Question Should i upgrade my ram if my cpu bottleneck the gpu?! Please help

[Harbintatamata]

Hello.
-Recently ive been facing some issues with this bottleneck thing because i did an upgrade 3 weeks ago, i changed some parts on my pc such like the gpu and psu and im looking further to upgrade my ram too, but i need some advices here because the cpu that i actually own was not at least one hundred percent compatible with the gpu that i bought. (Ill put the pc specs down below, so you guys can take it a look). And the cpu obviously is the reason that i have to deal with this bottleneck thing, but i dont regret it because its really not that bad, i just lose 20-30fps ingame because of the cpu, and the bad thing is that i cant really play cpu intensive games because the compatibility between the gpu and cpu will cause me drop fps, stutter, monitor freezing and "not loading textures thing"... Now the question is, is it worth it if i upgrade +8gb on my ram? Because i already have 8gb ram but im looking further to make it 16gb, would that make any difference? Will it help me on this "not loading textures" and stuttering ingame thing? Would that be a solution of all this or its just unnecessary to upgrade it? I do really need some help here, i would appreciate it. Thank you for reading this, stay safe.

Processor: i5-4440 3.10GHz
GPU: nVidia GTX 1660 6GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3
PSU: Corsair CX550

 

[CountMike]

Hello.
-Recently ive been facing some issues with this bottleneck thing because i did an upgrade 3 weeks ago, i changed some parts on my pc such like the gpu and psu and im looking further to upgrade my ram too, but i need some advices here because the cpu that i actually own was not at least one hundred percent compatible with the gpu that i bought. (Ill put the pc specs down below, so you guys can take it a look). And the cpu obviously is the reason that i have to deal with this bottleneck thing, but i dont regret it because its really not that bad, i just lose 20-30fps ingame because of the cpu, and the bad thing is that i cant really play cpu intensive games because the compatibility between the gpu and cpu will cause me drop fps, stutter, monitor freezing and "not loading textures thing"... Now the question is, is it worth it if i upgrade +8gb on my ram? Because i already have 8gb ram but im looking further to make it 16gb, would that make any difference? Will it help me on this "not loading textures" and stuttering ingame thing? Would that be a solution of all this or its just unnecessary to upgrade it? I do really need some help here, i would appreciate it. Thank you for reading this, stay safe.

Processor: i5-4440 3.10GHz
GPU: nVidia GTX 1660 6GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3
PSU: Corsair CX550

More RAM is not going to help neither CPU nor GPU but yes, it will most probably help against stuttering but will not give you better frame rate.

 

[Harbintatamata]

More RAM is not going to help neither CPU nor GPU but yes, it will most probably help against stuttering but will not give you better frame rate.

No im not asking for a better frame rate, i dont care about the gpu or cpu because as i said its not that bad, im just losing 20-30fps ingame because of the bottleneck. But if youre saying that it will help me on stuttering/freezing monitor/not loading textures issues i would gladly upgrade it right now. Check this link out ( https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...onitor-freezing-please-help-fortnite.3644715/ ), i posted a topic about "a game" and my stuttering issues and i dont know what to do, i wish you could give me some advices. Thank you again, i really appreciate your help and sorry for bothering you.

 

[USAFRet]

How do you know you're "losing 20-30fps ingame because of the bottleneck " ?

Before the new GPU, what were you getting?

 

[Harbintatamata]

How do you know you're "losing 20-30fps ingame because of the bottleneck " ?

Before the new GPU, what were you getting?

I can clearly see the difference between the games. Ive watched other people walkthrough games with the gtx 1660 and they obviously get more fps than i do with the same specifics but with a better cpu. Basically this post is about "a game" because im only facing this problems on Fortnite, im not that kind of guy who likes to put the graphic settings on ultra, i barely play with extra low textures because i need that fps to pop on when im fighting, i dont wanna deal with any kind of drop fps and thats the factor that is driving me crazy. Because im not facing this issues with any other game, i obviously can play gta 5, apex etc on ultra settings with 60-80fps without any monitor freezing and stuttering, but this is only happening on fortnite. I did some researches and i saw that fortnite is a cpu intensive game and maybe thats the probable cause, my cpu is the limiting factor here and it wont let my gpu and ram do the work. Before the new gpu i had a chinese garbage GTX 650 1gb and i can say that this graphic card was completly trash but the blowing mind thing is the fact that on fortnite im not seeing any kind of difference between the upgrade. I barely get any extra fps with my new gpu, its like the same, when i play fortnite i feel like i have still the gtx 650 inside my pc and thats why this is frustrating because i dont really know if its the games fault or my pc have something to do with it. Just with this specific game, only fortnite, as i said im not facing this exact same problems on any other game. So thats why i posted this topic about the upgrading ram phase, maybe if i upgrade the ram to 16gb i wont have to deal with this "not loading textures" and stuttering monitor issues. I posted yesterday a thread about this same exact thing so if youd like you can give it a shot, check it out and see what am i dealing with. Anyway thank you for your help, i really appreciate it, thank you for your time and sorry for bothering you. ----> (this is the fortnite thread that i posted yesterday) - https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...onitor-freezing-please-help-fortnite.3644715/

 

[USAFRet]

"clearly see the difference" only counts with actual numbers.

What other people get is mostly irrelevant.


