I'm currently running a budget LGA 1155 system built from older parts: an Intel i7-2600, Machinist B75 motherboard, 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory, an RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition, a 1.5TB hard drive, and a 750W 80+ Bronze power supply. I'm also planning to add a 1TB Gen 3 NVMe SSD and move everything into a Corsair 3500X case. I still need to buy a monitor and will mainly target 1080p gaming, with limited 1440p use. This is intended to become a backup gaming and workspace PC, but I'm unsure whether I should upgrade the platform to AM4 or simply keep the existing LGA 1155 system and save for a newer build. Would an i7-3770 be worthwhile, and what upgrades would best maximize the current setup?
5 Answers
The graphics card is still useful, but the rest of the platform is holding it back, especially in newer CPU-heavy games and at high refresh rates. I would move the 3060 Ti into a new system rather than trying to upgrade the old board. The existing LGA 1155 computer could become a home server or basic backup machine, while the new build gets the primary SSD and other newer components.
If you want a reasonably priced platform upgrade that can last for a while, a B550 motherboard with a Ryzen 5 5600 or 5600X and 16GB of DDR4 would pair much better with the 3060 Ti. That would provide a substantial improvement in CPU performance and make 1080p gaming smoother. AM4 is worth considering if you find the parts cheaply; otherwise, a newer AM5 build may be a better long-term investment.
The main issue is that this is LGA 1155, not AM3. The i7-2600 and i7-3770 are Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge chips, respectively. An i7-3770 would be a small improvement, but it still leaves you with a very old four-core platform that will bottleneck the RTX 3060 Ti in newer games. Since the B75 board also cannot overclock, there isn’t much room to extract extra performance. A newer platform is the better investment.
I’d keep the current machine as a fun backup PC and avoid putting much more money into the motherboard or CPU. Add an inexpensive SATA SSD if you need faster boot and application loading, and use the hard drive for bulk storage. An NVMe drive can work through a PCIe adapter for storage on some older systems, but boot support may be unreliable or unavailable, so it’s not the simplest choice for this build. Save the larger upgrade budget for a CPU, motherboard, and RAM replacement.
Sounds like skipping the i7-3770 is the sensible move. I’ll probably treat this as a backup system instead.
Even a newer six-core processor such as a Ryzen 5 5600 would be a major step up from the i7-2600. You can still use the 3060 Ti for 1080p and some 1440p gaming, but the newer CPU will reduce frame-time problems and improve workspace performance. If you keep the old build, make sure it has a proper SSD and don’t expect a CPU upgrade alone to fully utilize the graphics card.
That clears up my terminology mistake. So moving to a DDR4-based platform would make more sense than buying the 3770?