Any Point in Upgrading My System?

Is there anything worthwhile to upgrade at this point?

System specs;

AMD PhenomII X4 965 Black Edition Quad-Core CPU (3.4Ghz)
Single Hard Drive - 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
LG 22X DVD+/-/+/-RW + CD-R/RW Dual Layer Drive
MSI 770-G45 AM3 770 Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA-II, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 3 PCI
6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
850 Watts ZX Series Power Supply (Modular)
HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 2GB DDR5 Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
DX 11 & DX 9 installed


Thanks in advance tech gurus.

It really depends what size screen, what settings and what games/sims you play........but if I was being harsh, I'd say keep the PSU, sell everything else and upgrade cpu/motherboard/RAM and GPU for a totally new experience.

TY for the feedback and that would be a whole PITA to pull off. Seems like it would be easier to junk my old box and bite the bullet to get a new one.

I'm running all my games - see below - on a W7 box. Does W10 work for all of these::

Il-2 1946
Il-2 Great Battles
Rise of Flight
Strike Fighters 2
Cold Waters
Silent Hunter 4
Empire Total War
Combat Mission

Thanks!

I don't know about the last one in your list ( I don't own it) but the others do.

I f you upgrade to new stuff some considerations:

New hardware wants Windows 10. And, the W10 user interface compares in appearance with W7 -- not hard to learn. Only issue: Some old software and games do not work or require work to get running on W10. But, the previous answer covered that.

AMD will be introducing the new generation 7nm CPUs this summer (July?). If the rumors hold true, picking among them will give the best overall performance and "bang per buck". The new CPUs may be more than twice as fast per core as your current CPU (based on my recent Phenom tests compared with the current 14nm and 12nm AMD Ryzen CPUs and comparing with current Intel published performance).. So, at least wait until late summer before shopping a CPU. Note: CPU speed does not always translate to better FPS and visuals (but, is more likely with a Flight Simulation).

AMD will be introducing a popular price 7nm GPU this Summer (it is rumored). It should be the one to buy -- if the rumors hold true. It/they may be nearly twice as fast as your current GPU (but, probably not). So, again, wait to see what comes up before shopping a GPU.

A Solid State Drive provides noticeable improvement in system response versus hard drive. They are coming down in price.

Having written that, if you are playing on a 1080p monitor and not noticing any frame rate/stuttering issues on your games, you won't visually "see" a difference with a new system ("measure" but not "see"). You probably would need a CPU/GPU upgrade to go to a 1440p (2K) or 2160p (4K) monitor. A decent 43" 2160p (4K) monitor (actually an HDTV) can be had for under $300 with careful shopping (I recently bought one for $250 and tested it with my pro-level monitor color fidelity hardware/software -- surprised me how good it was). But, if no "problems" with current system, you won't see a difference without a new monitor.

In summary: Probably, you do not really need a new system because at 1080p with older games you probably would not "see" a difference (assuming you are having no problems now). However, should you want to upgrade your experience with a 4K monitor or multi-monitor, you may want a new system. If so, wait until the end of Summer. Either shop the new 7nm stuff or get the hardware currently being sold at sale prices. The new 7nm stuff should hold you for about 5 or 6 years. Just a verbose opinion, FWIW.

THANK YOU all for the great feedback. Looks like I have some thinking to d here.

There are two things that can trigger an upgrade for me.

One is a dead system. If something fails, then an upgrade is the solution of course.

The other is if I get a new game that struggles to perform on the current configuration.

If everything you play runs to your satisfaction, there is no compelling reason, in my view, to do anything. No need to upgrade just to upgrade.

Combat Mission runs on Win 10, I can confirm CMBN and CMRT do.

TY for the info. DBOND.

Resurrecting this thread as I now have approx. $1,300 to spend on a new rig.

The list of games I play is above and has not changed.

Will probably order from a company like Cyberpower.

Any suggestions for?
- CPU
- GPU
- HDD
- Power supply
- Memory

Thanks in advance.

You probably want something "cost effective" that does the job very well for the next few years. So, in keeping with my post above, I'd suggest waiting for September, October, November -- make it a Christmas present to yourself (I pull psychological stunts like that). I'm an AMD Fan.

AMD will release its latest 7nm CPUs then. So, you can "future proof" with one of the new Ryzen 4000 models or get one of the current Ryzen 3000 models on sale -- particularly in November Black Friday sales. For virtually all gaming, a 6 core/12 thread is enough. I recently bought a Ryzen 5 3600 for $170 ($180 today) for a game playing HTPC. It performs in the latest games. Intel has fallen behind and except for "special cases" won't catch up for a year or two. But, most folks could not "see" the difference in games between roughly comparable AMD and Intel CPUs -- only "measure" it.

AMD and Nvidia will release the new GPUs in the same timeframe. So, get a current one cheaper, or the newest model. The Fall GPU models may have practical "ray tracing" implemented -- but, that remains to be seen (right now, Raytracing crushes performance). Ray Tracing is not universal in games, yet. Nvidia makes the fastest GPUs right now. But, my AMD cards were cheaper and play all the games. We'll see how that shakes out in the new Fall products.

These days, the primary operating system drive and principle gaming drive should be an SSD -- traditional SSD or M.2 model that fits directly on the motherboard in a special M.2 socket. Currently a SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB for the motherboard costs $100 and is well worth it. A 1TB SSD is fine for "favorite games". A 2 TB hard drive can be bought for older games and backup. Depending on budget, the drive selection could be very different than the previous example.

Don't forget the motherboard. If AMD, you want a 550 or 570 model (they have substantial new features for speed, not found on older AMD and Intel products). We anticipate 600 series motherboards will be arriving with the 4000 series CPUs. That will make the current 500 series MBs cheaper -- they should work just fine with a 4000 series CPU.

PSU a 600 to 750W on sale -- probably around $60 on Black Friday.

Memory 16GB of 3.2GHz for an AMD processor -- on sale, good memory is $100 now (just bought some for the high end HTPC referred to above).

Beyond those vague thoughts for an AMD system. The question really is: Can you wait 12 to 20 weeks? The saved money could be put towards a significantly better GPU -- the major gaming component.

TY for the detailed response.

I could not wait and went for the following Cyberpower build:

Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB
16GB DDR4
1TB PCI-E NVMe SSD


...should be more than fine for anything I'm likely to play.

FWIW: The CPU and GPU test reports indicate similarity to my system below (wins some loses some). Not bad

A pre-built on sale can often beat a "hand built" system for the price. On top of that, it is no work/risk to make and comes with a warranty -- easily worth an extra hundred dollars plus

Enjoy

Thank you.