel-i5-2500k-revisit-benchmark-for-2017/page-3

Upgrading from the GTX 560ti would yield significant performance gains. It's possible to upgrade the graphics card now and if the experience is subpar you could look at other options.

For a solid 60 FPS I wouldn't go below the NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti or AMD RX Vega 56. You could go for a used graphics card, in that case I wouldn't purchase anything below a GTX 1070.
 
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Landlord

New Member
Thanks! Sound like you're saying the GPU is the main factor, which makes sense. I am trying to understand how any upgrade of the CPU would affect gaming. Does it just slow load times? The GPU is doing most of the work right?
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Thanks! Sound like you're saying the GPU is the main factor, which makes sense. I am trying to understand how any upgrade of the CPU would affect gaming. Does it just slow load times? The GPU is doing most of the work right?

I would say the CPU is just as important as the GPU. A faster (higher clocked) and more recent CPU is going to provide more frames. If you're going above 60Hz at any resolution you'll want as high of a clock rate as possible, even at 1080p.

Interestingly, core and thread counts are also just as important. Several modern titles (Far Cry 5, for example) won't run on anything below a 4 core processor and those same titles generally benefit from higher core/ thread counts. This is evidenced by recent benchmarks and Intel's own recent move to higher core counts. For example, the newer (and significantly cheaper) 8th gen i5-8400 performs very similar to the much more expensive stock 7th gen i7-7700K.

As shown by the GamersNexus re-review of the 2500K, it's hit hard by titles that benefit from higher core/ thread counts.

What games you play will largely determine how well your computer performs with the 2500K, even with the best graphics card available on the market.
 
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