Re-poking the dragon on this one again. Now that the X3Ds are out (probably not actually considering based on everything I've seen) and both platforms have had some time under their belt, I'm wondering what we think about a 13th Gen vs 7000 series with the same concepts in mind? I just went back and watched / read some RL reviews and it seems like it's kind of a tightrope really. The most I might be doing in the future (that I can see at this point) is toying with VMs, finishing the AV project with the help of software that may use AI driven design, and honestly not much else. Right now, my 2019 MBP is handling my VM fix just fine and I'm not really messing with it beyond archiving OS ISOs as they come (MacOS, Windows, etc). I don't plan on getting a new case, nor am I looking into watercooling. The more I look at builds though, the thought of throwing the old parts into a (new) storage server comes to mind, but at the same time, I don't really need one and practically speaking, don't have the space for something that big. Let alone the added power consumption. So it may be best just to cleanup and sell of the parts Post upgrade. Hell, I've got the boxes to everything. 😛
Realistically though, I could probably keep going with my 3770k setup for a while longer (at least until Win10 loses support), and my Actual usage barely pushes the current system as it is. Even after adding the new 120Hz TV/display into the equation, my GTX 970 only saw a mild bump in usage to ~25% in vRAM vs the previous ~5%. At nearly idle (save a couple Edge tabs), the system itself is only using ~6 Gb of system RAM. The CPU is showing its age though as more and more I see all core spikes in usage (I love my metric gadgets!) while simply browsing or watching youtube. Gaming is basically dead on the PC itself as console is just that much less painful for my hands (probably less power draw too). The more I look at my usage now and how it may even keep dropping in the future, reality seems to make me rethink how much I want to overbuild. >.<
Either way, I like my builds to last 10+ years and I've had good luck so far with self-built (community designed) systems, so I really do often ignore the total build price as it's a long-term investment (while getting deals at the time). I just wish my mobile devices held out that long.