Question Upgrade GPU or CPU

[alexanderkristiansen71]

My son is complaining that his games are lagging and that his computer is too slow. At the time we cannot afford to buy him a new PC. I am considering upgrading his PC to be fast enough so he can play his games., either with a new CPU or GPU.

He currently has:
- Motherboard: MS Star MS-7bs8 (1151 socket)
- Intel i5-8400 CPU 2.8 GHz CPU mark 9256 according to cpubenchmark.net
- AMD RADEON RX 6500 XT 4GB memory
- 16GB of RAM

If I upgrade his CPU to this one:
Intel CORE-I5-13400F his CPU mark will rise to 25278, almost three times faster.

I have read a few articles about his graphics card which say it still is quite good. But if I upgrade to RAMD RADEON RX 6600, the performance will rise by 69%

1. So what is best to upgrade, CPU or GPU?

2. And if upgrading the CPU is best, can I buy any CPU as long as it uses the same socket? I'm thinking about heat and power consumption.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

It depends on what games he plays and what you are targeting, better visuals or higher framerates.

While that CPU is not great, a 6C/6T CPU is not that bad for modern games, even a lower-end one. Nowadays I would say that you would not want a GPU with less than 8GB of RAM, and even that depending on what you do with it can not be enough as 8GB has been somewhat the standard for far too long now and newer GPUs from Nvidia are finally adding more.

Thing is, a game can be CPU-bound or GPU-bound depending on the game, as in, what component it taxes harder. The resolution and settings you play on also matter. If for example you want to prioritize framerates, and run at lower resolutions or settings, the CPU will play a much bigger role because it needs to be able to keep up with the GPU, since it will be taxed less in rendering the game and needs data faster from the CPU so it can render more frames per second.

If it's more visuals and/or resolution you are focusing on the GPU will matter more as the more complicated and higher-resolution image it has to render, the more time it will take to do it, and the CPU isn't going to be as taxed sending data fast enough to the GPU.

Stuttering can be caused if the CPU is not keeping up, but there are many other factors that can contribute to it too, including even what software is running in the background.

Generally in most cases a GPU upgrade is better for gaming unless the CPU is laughably out of date and already holding back the GPU, but if you are confusing on specific problems like games lagging you might want to look into the cause more to determine which component would be better to upgrade, the "computer being slow" is also pretty vague, slow in what way? Even a computer with a state of the art CPU and GPU but for some reason running off a hard drive or having a very low amount of RAM would be slow for example.

And to answer your second question, you will need to check the motherboard manual. Just because a CPU can physically fit in a socket does not mean it's compatible with the motherboard, although the majority of CPUs for that socket at the time the motherboard came out would work. CPUs that came out after the motherboard but still use the same socket will HEAVILY depend on if the motherboard got a BIOS update to support that CPU. You will want to update the BIOS BEFORE installing the new CPU in that case if the motherboard does not have a flashback feature.

That being said, if your aim is to use that same motherboard, it's not worth it to upgrade the CPU. Intel CPUs generally only support two generations, and the difference between one generation is generally not at all worth it unless you are also significantly changing the CPU class (e.g. from a 12100 to a 13700, not just going from a 12100 to a 13100). Furthermore, old Intel CPUs go for way too much in my opinion, it's just not worth it at all, money is far better spent just getting a new motherboard and CPU than paying far too much for a several years old used CPU, especially in the case of an upgrade that will only be slightly better. If you want to upgrade your CPU, go the new motherboard+CPU route, not hunting down a used 8th or 9th gen old CPU.

 

[stonecarver]

My son is complaining that his games are lagging and that his computer is too slow. At the time we cannot afford to buy him a new PC

As a dad with a couple of boys myself keeping them up to date and gaming glitch free is an art. Doing the most you can on the side before replacing parts.


You can see where his GPU compares to other cards on that page and go to Relative Performance box and use your mouse wheel to see how your sons card falls into matrix.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 Specs

AMD Navi 23, 2491 MHz, 1792 Cores, 112 TMUs, 64 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR6, 1750 MHz, 128 bit

www.techpowerup.com

What games does he play and the ones he mostly feels are slow. Maybe those need tweaking to gain performance.

How full is his hard drive "s"

Is the computer slow as a whole or just gaming.

Is he on wifi or wired nic cable.

Does he have an SSD or mechanical older hard drive.

His current parts are right on the boarder that he should be running smooth and glitch free. Yes new AAA games will have him turning down the eye candy but as is he has decent parts.

Is the computer been cleaned out and the GPU blown out for dust bunnies.

Unplug from wall and hold down power button to empty caps in power supply.

And for gods sake if you do blow out GPU take your time and don't let the fans spin while blowing card out. Lots of light while cleaning out pc.

With my kids after I clean the parts is I unplug there working hard drive with there games and all. I install new SSD and I rebuild there Windows. updates, Steam and Epics library's, drivers and give them a week to use new setup of Windows. Most of the time there happy , Dad what did you do my computer rocks again.

The best part they still have there original hard drive where they felt there computer was crap and can see a/b before and after.

As far as up grades that's up to you, My youngest son has the i7 8700 , 32 Gb's with an AMD Vega 64
He can play anything 2560 x1440, I keep them going and keep food on the table.

His Memory and GPU were used and between the two were $80.00

 

[geofelt]

1.
My stock approach to this perennial question:

Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer tends to like many threads.

You need to find out which.
------------------------------------------------------------
To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
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.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one or more cores/threads. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of threads to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.



It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system,
and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
-------------------------------------------------------------

2. No. you can not buy any lga1151 upgrade.
The sockets may be compatible, but the chipsets make a difference.
Likely a cpu upgrade to a I5-8600 or possibly I7-8700 is possible, but that is not going to be a significant cpu boost.

Find the supported cpu upgrades for your motherboard.
Intel 13th gen will need a new motherboard. If this is a pre built, your motherboard may be proprietary and not easily replaced.

I3-13400 would need a lga1700 based motherboard.
You would find that 13100 might be a sufficient upgrade and let you buy such a motherboard.

CPU limited games are usually dependent on fast single thread performance.
Run the cpu-Z bench on your i5-8400. You should get a score like 451.
Some other scores:

CPU-Z Benchmark for Intel Core i3-13100F (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - October 2023

valid.x86.fr

What is the make/model of your psu?
That is what may limit the gpu upgrade possibilities.

Tom's gpu hierarchy chart will give you the relative capabilities of graphics cards.

GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2023: Graphics Cards Ranked

We've run hundreds of GPU benchmarks on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics cards and ranked them in our comprehensive hierarchy.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Unolocogringo]

Another dad here who kept several computers running for kids.
Keep a clean windows start up and background apps under control. Turn off software up-daters IE mouse, motherboard etc... ,sticky note, calendar all that crap.

If possible upgrade to a 1TB ssd or larger depending on game sizes. SATA is fine .
With a new install of windows. The 8400 is older so windows has accumulated a lot of leftover registry settings and lost /old files that cant be deleted because of the old left over registry entries.
A video card would be my suggestion for a performance upgrade on a budget. The 6500xt. is entry level and only 4x pcie slot connection for data. and 4 gig of memory@64bit really cripples it.
It would perform a little better on a newer board, but not worth the cost.
If budget allows a 6700 is a much better buy.
It will last a couple years longer @ playable frame rates. And get a performance boost with a platform upgrade later!
They also get bragging rights about playing at max /ultra settings for a couple years.
But lets see what power supply you have first.