Question Help with upgrading my GPU and SSD ?

Luis007

Commendable
Aug 5, 2020
3
0
1,510
I'm planning to upgrade my GPU, but I'm trying to figure out what would be the best GPU that will not bottleneck with the current specification that I have.
Also, can you guys please recommend an SSD as well that will work well with my current specifications?

My PC spec:
Mobo: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. PRIME A320M-K (AM4)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core processor.
16.0GB Single-Channel DDR4
Current GPU: 8192MB ATI Radeon RX 470 Graphics (MSI)
Storage: 111GB ADATA SU650 (SATA (SSD)) and 1397GB Western Digital WDC WD15EARX-00PASB0 (SATA )

Thank you and I appreciate all the help.
 

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
Budget?

Since else-ways: RTX 4090 + Seasonic/Super Flower/Corsair 1600W PSU + Samsung 990 Pro 2TB.

that will not bottleneck

Bottleneck, as such, is NOT a thing.

In GPU bound games, better GPU does increase performance. In CPU bound games - Not so much.

Overall, improvement is still there, since there aren't any modern games that only utilize CPU or GPU. Both are utilized, but depending on a game, either CPU or GPU is favored more.

For example:
CPU heavy game - Cities:Skylines. <- With this game, it doesn't matter how good of a GPU you have, you're still limited with the FPS your CPU can provide.
GPU heavy game - Crysis <- With this game, CPU is used little, while GPU is used heavily. Here it doesn't matter what CPU you have, since FPS is limited what GPU can provide.

No matter how you look at it, you'll always be limited by what CPU or GPU can provide, thus, there is no such thing as "bottleneck". :non:

That being said,
Budget?
PSU make and model (or part number) is? Also, how old the PSU is, and was the PSU bought new or used/refurbished? (Since PSU defines what GPU you can go for.)
 
what is your power supply ?
for your current processor i would say rx 6600 is the upper limit i would go with the video card
(there will be a minor bottleneck but it is a best lower end card currently available on the market for around 220-250 dollars)
there is no point to buy 6500xt or gtx 1660/1660Ti/1660 super or even rtx 3050 .

as for the storage you are limited to PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds so either crucial P3 , WD blue SN570 or adata XPG SX8200 PRO will do fine
(whichever you can find cheaper you can go for it)

i would also advice you to upgrade your ram from single 16gb stick to 2x16gb 3200MHz cl16 to further boost the performance a bit .




Bottleneck, as such, is NOT a thing.
In GPU bound games, better GPU does increase performance. In CPU bound games - Not so much.
Overall, improvement is still there, since there aren't any modern games that only utilize CPU or GPU. Both are utilized, but depending on a game, either CPU or GPU is favored more.
For example:
CPU heavy game - Cities:Skylines. <- With this game, it doesn't matter how good of a GPU you have, you're still limited with the FPS your CPU can provide.
GPU heavy game - Crysis <- With this game, CPU is used little, while GPU is used heavily. Here it doesn't matter what CPU you have, since FPS is limited what GPU can provide.
No matter how you look at it, you'll always be limited by what CPU or GPU can provide, thus, there is no such thing as "bottleneck". :non:

well you can call it what you want (or you can invent a new term for it)
but if you have for example rtx 4090 and pair it with lets say i5 4460 than your cpu will operate at 90-100% in most (modern) games
and your gpu will be underutilized because the cpu can´t "keep up" with it and you will be getting 20-50 FPS instead of 200-300 FPS = bottleneck
same if you pair i9 13900KS with gtx 460 , your cpu would be unable to perform to its full potential while gaming
and you will get 20 FPS instead of 150-200 which you would get with a proper video card . you can call it "waste of potential" or "waste of money"
"bottleneck" is just universally "accepted" term which may not be the most technically accurate but it is understood (to a superficial degree) by most people .
 
Last edited:

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
but if you have for example rtx 4090 and pair it with lets say i5 4460 than your cpu will operate at 90-100% in most (modern) games
and your gpu will be underutilized because the cpu can´t "keep up" with it and you will be getting 20-50 FPS instead of 200-300 FPS = bottleneck
same if you pair i9 13900KS with gtx 460 , your cpu would be unable to perform to its full potential while gaming
and you will get 20 FPS instead of 150-200 which you would get with a proper video card

What you fail to explain, is that your "most (modern) games" are actually PC heavy AAA titles. And AAA titles doesn't even make up the bulk of games out there. Those are just a very small percentile of all games that can be played on PC. Most (modern) games are actually small casual/indie games, that doesn't require beefy hardware to run.

For example:
Extremely popular modern game, released 20 Oct '22: Vampire Survivors.
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that's SSE2 capable
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • Storage: 400 MB available space

Also no equilibrium can ever be achieved between CPU and GPU utilization. Since like i said above, some games are CPU bound while others are GPU bound. If you were to spec the PC towards GPU bound games and find a good sweet spot, where both GPU and CPU are utilized the most (a nice balance), but if you then switch to a CPU bound game, CPU holds the entire build back while GPU's performance is wasted, throwing entire PC out of "balance".

