Motherboard advice for novice please!

[JamesN]

Hi guys,
Just a quick one I think! I'm looking at replacing the motherboard and CPU in my PC.
It's mainly only used for iRacing/sim racing in VR.
My current set up is an ECS B250H4-EM motherboard and an i5-7400 3.0Ghz CPU.
I was looking at the MSI Z370M Gaming pro motherboard and perhaps an i5-8600k, but I'll admit I'm not great with CPU tech stuff yet so thought I'd ask on here to hopefully get some advice from people who are!
What do you guys think? Is that motherboard worth a look? If like it to be future proof for a bit, but I don't see the main use of the PC changing from sim racing & VR anytime soon.
Thanks everyone
James

 

[EarthDog]

Why are you changing the motherboard in the first place? Did it die?

That said, with motherboards of the same class (read chipset), it mostly comes down to cost, looks, and features you need. The board you listed (and the vast majority of ZZ370 boards) will overlock the 8600K to your heatsink's (what is your heatsink??) limit without worry. The biggest difference between the board you currently have and what you listed as an alternative, is overclocking capabilitiy. There isn't much futureproofing in a motherboard to be honest.

So, what is the goal with switching here? What is your budget? Whata will your case fit? We don't normally see ECS boards in a custom build.

 

[Johan45]

Should be a nice upgrade. Don't forget a cooler for the CPU

 

[JamesN]

The plan for switching motherboard is down to wanting to upgrade the processor to an 8th gen one, trying to get iracing etc to run as well as I can!
My case will fit an M-ATX I believe, hence the MSI motherboard being a consideration as it seems to be a good option in that size.
It isn't really a custom build originally, it was a midrange/budget pre built PC which I guess is why it has the ECS, but I've since added the SSD and swapped the PSU.
It has an Nvidia 1070 so it's ok for now there I think, 16Gb ram so hopefully that should be sufficient too.
I think the weak point now is the motherboard/processor capability but as I say I'm not great with computers!!
As for budget I don't have one, I'm not going to spend 2000 on a motherboard but I don't expect one for 80 either, I'd like to go for a decent one. The price of the MSI is more than acceptable, if it's a bit more then that's also fine
Same with processor, I could go for the 8700 if there's really that bad much of an advantage over the i5 8600k I was considering.
Any advice gratefully received [emoji106][emoji106]

 

[JamesN]

And yes, cooling is something else I plan to look into, don't know what would be suitable yet!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

iRacing is very CPU intensive, but also very single-threaded. The upgrade should help quite a lot.

 

[JamesN]

iRacing is very CPU intensive, but also very single-threaded. The upgrade should help quite a lot.

It's perfect 90% of the time, with the occasional little tiny stutter. But then occasionally it'll do a really big, 5 or 6 second long hang up which isn't ideal!!
Any suggestion on processor? I7 8700 or go with an i5 8600k?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Cores and/or hyper-threading don't matter for iRacing, get the highest frequency you can on the CPU.

 

[JamesN]

Cores and/or hyper-threading don't matter for iRacing, get the highest frequency you can on the CPU.

So frequency > anything else? Got you.
The i5 8600k looks a decent bet then I think unless you guys have any better options?
I'll certainly do some research on overclocking and cooling.
I have Afterburner installed so can monitor the temps etc, not that a lot of that means much to me!! [emoji23][emoji24]

 

[ATMINSIDE]

For iRacing specifically, yes. I don't see anything wrong with the i5-8600K for your usage. Overclocking will show positive results for you as well.

 

[JamesN]

It'll be iracing mainly. But pretty much nothing but sim racing. Maybe a bit of rFactor 2 but that runs perfect as it is!

 

[JamesN]

I've ordered an MSI Z370 Gaming pro carbon AC motherboard and I've decided I'll go for an i5 8600k processor [emoji3]
Thanks for the advice everyone. Really hope this sorts it..!

 

[trents]

I would also recommend going with an SATA SSD drive or NVME m.2. Slow drive access sometimes can cause stutter is my understanding.

 

[JamesN]

I would also recommend going with an SATA SSD drive or NVME m.2. Slow drive access sometimes can cause stutter is my understanding.

Thanks mate, I have installed a 250Gb SSD already

 

[Alaric]

If the OP is looking to future proof with an Intel socket, that hasn't paid off much lately. There are other valid reasons to upgrade a mobo/CPU combo, and "I want to" is a common and time honored tradition around here. LOL. At the risk of sounding nonsensical, of course.

 

[JamesN]

If the OP is looking to future proof with an Intel socket, that hasn't paid off much lately. There are other valid reasons to upgrade a mobo/CPU combo, and "I want to" is a common and time honored tradition around here. LOL. At the risk of sounding nonsensical, of course.

Well my main reason for changing is I think the processor may be causing issues with VR on iracing, when I said future proof I just really meant something that will be upgradable for a little longer as my current board isn't able to overclock or run an 8th gen processor

 

[Alaric]

That'll do it.

 

[JamesN]

Guy, hopefully one of you guys would be able to take a look at the below pic and tell me if I'm correct in assuming that the CPU seems to be my issue?
You can see the trace at the end where it rises to 100% usage on CPU 1 & 2 which I assume are the 2 cores iracibg utilises?
I've ordered a new motherboard so I can upgrade the processor anyway but if be curious to see what people make of this.
Iracing was the only thing running other than afterburner and the 100% usages occurs just at the point of a very large 5 to 10 second freeze of the VR.
Cheers guys

 

[trents]

Looks like at the 6 and eight minute marks you spike to 100% CPU usage occasionally, which fits your description of the problem in post #1.

 

[JamesN]

Looks like at the 6 and eight minute marks you spike to 100% CPU usage occasionally, which fits your description of the problem in post #1.

Thanks mate. That's what I thought, just wanted the opinion of some people who have a more knowledge about these things than me!!