[SOLVED] Adequate build for gaming CoD? Suggested / necessary upgrades?

[tommyarra]

Hi all,

I built a gaming PC last year, after lots of solid advice on here (thanks guys!)

I have attached a picture of my build components.

Stupidly , I haven't really used it.. and I have been playing CoD on my PS4. However, I'm thinking about switching to PC.

My questions :

• Is this build adequate for CoD Warzone?
• Should I upgrade / add anything else?
• What performance can I expect?

Any other advice? Really really do appreciate all help, as I am a total tech noob.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

 

[larsv8]

You will not notice a difference between 16 and 32 gigs of ram, save your money.

Why are you looking to upgrade?

If I read this thread correctly, a 3700x and a 5700xt is a great performer and you would be hard pressed to cheaply upgrade right now to anything noticable.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You will not notice a difference between 16 and 32 gigs of ram, save your money.

How do you know this? Do YOU know, for a fact, exactly what sort of games or applications the OP runs? Do you know for a fact that they aren't interested in dabbling in (Or seriously using) Virtual Box or another VM application where the additional RAM might not only be helpful but 100% necessary? Because I don't, so I'm somewhat doubtful that you do either.

Whether or not 32GB is going to be beneficial depends entirely on what you do, how you do it and how many things you are doing at the same time. There are already a handful of games on the market that can use more than 16GB, especially if you're running much of anything else alongside it, and I fully expect that trend to continue. There was a time everybody said anything more than 8GB (Or 4GB, or 2GB, depending on how far back you want to go) was a waste because games and applications would never use it, and to be honest the days when 8GB were sufficient didn't actually last all that long. At some point in the couple of years, if not sooner, I'm pretty sure we'll see more and more ways in which having more than 16GB becomes a bit more of a necessity.

But, if you're not actually running anything that you know for certain is going to be able to take advantage of the extra memory, THEN it probably is a waste, because by the next time you build a system it's likely we'll be dealing with DDR5 at that time and the memory you have now will be deprecated for what will be current Gen hardware at that time.

 

[larsv8]

How do you know this? Do YOU know, for a fact, exactly what sort of games or applications the OP runs? Do you know for a fact that they aren't interested in dabbling in (Or seriously using) Virtual Box or another VM application where the additional RAM might not only be helpful but 100% necessary? Because I don't, so I'm somewhat doubtful that you do either.

Whether or not 32GB is going to be beneficial depends entirely on what you do, how you do it and how many things you are doing at the same time. There are already a handful of games on the market that can use more than 16GB, especially if you're running much of anything else alongside it, and I fully expect that trend to continue. There was a time everybody said anything more than 8GB (Or 4GB, or 2GB, depending on how far back you want to go) was a waste because games and applications would never use it, and to be honest the days when 8GB were sufficient didn't actually last all that long. At some point in the couple of years, if not sooner, I'm pretty sure we'll see more and more ways in which having more than 16GB becomes a bit more of a necessity.

But, if you're not actually running anything that you know for certain is going to be able to take advantage of the extra memory, THEN it probably is a waste, because by the next time you build a system it's likely we'll be dealing with DDR5 at that time and the memory you have now will be deprecated for what will be current Gen hardware at that time.

Just sharing my experiences, if you want to recommend someone upgrade from 16 to 32 gigs of ram, please do.

It is definitely not something I would recommend...as you said...it probably is a waste.

 

[Darkbreeze]

"Your" experience is only applicable to you, unless you know for certain that you are running the same OS, same applications, same games with the same settings and everything else is the same as well. If not, then you have no idea what is "needed" by the OP's system.

I'm not even marginally one of those people who runs extremely demanding professional applications or giant VM's and I easily exceed 16GB on a regular basis, especially if I'm running Virtual Box or any other VM application. But there are plenty of folks who exceed 16GB running ONLY games and multitasking with other software simultaneously OR any of a cart full of professional applications out there that, when used by a professional to perform professional tasks. A single high resolution image with a few layers can practically zero out that 16GB in a lot of graphics applications.

So unless you know they are not doing ANY of that, you really have no idea how much memory anybody needs and since you didn't bother to ASK that question, it seems rather premature to make statements like "it is probably a waste". The bottom line is, you have no idea what is or is not a waste to this or any other users system if you don't know specifically what they are planning to run and at what level of expertise.

Now, if ALL they are doing is running COD: Warzone, then yes, they are never going to come near 16GB usage from game play alone. But if they are running Chrome with ten or more tabs open, overlays, monitoring software, a test VM, photoshop AND Call of duty, then they are probably going to stand a good chance that 16GB won't even remotely be enough to handle the requirements of the software unless they are not using any of it beyond very light, casual use.

However, there are RIGHT NOW, a handful of games that by themselves, along with Windows and whatever background processes are running, can use 16GB. Adding mods, to any game, might greatly increase that need as well, even for games that normally use an average amount of RAM.

Keep in mind that the fact that YOUR system, or ANY system for that matter, isn't using more than 16GB is VERY OFTEN due to the fact that more than 16GB isn't installed. I've seen plenty of configurations with only X amount of RAM that only used Y % of it, but once additional memory was added that figure increased well beyond what was allocated when a lesser capacity was installed. In other words, if you are running a given set of programs and using only 14.8GB total, and then install an additional 16GB, you should not be at ALL surprised to see that afterwards when running the same software you find that the allocation is now beyond 16GB simply because it was not there to be allocated in the beginning but was there and available afterwards. Your system won't try to use what you don't have so the fact that you don't FULLY run out of memory in a configuration does not mean that, if it were there, it wouldn't get used.

There are simply too many variables to say that what IS on one system, IS on another. My recommendation is never to upgrade to 32GB just because I like that number. But I highly recommend that users don't make assumptions either. Whether or not a given amount of memory is wise depends entirely on the specifics of what they are doing, not what you did.

 

[tommyarra]

Hi lads,

Thanks to both of you for your input - really appreciated. Your comments have certainly made me think twice.

Essentially all I play is CoD Warzone, but I do usually have a browser or 2 open on my other screen for in between games, general browsing, youtube etc. I've noticed my RAM usage has been 80% plus at times, hence the reason I was considering upgrading.

But the point about DDR5 seems a very good one... When I eventually do look to upgrade my CPU and GPU it will almost certainly require further upgrades to the PSU. And likely, by the time I get around to it / can afford it. Technology will have advanced and DDR4 may be outdated. So maybe this upgrade is a bit silly, a bit uncalled for.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That sounds about right to me. Mostly I think this will be a financial decision, plus, keep in mind that if you already have 16GB, ADDING another 16GB is not going to come with any guarantees that the new kit will play nice with the old one. Even if you get an identical model kit.

Often, it will, but a lot of the time it just as well won't. If you are hitting 80% RAM usage, then you could probably benefit from more RAM if that's happening pretty regularly. So you can roll the dice on adding another kit, or replace what's there now with a whole new 32GB kit. Or you can just ride on what you have already. If you plan to keep this platform for a very long time, it's probably not the worst idea in the world to get to 32GB one way or another.