Question Upgrading CPU/RAM/PSU/Motherboard

eitvydasz1

Commendable
Mar 20, 2018
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This is my current build https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PbQcw6

I'm planning to upgrade those parts which I've mentioned in the title. I'm not really familiar with the overclocking stuff so I don't think I'll be aiming to do that. Mostly I play open world / fps games, I'm looking to get at least 60fps+ steady on 1080p at medium or high settings. I've heard that Intel is slightly better in gaming but Ryzen does everything better when it comes to multi-tasking and such. Is it worth sacrificing 10-20 FPS for a better performance outside games? Currently all I do is game and browse internet but once I upgrade to a better CPU maybe I'll be trying to stream or something.. My budget is roughly 420€.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (€219.90 @ Alternate)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (€109.90 @ Caseking)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€74.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €404.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-23 21:19 CEST+0200
Thanks but I also need a new PSU, so Ryzen 7 2700 is kinda expensive for me
 
You can easily overclock a Ryzen 7 1700 to make it a good gaming CPU and you still get the 8 cores.

PCPartPicker part list: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/TRBz4q
Price breakdown by merchant: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/TRBz4q/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3 GHz 8-Core Processor (€164.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (€86.80 @ Alza)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€74.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12II 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€56.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €383.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-23 21:28 CEST+0200
 
You can easily overclock a Ryzen 7 1700 to make it a good gaming CPU and you still get the 8 cores.

PCPartPicker part list: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/TRBz4q
Price breakdown by merchant: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/TRBz4q/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3 GHz 8-Core Processor (€164.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (€86.80 @ Alza)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€74.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12II 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€56.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €383.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-23 21:28 CEST+0200
If I decided to go with Ryzen I think I'd rather take 5 2600 instead of 7 1700, the 1700 has very bad single core performance..
 
The Ryzen 5 2600 works very well for me.
I have it running at 3.9 GHz on an Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming mb with G.Skill TridentZ RGB 3200 RAM running at 3400 MHz.
I also have an MSI GTX 1660 TI ARMOR 6G OC and I can run current games set on Ultra at 85 to 120 fps at 1080p.
 
The Ryzen 5 2600 works very well for me.
I have it running at 3.9 GHz on an Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming mb with G.Skill TridentZ RGB 3200 RAM running at 3400 MHz.
I also have an MSI GTX 1660 TI ARMOR 6G OC and I can run current games set on Ultra at 85 to 120 fps at 1080p.
is that stock cooler enough for overclocking?
 
Some, because it has an additional two cores, but the single core (IPC) performance isn't tremendously better between even Haswell and Coffee lake refresh. There is SOME improvement, but probably not 500+ dollars worth, which is what it is going to cost, at least, for a new CPU, board and memory, which you will need since nothing supports your DDR3 anymore.

The better option, unless you simply WANT to get on a newer platform (Which is ok too) would be to find a 4790k and slap that in there. You'd gain some speed per core due to the frequency increase and you'd gain four additional hyperthreads, which are not going to add as much as adding four more cores, but will certainly improve performance over only having four cores total as with your current CPU.

Are you running Ultra settings or lower preset, or a custom mix of quality settings?
 
stick with 1 thread
I have problems getting steady 60+ fps in some games like Rust/NFS 2015/SCUM/PUBG etc..

i5-4430
GTX 1060 6GB
16GB (4x4GB)
SSD/HDD (windows on SSD)
I will be probably upgrading to i5-9400f along with the new motherboard ram and psu. How much of a difference I would see with that new CPU?
Also I've heard that even it the CPU usage is below 100% it still can cause a bottleneck.
By the way bottleneck calculator shows that my i5-4430 is bottlenecking gtx 1060 6gb by a 30%.

Here's a quick fresh video of me showing that I can't get steady 60+ fps in Rust. (same thing happens on some other games)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngihIK6aSwg
 
Some, because it has an additional two cores, but the single core (IPC) performance isn't tremendously better between even Haswell and Coffee lake refresh. There is SOME improvement, but probably not 500+ dollars worth, which is what it is going to cost, at least, for a new CPU, board and memory, which you will need since nothing supports your DDR3 anymore.

The better option, unless you simply WANT to get on a newer platform (Which is ok too) would be to find a 4790k and slap that in there. You'd gain some speed per core due to the frequency increase and you'd gain four additional hyperthreads, which are not going to add as much as adding four more cores, but will certainly improve performance over only having four cores total as with your current CPU.

Are you running Ultra settings or lower preset, or a custom mix of quality settings?
It's hard to get 4790/K in my area, even if it's used it still costs about 180euros+ and I don't want to spend that much for a used CPU which could break in a few days. I'd rather spend more money on a whole new platform (excluding GPU).

