Advice greatly appreciated

[Targaid]

So, I've been looking to update my PC for about 2 years since my old GPU went faulty, damaged (unbeknownst to me initially) my mobo and has been temperamental all that time. Sadly, 2 parents with dementia take up almost all my time and, as you'll see from my current rig, it's been a long time since I've been in the parts market for a build. I'm really getting confused by the differing advice on YouTube etc about a new build. Most advise AMD as the best but are almost exclusively referring to gaming rigs whereas I do a fair bit of photo editing and some video editing on top of a gaming regime that focuses on older games and VR. Then I started looking at userbenchmark.com and suddenly it's all use Intel because everyone is lying about AMD.

The more I look the more my head spins so I'd really appreciate some advice for the current market. Hopefully I'll actually then get enough free time to order and build a new rig. 🤞

I'm presently running an i7 4790k, 32gb DDR3 ram, and a GeForce GTX 1660 Super on an RoG Maximus VII Ranger mobo. Obviously any modern kit is a step up but what are your opinions of the best route? I know I'm looking kinda lazy here but I'm really feeling swamped.

PS. Not even slightly interested in RGB and planning to stick with my Corsair RM1000x PSU unless there's a good reason to replace that. I also still use an optical drive for various reasons. Are there ANY cases that will take one these days?

 

[TonyCarter]

Userbenchmark and the like are just shill/fake benchmarks, that have had a beef with AMD since AMD started showing better IPC, higher per-core performance, and about 1/3rd of the power use.

This fakery has been going on for over 5 years, and no trustworthy publication/forum would believe a word they say - even their 'benchmarking tool' is a sham.

 

[Targaid]

Userbenchmark and the like are just shill/fake benchmarks, that have had a beef with AMD since AMD started showing better IPC, higher per-core performance, and about 1/3rd of the power use.

This fakery has been going on for over 5 years, and no trustworthy publication/forum would believe a word they say - even their 'benchmarking tool' is a sham.

Interesting. They were recommended to me over on AV Forums a while back. I like the way the site compares builds but I'm off to watch those videos.

 

[TonyCarter]

PCSpecialist only do complete builds (and some upgrades to previous customers' build if they have the components).

If it's a self-build that you have, there's not a lot we can do to give you a config of components for a new build...somewhere like Tom's Hardware or Reddit or PC PartPicker forums may be a better source of info. (BTW, if that 1000W PSU is the older ATX2.4 spec, then it might not be enough for modern power-hungry, power-spiking GPUs).

If it's a completely new build you're after than we will need some info from you:

• Max budget
• Make & model of monitor (or resolution & refresh rate) so we can select the correct GPU for that
• Usages (how much % is gaming, how much is photo/video editing, any other heavy usage)?

 

[TonyCarter]

Interesting. They were recommended to me over on AV Forums a while back. I like the way the site compares builds but I'm off to watch those videos.

At the most basic level, it compares CPUs by multiplying the core frequency by the number of cores...which ignores the amount of work a newer core can do at the same frequency.

In some results it shows a 10 year old Intel CPU being faster than a 3 year old AMD CPU - despite actual gaming/productivity benchmarks showing the AMD at 5-10x faster.

For games, you just need to search Youtube for real world GPU/CPU comparisons...but don't forget to take into account the extra power the Intel CPU requires to provide that performance (usually 2-3x the power for the same/lesser performance).

If you want proper productivity benchmarks (and want to download the tool to test your own system), then I use PugetSystems benchmarks for things like Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, Premiere, Davincei V-Ray, etc.

PugetBench for Creators

PugetBench for Creators is designed to test professional workloads in the most popular video editing, photography, VFX, and motion graphics applications.

www.pugetsystems.com

 

[Targaid]

Cheers, Tony. Very helpful. I am considering buying a pre-built given the way life is at the moment.

My current monitor is a Samsung Syncmaster 2032 BW but is on the list for upgrading. My budget can go up to 2k but I'd rather stay lower (who wouldn't) to go towards improving that monitor and, maybe, keeping it for a side screen. I'd say I game about 60%, photo-edit most of the rest. Video editing is an occasional occupation alongside accounting which is pretty irrelevant to the build.

I'm likely to stick to self-build because I enjoy it but I understand that today's market can sometimes mean better value/availability from a pre-build?