So, unless OP only plays one game and specs their PC to match that specific game, they will always be limited by what CPU or GPU can provide.
 

Luis007

Commendable
Aug 5, 2020
3
0
1,510
what is your power supply ?
for your current processor i would say rx 6600 is the upper limit i would go with the video card
(there will be a minor bottleneck but it is a best lower end card currently available on the market for around 220-250 dollars)
there is no point to buy 6500xt or gtx 1660/1660Ti/1660 super or even rtx 3050 .

as for the storage you are limited to PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds so either crucial P3 , WD blue SN570 or adata XPG SX8200 PRO will do fine
(whichever you can find cheaper you can go for it)

i would also advice you to upgrade your ram from single 16gb stick to 2x16gb 3200MHz cl16 to further boost the performance a bit .






well you can call it what you want (or you can invent a new term for it)
but if you have for example rtx 4090 and pair it with lets say i5 4460 than your cpu will operate at 90-100% in most (modern) games
and your gpu will be underutilized because the cpu can´t "keep up" with it and you will be getting 20-50 FPS instead of 200-300 FPS = bottleneck
same if you pair i9 13900KS with gtx 460 , your cpu would be unable to perform to its full potential while gaming
and you will get 20 FPS instead of 150-200 which you would get with a proper video card . you can call it "waste of potential" or "waste of money"
"bottleneck" is just universally "accepted" term which may not be the most technically accurate but it is understood (to a superficial degree) by most people .
hose are ju
Budget?

Since else-ways: RTX 4090 + Seasonic/Super Flower/Corsair 1600W PSU + Samsung 990 Pro 2TB.



Bottleneck, as such, is NOT a thing.

In GPU bound games, better GPU does increase performance. In CPU bound games - Not so much.

Overall, improvement is still there, since there aren't any modern games that only utilize CPU or GPU. Both are utilized, but depending on a game, either CPU or GPU is favored more.

For example:
CPU heavy game - Cities:Skylines. <- With this game, it doesn't matter how good of a GPU you have, you're still limited with the FPS your CPU can provide.
GPU heavy game - Crysis <- With this game, CPU is used little, while GPU is used heavily. Here it doesn't matter what CPU you have, since FPS is limited what GPU can provide.

No matter how you look at it, you'll always be limited by what CPU or GPU can provide, thus, there is no such thing as "bottleneck". :non:

That being said,
Budget?
PSU make and model (or part number) is? Also, how old the PSU is, and was the PSU bought new or used/refurbished? (Since PSU defines what GPU you can go for.)


Thank you for your input I'm actually planning on going with Rx 6600 XT, I have a 600WATS PSU but a little worried that I might not able to take the load of the GPU when it comes to the power rate ratio as my PSU is a little bit old, can you also, please recommend any good Power Supply that I can upgrade to that's not too over kill.

When It comes to storage I'm planning on getting at least 1TB of storage which of these would be best crucial P3, WD blue SN570, or a data XPG SX8200 PRO as I want to do gaming such as Valorant, Dota 2, Last of Us(since it just got released on PC) Dying Light 2 and PUBG and more.

Will also upgrade my RAM to Kingston Fury Beast 16GB 32000 MHZ DDR4 CLR16 RGB wondering if this will also be okay.

I don't really have a limit on the budget, but I also don't want to spend too much as I will not be doing any work on the PC and will just be playing games, but of course, I want to get at least around 165 FPS as I have a 165hz monitor.
 
What you fail to explain, is that your "most (modern) games" are actually PC heavy AAA titles. And AAA titles doesn't even make up the bulk of games out there. Those are just a very small percentile of all games that can be played on PC. Most (modern) games are actually small casual/indie games, that doesn't require beefy hardware to run.

right - and just how many gamers who are asking for advice on "gaming build" play those "indie" games as you describe them ?!
most players want to play those GPU/CPU heavy titles and they want to play them with acceptable framerates .
kid who wants to play cyberpunk doesn´t care if you tell him -
"well unfortunately you will only get 30FPS in cyberpunk but look at all those "indie" games out there your system can run just fine" .
there can be 90% of games not demanding on hardware , but 90% of player base still want to play those 10% eye candy AAA titles .

and of course there is no such thing as perfect equlibrium between cpu and gpu but it is what you should try for .
as close as you can get to balancing your entire system out the better your overall gaming experience will be .
 
Last edited:

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
I don't really have a limit on the budget, but I also don't want to spend too much as I will not be doing any work on the PC and will just be playing games, but of course, I want to get at least around 165 FPS as I have a 165hz monitor.