But - "I barely get any extra fps with my new gpu "
So you get more. OK.

Here's the thing...a better GPU does not give you more FPS.
Basically, the CPU coughs up the raw frames, whatever it can do.
The GPU then takes those and applies whatever fancy graphics it can do, at that frame rate.


Also, paragraphs, line breaks, white space...those are your friends.

 

[Harbintatamata]

"clearly see the difference" only counts with actual numbers.

What other people get is mostly irrelevant.


But - "I barely get any extra fps with my new gpu "
So you get more. OK.

Here's the thing...a better GPU does not give you more FPS.
Basically, the CPU coughs up the raw frames, whatever it can do.
The GPU then takes those and applies whatever fancy graphics it can do, at that frame rate.


Also, paragraphs, line breaks, white space...those are your friends.

I completly understand you sir but its just a little bit confusing because as i said i have to deal with this kind of issues only in one particular game. I can play other games on ultra settings without any problem. So the last question is, what will happen if i upgrade my ram to 16gb? Would that help me out of this? Would extra ram decrease the stuttering effect and the "not loading textures"?

 

[USAFRet]

I completly understand you sir but its just a little bit confusing because as i said i have to deal with this kind of issues only in one particular game. I can play other games on ultra settings without any problem. So the last question is, what will happen if i upgrade my ram to 16gb? Would that help me out of this? Would extra ram decrease the stuttering effect and the "not loading textures"?

If the "problem" is only in one game, then the game is the "problem"

Will more RAM help?
Dunno. Maybe.
Have you monitored your RAM, in use, to see if you are running out of that 8GB?

 

[FarmingTNT]

Hello.
-Recently ive been facing some issues with this bottleneck thing because i did an upgrade 3 weeks ago, i changed some parts on my pc such like the gpu and psu and im looking further to upgrade my ram too, but i need some advices here because the cpu that i actually own was not at least one hundred percent compatible with the gpu that i bought. (Ill put the pc specs down below, so you guys can take it a look). And the cpu obviously is the reason that i have to deal with this bottleneck thing, but i dont regret it because its really not that bad, i just lose 20-30fps ingame because of the cpu, and the bad thing is that i cant really play cpu intensive games because the compatibility between the gpu and cpu will cause me drop fps, stutter, monitor freezing and "not loading textures thing"... Now the question is, is it worth it if i upgrade +8gb on my ram? Because i already have 8gb ram but im looking further to make it 16gb, would that make any difference? Will it help me on this "not loading textures" and stuttering ingame thing? Would that be a solution of all this or its just unnecessary to upgrade it? I do really need some help here, i would appreciate it. Thank you for reading this, stay safe.

Processor: i5-4440 3.10GHz
GPU: nVidia GTX 1660 6GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3
PSU: Corsair CX550

Hi, long text, so buckle up
Fortnite is a CPU intensive game meaning that both CPU and ram affect the frame rates the most. I recommend checking your rams speed (in MHz) and if that number is under 2000 MHz I would recommend an upgrade, judging by the fact it's DDR3, the chances of it being low speed is higher (DDR4 was released a while ago, so DDR3 stopped getting higher speeds, I imagine).
More ram won't help in this case, 8 GB is fine for a game like Fortnite, even with tasks like Discord open in the background. Your CPU definitely lacks behind in comparison to your GPU, although I wouldn't really call it a "compatibility issue" as you said, more like just a bottleneck. Upgrading it down the line would be a good idea, I say down the line because by the time I'm writing this your GPU upgrade was almost 3 months ago which is still pretty recent when we're talking about spending hundreds of dollars on PC parts. Sadly, as I check your CPU socket (LGA 1150), I see that it's not a common one like the 1151 where you would have lots of CPUs to choose from, here's the list:
https://www.cpu-world.com/Sockets/Socket_1150_LGA1150_H3.html
Basically, if you want a good upgrade where you would see a very big noticeable bump in frames, you would need a new motherboard (sarcastic "yay!").
Your graphics card is pretty beefy in comparison to the CPU, so one trick I recommend is this:

1. Check if your drivers are 3 months+ old, if so, update them (many videos on updating Nvidia drivers) because these settings in Fortnite were added 2 months ago and required a driver update.
2. Go in Fortnite, and use the "Nvidia reflex low latency" setting and put it on the highest one "on +boost".
3. You now have to create a "GPU intensive situation" because that's where this setting shines, so putting graphics on high could give you higher fps, which makes no sense.

I learnt all of this in this video by ItsJerian:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=s5AVm8CRVNA


Last thing, as I said before, you might need a MBO (motherboard) upgrade so you can get a new CPU upgrade, which is the same problem I'm facing right now. I have an i7-860 bottlenecking my GTX 1060 3 GB which funnily enough is even worse than your i5-4440, and since its socket is the 1156, I also have to buy a new motherboard if I'm interested in getting a good upgrade, so I'm getting:
A used i5-9600K for 130€, a used Z370 for 45€ and some 8 GB (2x4) 3000-3200 MHz for around 30€ (205€ total, although I'm the type of guy that buys used stuff to get the most bang out of his buck).
Anyways, the best tip I can offer is just looking around online and learning new things on PC parts, so you can get the best upgrade for you. From a Fortnite and PC enthusiast to another, good luck.
If you need anything else just ask,
FarmingTNT.