About settings. I usually play at medium or low,as for rust it doesn't really matter if you play ultra or lowest nothing changes
 
Ok then, well, at low or even medium settings, with the CPU you have now, you should easily be capable of getting 60FPS. People were playing that game when it was new, with that CPU, and getting that, so there is no reason you shouldn't be able to now. I haven't had much experience with that game in the last couple of years, but it used to be TERRIBLY optimized. I don't know if that has improved or not, but chances are good that for a poorly optimized game it won't matter what CPU you have, or won't matter much.

Are you getting poor performance in ALL games, or is that the only game you really play? With only a GTX 1060 and at low or medium settings, there is little reason you shouldn't have much better performance than that if you're using a 1080p or lower display.

I'd suggest starting with a clean install of the GPU card drivers, which can certainly have a tremendous effect on FPS and performance, as well as checking to see that the rest of these items are all good to go.

Here are the first steps to take when trying to solve these kinds of hardware problems. If you have already tried these steps, all of them, exactly as outlined, we can move along to more advanced solutions.

If there are any you have NOT done, it would be advisable to do so if for no other reason than to be able to say you've already done it and eliminate that possibility.


First, make sure your motherboard has the MOST recent BIOS version installed. If it does not, then update. This solves a high number of issues even in cases where the release that is newer than yours makes no mention of improving graphics card or other hardware compatibility. They do not list every change they have made when they post a new BIOS release.

Second, go to the product page for your motherboard on the manufacturer website. Download and install the latest driver versions for the chipset, storage controllers, audio and network adapters. Do not skip installing a newer driver just because you think it is not relevant to the problem you are having. The drivers for one device can often affect ALL other devices and a questionable driver release can cause instability in the OS itself. They don't release new drivers just for fun. If there is a new driver release for a component, there is a good reason for it. The same goes for BIOS updates.

IF you have other hardware installed or attached to the system that are not a part of the systems covered by the motherboard drivers, then go to the support page for THAT component and check to see if there are newer drivers available for that as well. If there are, install them.

The last thing we want to look at, for now anyhow, is the graphics card drivers. Regardless of whether you "already installed the newest drivers" for your graphics card or not, it is OFTEN a good idea to do a CLEAN install of the graphics card drivers. Just installing over the old drivers OR trying to use what Nvidia and AMD consider a clean install is not good enough and does not usually give the same result as using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. This has a very high success rate and is always worth a shot.

If you have had both Nvidia and AMD cards installed at any point on that operating system then you will want to run the DDU twice. Once for the old card drivers (ie, Nvidia or AMD) and again for the currently installed graphics card drivers (ie, AMD or Nvidia). So if you had an Nvidia card at some point in the past, run it first for Nvidia and then after that is complete, run it again for AMD if you currently have an AMD card installed.

Here are the full instructions on running the Display driver uninstaller and CLEAN installing new drivers.

 
Ok then, well, at low or even medium settings, with the CPU you have now, you should easily be capable of getting 60FPS. People were playing that game when it was new, with that CPU, and getting that, so there is no reason you shouldn't be able to now. I haven't had much experience with that game in the last couple of years, but it used to be TERRIBLY optimized. I don't know if that has improved or not, but chances are good that for a poorly optimized game it won't matter what CPU you have, or won't matter much.

Are you getting poor performance in ALL games, or is that the only game you really play? With only a GTX 1060 and at low or medium settings, there is little reason you shouldn't have much better performance than that if you're using a 1080p or lower display.

I'd suggest starting with a clean install of the GPU card drivers, which can certainly have a tremendous effect on FPS and performance, as well as checking to see that the rest of these items are all good to go.

Here are the first steps to take when trying to solve these kinds of hardware problems. If you have already tried these steps, all of them, exactly as outlined, we can move along to more advanced solutions.

If there are any you have NOT done, it would be advisable to do so if for no other reason than to be able to say you've already done it and eliminate that possibility.


First, make sure your motherboard has the MOST recent BIOS version installed. If it does not, then update. This solves a high number of issues even in cases where the release that is newer than yours makes no mention of improving graphics card or other hardware compatibility. They do not list every change they have made when they post a new BIOS release.

Second, go to the product page for your motherboard on the manufacturer website. Download and install the latest driver versions for the chipset, storage controllers, audio and network adapters. Do not skip installing a newer driver just because you think it is not relevant to the problem you are having. The drivers for one device can often affect ALL other devices and a questionable driver release can cause instability in the OS itself. They don't release new drivers just for fun. If there is a new driver release for a component, there is a good reason for it. The same goes for BIOS updates.

