Question Upgrade from AMD FX 8320 for CS:GO/FFXIV

[anderson4584]

Hello all,

I am looking to upgrade from my 8320. Mostly for CS:GO (in 1024x768). I also play FFXIV (1920x1080), but I am not really as worried about FPS for that as I am for CS:GO. In CS:GO My FPS tends to sit around 120-160, with spikes up to 300+, and as log as 90+. My main issue is, sometimes when I go to spray or even just shoot at people when multiple people are on the screen, that is when I get my FPS drops. Otherwise, the game runs excellent mostly.

I am not concerned about MAX FPS. What I want, is stability (I do NOT want to overclock). If I can get, say just 200 FPS, and have it be absolutely steady at 200, I will be happy for sure. I do not care whether I go to Intel or stick with AMD. I have to get a new MOBO + RAM anyway considering the upgrade. My road block is, I would like to stay under $300 for the entire upgrade (CPU, MOBO, RAM). So, if this plan won't really yield the results that I want, then I want to see where I need to be to achieve that. I could spend more money if I really need to, but I have other things I have to pay for of course, so I am really trying to stick to this.

I plan on keeping my GTX 960 (and the rest) a little longer. I believe CS:GO is more CPU needy, so my graphics card is probably fine for now (I tend to play CS:GO with lower graphics settings). If not, and that is a must upgrade as well, then I will just save up some more money and upgrade a little down the road.
Any help or ideas are appreciated! Thanks

Current Specs:
AMD FX 8320 Black Edition (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler)
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
16GB G.Skill Sniper 1600 (PC3) 12800 DDR3
Thermaltake SS 750W
EVGA GTX 960
ACER GN246HL 24" 1ms 144Hz
Crucial BX200 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme Micro ATX Cube Chassis

 

[Encircle]

The problem is your gpu isn't really going to push out frames that consistently you should keep the 8320 and upgrade to a 970 or 1060.

 

[anderson4584]

The problem is your gpu isn't really going to push out frames that consistently you should keep the 8320 and upgrade to a 970 or 1060.

Interesting. I honestly thought it would be the other way around. I am going to price some GPUs out and consider that. Thank you!

 

[anderson4584]

So, something incredible happened over the weekend before I was able to make a decision. My computer shut down and wouldn't turn back on. Initially I was thinking PSU, but I bought a new one and it turned out that wasn't the problem. It was the motherboard. I was still getting power to USB 3.0, but my pc wouldn't even really attempt to turn on. Regardless of which PSU I tried.

So... I felt stuck. I didn't want to buy another AM3/AM3+ Mobo since I was looking to upgrade anyway. I did a lot of searching and ended up going cheap since I am on a tight budget. This is what I ended up with:


Intel Core i3-9100F Coffee Lake 4-Core 3.6 GHz (4.2 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series) 65W
ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel B365 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Micro ATX
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400

This will be paired with my GTX 960 for now. I should be ok running CS:GO I believe for the time being. My plan now.... since they have been altered (Darth Vader voice), is to upgrade my graphics card some time later this year, then upgrade the processor I guess. I will also buy another stick of the same exact ram so I have 16 GB dual channel.

A quad core at 3.6ghz with 4.2 boost, I thought was a good deal for $99. Especially since CS:GO apparently only uses up to 4 cores anyway. Hopefully I made a decent move lol. All 3 was about $240 after taxes and shipping.

 

[geofelt]

I suspect you will find that you did better than you hoped.
You approximately doubled your single thread performance that was likely limiting your previous performance.

Here is a simple test to determine if you graphics card is your limiting factor:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

 

[anderson4584]

I suspect you will find that you did better than you hoped.
You approximately doubled your single thread performance that was likely limiting your previous performance.

Here is a simple test to determine if you graphics card is your limiting factor:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

I hope so. Honestly, I feel like this CPU may be a bit underrated. Unless I am missing something. I don't need the integrated graphics.

I just made a small change though. I had Newegg change the ram to
GeIL EVO SPEAR 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200)


I was gonna just get another of the same stick, but this ram got some excellent reviews, and I saved a couple bucks down the road while doubling my ram back up to 16 GB. Thanks for the reply!

 

[geofelt]

You were smart to buy a ram kit.
Adding a second stick, even of the same part number is not 100% guaranteed to work.
And, 2400 speed is fine, intel is not much impacted by ram speeds using discrete graphics.
If you can, post some before and after impressions of the performance of your games.

 

[anderson4584]

You were smart to buy a ram kit.
Adding a second stick, even of the same part number is not 100% guaranteed to work.
And, 2400 speed is fine, intel is not much impacted by ram speeds using discrete graphics.
If you can, post some before and after impressions of the performance of your games.

Yeah typing this post made me think twice about the RAM. I am glad I made that change. Not sure what I was thinking the first time around lol. But I will definitely come back and post the differences here. I should have this stuff either tomorrow, or Wednesday, so I will be in touch. Thanks again!

 

[anderson4584]

You were smart to buy a ram kit.
Adding a second stick, even of the same part number is not 100% guaranteed to work.
And, 2400 speed is fine, intel is not much impacted by ram speeds using discrete graphics.
If you can, post some before and after impressions of the performance of your games.

Looks like I won't have the parts until Friday-Saturday. I am going away this weekend, and I won't be back until some time on Monday. So I may not be able to get back to you until late Monday, or late Tuesday. But I will definitely get back to you when I am able to.

 

[anderson4584]

So I got my parts in today. And .... what an adventure. I got everything installed and bam... same problem. PC wouldn’t start.

Long story short..... my mobo wasn’t the problem. It was my graphics card causing a short. I figured this out because it sparked in my face while I was troubleshooting.

So, not only did I end up upgrading my cpu, ram, and mobo, I ended up upgrading my graphics card as well lol. I just ran out to Best Buy and picked up a 1660. I’m working on getting it reformatted now so I’ll let you know when I’m playing cs how that’s goes.

Obviously performance isn’t gonna be comparable since everything got upgraded though lol

 

[anderson4584]

You were smart to buy a ram kit.
Adding a second stick, even of the same part number is not 100% guaranteed to work.
And, 2400 speed is fine, intel is not much impacted by ram speeds using discrete graphics.
If you can, post some before and after impressions of the performance of your games.

I promised an after report so... I'm averaging around 300 FPS for the most part now. It's also waaaay smoother and the FPS drops are pretty minimal. I am in an offline game with 7 bots (which in the past I would get around 180-200 FPS with drops down to 90.). I judge by the offline bots because that tends to be the most demanding for CS:GO. When I play competitive 5v5, my FPS was always pretty steady unless im spraying with a lot going on. Then I got some drops. I have a feeling I won't be getting those now. I will play a competitive shortly soon. I am just monitoring for temps atm.

But again.... this kind of doesn't mean anything except the fact that this build works great for CS:GO. There isn't much of a comparison to the before build since I also upgraded my graphics card lol so it's cheating.

But in any case, I am happy it turned out this way. I clearly needed a graphics card update anyway. Thanks all for the help!