As I've done from time to time, this blog serves as a bit of a bench-notes of what I did.  However, maybe someone else hits the same problem, and finds my blog via search.

About a month back, the new nVidia 2080 Ti card was announced.  I decided to hit up eBay to see if anyone was selling off a 1080 Ti, and I was not disappointed in the price drops.  So, I upgraded my graphics to the 1080 Ti.

Similarly, Intel just dropped the new 8th Generation of Core i7 processors.  Last weekend, I upgraded my system from a Core i7-6700k CPU to a newer i7-7700k.  Now that the 8th gen 8700k is out, the 7700k became more affordable AND my existing motherboard already supports it.

I was hoping it would be more noticeable in actual use.  My benchmarks are slightly better as I expected.  I have - though - life extended this another year or two into the future.

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VirtualBox & Windows 7 (which I run for work reasons)

When I started my Windows 7 virtual machine, I got a notification from the Operating System that some Windows Updates would stop being delivered because Windows 7 doesn't support my CPU.  Knowing that VMs can fudge this data, I went searching.  After pages and pages of VERY complex commands, I found a comment from 2010 pointing at experimental "Processor Templates".  With all VirtualBox components shut down, I ran the following:

cd '\Program Files\Oracle VirtualBox'
.\VBoxManage.exe modifyvm "Win7 x64" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"

Restarted the VM and everything is happy again.

NOTE:

VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz"
VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-2635QM"
VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-3960X"
VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i5-3570"
VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-5600U"
VBoxManage modifyvm "<vm name>" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"

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Current PC Spec

Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake Quad-Core 4.2 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80677I77700K Desktop Processor
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Turbo 11GD, GV-N108TTURBO-11GD
ASUS WiFi Dual Band Wireless (Intel AC 8260 chipset)
SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V5P512BW
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) CMK32GX4M4A2133C13
ASUS Z170-A LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR HXi HX750i CP-9020072-NA 750W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified Full Modular Power Supply
Corsair Carbide Series 100R Silent Edition CC-9011077-WW Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ATX (not included) Power Supply
Noctua NH-L12 120mm & 92mm SSO Bearing PWM Fans CPU Cooler
Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm Case Fan
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 2TB (Added mid 2016)

Original Parts replaced from 2015 November build

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 06G-P4-4991-KR 6GB GAMING w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling Graphics Card
Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 95W BX80662I76700K
Intel 7260HMWDTX1 Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (Died April 2018)