Deciding whether or not now is a good time to upgrade

[Adam262]

Almost 5 years ago now (October 2015) I purchased a computer (Stats posted below) for £980 which I have been so incredibly pleased with. Now 5 years later though, I am noticing it is starting to struggle running newer games and newer softwares. I am looking to upgrade in the coming few months if I am convinced that it will be of value. This leads me to my question; At a budget a little bigger than my last one at let's say £1100 - £1200 (even though the price of the last one included a mouse and keyboard which aren't needed this time) would a computer for that price be a justifiable upgrade to the stats below? Would I notice a significant upgrade? Or only a minor increase in performance. Thanks for your answers in advance.

MY OLD PC STATS:
Case
InWIN G7 BRUSHED EFFECT DARK GREY CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 2 x DVI, HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
120GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st Storage Drive
1TB WD BLACK 3.5" WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hiya

We're at a very important junction in computing world, you're a few months off the perfect time to upgrade.

AMD are set to release their 3rd Gen Ryzen CPU's, the 4000 series. This series are going to finally blow intel out of the water in single threaded as well as absolutely destroy them in multithreaded. They're worth waiting for, estimated release around September:

AMD Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs could be about to enter mass production

Next-gen Ryzen processors could soon be rolling off the production lines

www.techradar.com

Also, around the same time we're expecting new GPU's from both NVidia and AMD. There's so much going on in this space!

NVidia 3000 series RTX cards are set to be a 40% performance leap over the current generation which is just crazy! Usually a generational jump is around 25%, so this is very significant. Not only that, but their tensor core performance is set to be much much stronger, and the rumours are that there may be as little as a 10% performance hit for full Ray Tracing, which currently absolutely destroys performance and you need a 2080ti just to achieve 1080p 60Hz. So it really is very significant. Release is also expected around September:

GPU Mag - Your Source For GPU Advice In 2025

GPU Mag is your go-to source for everything GPU related. We got the latest info, rumors, and insider knowledge thanks to our industry contacts.

www.gpumag.com

Alongside the nVidia cards, the rumours are that AMD's upcoming cards may finally actually compete with NVidia in the high end, which hasn't happened for probably around 15 years. Again, we're looking at roughly a september release:

Forget Big Navi, AMD Might Be Preparing The Ultimate Navi

Bigger than Big Navi!

www.tomshardware.com

With a £1200 budget, currently that would get you a RTX2060 build which would be entry level 1440p, which would be quite a major step up from your current system.

Wait until september though, and you're looking at max performance 1440p 144hz with full ray tracing. That's just going to absolutely blow your socks off, just a huge huge improvement. Although you'd need a monitor to support it which would be anywhere from £300 upwards.

 

[Huntcliff]

Thank you, this has been really helpful and I'll carry on nursing my existing machine until this next wave comes through I think with such large jumps in performance...