7 years since upgrade - Need mother boad Suggestion

Current - i5-2500K 4.2ghz, 8gb 800mhz ram. 1050 video card, ASRock Z77 motherboard, 700w supply.
Large steel Cooler master case with 5 fans

First - is it true that the newer i5 cards are considerably faster than the old one I have overclocked at 4.2ghz?
If so then I would stick to a new i5-xxxx. Otherwise, I assume an 17 is the next "reasonable" step.

If I get a new board , new memory is also an obvious step. The core question is what is the best board that is reasonable?
I do not need an LED light show. But for me the prime function is buss speed. On-board video is a waste. Need PCI slots. I have no idea what I would use PCIe slots for. I would never consider dual video cards and they seem to be going out of favor anyhow. Certainly need good overclocking for my (K) cpu.
The motherboard must be full size. That is about it. target price $250. So any borad suggestion would be nice......

If you're planning to stick to Intel CPUs, and upgrading to an 8th Gen i5 or i7 microprocessor and DDR4 RAM, then the latest and best-featured gaming boards are the Z390 and Z370-series.

Suggest check out this link: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-motherboards,3984.html

If you're planning to retain your current CPU, then a mobo upgrade won't help very much at all and will show little discernable performance difference.
To make a REAL difference in your T:ANE or TRS19 performance, simply upgrade your graphics card to a GTX-1070Ti or better.

You will use PCIe Slots for the GPU. To go to a newer board, you are looking at a new cpu + memory. I do agree with PC_Ace about the z390 or z370 series being well featured boards, i have an asus hero x (z370) and asrock Z370M-ITX/ac. Both very solid boards.

I wouldn't bother with a new motherboard just upgrade the GPU. Your existing i5 should be fine. TANE and TS19 use less CPU than TS12 but much more GPU.

Cheerio John

I will probably just up the video card to 1070 since I planed that with the the more extensive upgrade. As suggested it may just be all that is needed. If not then nothing lost since it was needed anyhow and it continues my plan to always "play from behind". - one hardware generation...

Good one, boleyd! Your current CPU is clocked at 4.2Ghz, so will easily be able to support a card like the GTX 1070, though a couple more cores would still come in handy.
I love my Asus ROG Strix GTX-1070 8Gb OC card which outperforms most other 1070 GPUs and which also features excellent triple fan cooling.
The Ti version adds extra CUDA cores and has slightly faster GDDR5 VRAM, representing better value for money.

If a gtx 1069 6gb works reasonably well with an AMD PhenomII 1090T which surprisingly it does then IMO you should be ok upgrading the graphics with an I5, even an oldish one.

boyled - There's a newcomer to consider as well - and highly affordable!
See this post here: https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...o-be-an-affordable-beast-for-Trainz-upgraders