I have a Gen1 Threadripper system. I have a mixed gaming, but mostly workstation workload. In modern, unoptimised games my GPU (rtx3000 product line) is already being CPU bottlenecked, but only slightly, 5-10%. And it has too little VRAM for properly accelerating my workstation tasks.
I’d like to upgrade my hardware with an AMD 1st gen DDR6 CPU (prob. 2027) and buy an according GPU in the same year. I’m planning a usage duration for at least 10 years and then probably same thing but with DDR8.
My priority is to have an excellent price/performance ratio. I only want to buy something new, if I know it will last me a long time.
How good is my plan at accomplishing my goal? I’d like some feedback please. How would you go about it?
My criteria for when to upgrade is simple: when it no longer runs the games I want to play at an acceptable framerate. I have a 30-series card, but I have yet to play a game where I had a problem with framerate, so I have no plans to upgrade. It wasn’t until I ran into a game where I was getting 20 FPS at minimum settings on my old GTX 960 that I decided it was time to upgrade.
One could probably say the same about workstation performance if it is taking too long to run and becoming a productivity bottleneck. For something like that, I think it comes down to an assessment of how much you will be spending versus what percentage reduction in processing time you will see out of the upgrade. If it is only a marginal improvement, maybe wait, but if it would be a substantial uplift, then it is probably a worthwhile return on investment.