Something to consider:

PCPartPicker Part List

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card ($799.99 @ ASUS)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus 750 Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($139.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1069.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-03-19 05:50 EDT-0400


Few words;
SSD is 970 Evo Plus, 2TB. Ample space and good speed. Also, superb reliability. This very M.2 NVMe drive is also my OS drive.
Review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-970-evo-plus-ssd,5608.html

PSU is solid unit from Seasonic. Also in ample wattage for the GPU i included.
Review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seasonic-ssr-750fx-focus-plus-750-gold-psu,5206.html
(All 3 of my PCs are also powered by Seasonic, while i have two PRIME and one Focus unit. Full specs with pics in my sig.)

And GPU is RTX 4070 Ti.
Sure, it's better than your planned RX 6600XT, but with 4070 Ti, you can get ~145 FPS @ 1080p on average,

fEXzj9gmbUWiweH6QegWHb.png


Review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-review-a-costly-70-class-gpu/6

6600 XT got ~35 FPS @ 1080p on average;

H83EU76TnN7P7kLRxvLGv9.png


Review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt-review/4

Once you have better GPU, PSU and SSD, you can start collecting money for better CPU-MoBo combo. And for RAM too, if you plan to go with DDR5 RAM, rather than reusing your DDR4 RAM.
 
what am i watching here ?!
you are misleading him and you know it :

those charts with rx 6600 xt are with raytracing enabled , while disabled rx 6600 xt has much higher FPS than 30 at 1080p .
also rtx 4070Ti with ryzen 2600 (i know it is a joke but the casual user won´t get it)

Luis007:
unless you are planning on changing your entire platform very soon (or at least upgrading your cpu to ryzen 5600 and above)
there is no point on getting 4070Ti or radeon 7900xt etc .

it would help to know what brand and model is your current psu because simply saying it´s 600w is not enough information .
if you want to upgrade your power supply the question is do you want just some cheaper solution for this build or would you like to
be able to transfer your new psu into a future build ?
(in which case you would need to go higher on quality and also more power so it can handle more demanding components in the future)
 
Last edited:

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
what am i watching here ?!
you are misleading him and you know it :

those charts with rx 6600 xt are with raytracing enabled , while disabled rx 6600 xt has much higher FPS than 30 at 1080p .
also rtx 4070Ti with ryzen 2600 (i know it is a joke but the casual user won´t get it)

I linked the reviews. Anyone can read them at their own pleasure.

Even with Ray Tracing off, OP will not get 165 FPS with 6600 XT @ 1080p. Best is ~70 FPS.

6uJ5swjeUXZDRt4XT5Xnym.jpg


TechRadar review: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt

it would help to know what brand and model is your current psu because simply saying it´s 600w is not enough information .

This would only matter if OP is keeping their current unit. But since OP is planning to buy new PSU, what the old one is, doesn't matter.

unless you are planning on changing your entire platform very soon (or at least upgrading your cpu to ryzen 5600 and above)
there is no point on getting 4070Ti or radeon 7900xt etc .

CPU-MoBo upgrade is a sensible next step. I see no reason why not suggest a solid foundation (good SSD, great GPU and even better PSU) for later upgrade of CPU and MoBo (perhaps even RAM).
 

lowfy

Reputable
Apr 9, 2020
18
1
4,515
To determine the best GPU that won't bottleneck with your current specifications, it would be helpful to know your monitor's resolution and refresh rate, as well as the games or applications you plan to run.
Assuming a 1080p resolution and 60Hz refresh rate, a good GPU upgrade option for your system would be the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super or the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT. Both GPUs provide good performance for their price point and should work well with your current CPU and RAM.
As for an SSD recommendation, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus or the WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD would be a good choice for faster storage. These SSDs offer faster read and write speeds than traditional SATA SSDs like the ADATA SU650, which would help improve your overall system performance.
 
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I don't really have a limit on the budget, but I also don't want to spend too much as I will not be doing any work on the PC and will just be playing games, but of course, I want to get at least around 165 FPS as I have a 165hz monitor.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QnD7YJ/fractal-design-pop-air-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-c-poa1a-02
Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case $81.18

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mQ...ed-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-sf-750f14hg
Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W 80+ Gold Modular ATX Power Supply $99.99

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/JmhFf7/amd-ryzen-7-5700x-34-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000926wof
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X $189.00

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/GCjBD3/deepcool-ag620-6788-cfm-cpu-cooler-r-ag620-bknnmn-g-1
DeepCool AG620 Dual Tower CPU Cooler $46.98

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/8X...0-pro-atx-am4-motherboard-tuf-gaming-b550-pro
ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PRO $149.99

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Yg...2-x-16-gb-ddr4-3600-memory-cmk32gx4m2d3600c18
Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3600 32GB (2x16GB) CL18 $88.98

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Fv...b-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-mz-v7s2t0bam
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD $129.99

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/CC...rx-6700-xt-12-gb-video-card-rx6700xt-cld-12go
ASRock Radeon RX 6700 Challenger D OC XT 12GB Video Card $359.99

Total: $1146.10

A better look at those components.

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/pop/pop-air/black-tg-clear/


https://www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen

https://www.deepcool.com/products/C...al-Tower-CPU-Cooler-1700-AM5/2022/15900.shtml