Gaming PC Upgrade Dilemma (CPUs, RAM)

[josee2797]

I am currently facing a dilemma. I'm looking to upgrade my pc but can only afford to upgrade either my ram or my CPU. My current specs are the following: R3 1200, MSI B350M Gaming Pro motherboard, 8 Gigs (2x4) of ddr4-2666 ram, and a 500W EVGA power supply. The possible upgrades I'm looking for are either the R5 2600 or a totally new kit of 16GB 3000Mhz RAM. (I can't buy another 8 gig kit because I stupidly bought a motherboard with only two RAM slots). My main use of the upgrade would be to play games such as Fortnite, CS:GO, Black Ops 4, and a few other random games.

Do you guys have any advice on what I should do? Thanks.

 

[King_V]

Honestly, to be certain, use hardware monitoring software, to see what your hardware utilization is when playing the games you want.

I don't know what GPU you have, so I don't know if that might be part of the issue - nor do I know what your monitor's refresh and resolution are.

That said, with hardware monitoring, see if your RAM is being completely used or not. See if your CPU is spending most of its time at or near 100% utilization or not.

That info will help point you in the right direction as to what to update first.

 

[josee2797]

Honestly, to be certain, use hardware monitoring software, to see what your hardware utilization is when playing the games you want.

I don't know what GPU you have, so I don't know if that might be part of the issue - nor do I know what your monitor's refresh and resolution are.

That said, with hardware monitoring, see if your RAM is being completely used or not. See if your CPU is spending most of its time at or near 100% utilization or not.

That info will help point you in the right direction as to what to update first.

I am running a GTX 1060 3gb and I have a 1080p 144hz monitor. I'll take your advice on monitoring the utilization.

 

[King_V]

At 1080p, the 3GB variant has been known to struggle a bit to maintain 60fps in SOME games. It certainly won't manage to hit 144fps, if that's your goal. I think you'd need a 1070Ti or 1080 to do that.

But, definitely checking the hw utilization will point you in the right direction.

 

[t99]

I think your fine with the whole system and I wouldn't upgrade anything unless your cpu is a bottleneck. A 2200g supposedly games well with a 1060, I imagine your cpu should get the job done.

I would try to hold out, make a larger upgrade and use your current parts longer. Before you spend a penny download MSI afterburner and run it while you game. If your cpu isn't not hitting 100% a lot of the time then you wont see much improvement.

You want to see the GPU at or near 100% with the cpu lower this means th cpu is cabaple of supporting the gpu well and it's not bottlenecking. What is your goal? I imagine your system can get roughly 60fps in a lot of games or close to it. If you can run fortnight at 72fps it will be crazy smooth.

Now that I type this I see someone mention something similar. I have a feeling you should be able to hold out for the next ryzen cpu and see a larger gain and around that time also get something like a gtx 2060 which should be like a current 1070/ti.

You could probably get away with using 8gb for a while longer. Games that list more almost always run close to the same with or without it. You notice it more trying to use 2gb when it says 4gb or 4gb when it says 8gb. Now you are a bit limited as far as opening chrome and browsing while gaming or streaming.

I went from 8gb to 16gb and my gaming experience is the same, but now I can open 20 tabs while gaming.

I've seen some games gain as much as 30% fps between 2133 and 3k mhz memory, but the gain from 2666 to 3k is going to be much smaller. Most the gains were like 15% or so and you cut that by 60% so like you might gain 6% on average.

If you can hold out ad prices slowly get back to normal you might be able to get the memory for much less.