IF you have other hardware installed or attached to the system that are not a part of the systems covered by the motherboard drivers, then go to the support page for THAT component and check to see if there are newer drivers available for that as well. If there are, install them.

The last thing we want to look at, for now anyhow, is the graphics card drivers. Regardless of whether you "already installed the newest drivers" for your graphics card or not, it is OFTEN a good idea to do a CLEAN install of the graphics card drivers. Just installing over the old drivers OR trying to use what Nvidia and AMD consider a clean install is not good enough and does not usually give the same result as using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. This has a very high success rate and is always worth a shot.

If you have had both Nvidia and AMD cards installed at any point on that operating system then you will want to run the DDU twice. Once for the old card drivers (ie, Nvidia or AMD) and again for the currently installed graphics card drivers (ie, AMD or Nvidia). So if you had an Nvidia card at some point in the past, run it first for Nvidia and then after that is complete, run it again for AMD if you currently have an AMD card installed.

Here are the full instructions on running the Display driver uninstaller and CLEAN installing new drivers.

Thanks so much for your time and tips. I'll make sure to do everything tomorrow.
 
Ok then, well, at low or even medium settings, with the CPU you have now, you should easily be capable of getting 60FPS. People were playing that game when it was new, with that CPU, and getting that, so there is no reason you shouldn't be able to now. I haven't had much experience with that game in the last couple of years, but it used to be TERRIBLY optimized. I don't know if that has improved or not, but chances are good that for a poorly optimized game it won't matter what CPU you have, or won't matter much.

Hey I haven't had time to answer properly yesterday.
Yes when that game was released people with even worse CPU's could probably run this game. But have in mind that this game is about 6 years old and it has changed a lot, I mean so much stuff have been added in to the game also the graphics changed so much it doesn't even look like the same game. My friend who has i5-6500 and a GTX 950 2GB runs this game way more steadier (70-80FPS on everage) and only with 8GB RAM, yes he gets some drops from time to time, but that's probably game itself.

And as I said it's not only with this game , but also not with with every game. It happens like this with more CPU intensive game's like GTA 5
 
My friend who has i5-6500 and a GTX 950 2GB runs this game way more steadier (70-80FPS on everage) and only with 8GB RAM, yes he gets some drops from time to time, but that's probably game itself.

And as I said it's not only with this game , but also not with with every game. It happens like this with more CPU intensive game's like GTA 5

Which leads me even further to believe it is not a problem with having hardware that is not up to the task, but is rather with configuration, settings or driver issues.

Most likely is that some critical driver has been updated by Windows automatically to a version that works, but does not carry the desired full functionality with it and you are running on a limited version of something, much like you do when in safe mode. That's pretty much what happens when you run on generic rather than device specific drivers.

I would start with doing EVERYTHING I listed up above and then we can go from there. Especially the clean install of the graphics drivers, but all of it is important, even if you think "eh, this isn't the problem" because I can link you to at least 100 threads in any given hardware area where somebody thought the same thing until I was finally able to get them to do the work and they found that their problems were resolved, like magic. :)

Not in every case to be sure, but in a LOT of cases.
 
Which leads me even further to believe it is not a problem with having hardware that is not up to the task, but is rather with configuration, settings or driver issues.

Most likely is that some critical driver has been updated by Windows automatically to a version that works, but does not carry the desired full functionality with it and you are running on a limited version of something, much like you do when in safe mode. That's pretty much what happens when you run on generic rather than device specific drivers.

I would start with doing EVERYTHING I listed up above and then we can go from there. Especially the clean install of the graphics drivers, but all of it is important, even if you think "eh, this isn't the problem" because I can link you to at least 100 threads in any given hardware area where somebody thought the same thing until I was finally able to get them to do the work and they found that their problems were resolved, like magic. :)

Not in every case to be sure, but in a LOT of cases.
You won't believe but after updating my graphics drivers everything just runs even worse. And it's not the first time it has happened to me. At first I noticed that in Nvidia control panel 3D settings were somehow set to quality, I thought that was the problem, but after changing it to performance nothing improved.. Now NFS 2016 runs so badly I can't even play it properly , FPS so unstable it goes from 80-60-40 whenever there's some action going on
 
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is that stock cooler enough for overclocking?
I have never used the stock cooler, I bought an Arctic 33 Esports edition cooler when I ordered all my other parts.
I don't think the stock cooler that came with my 2600 would work any where near as well as my current cooler does.
My CPU idles around 28-30 C and maxes out at about 55C after a few hours of heavy gaming.

FYI
I am running convertXtoDVD encoding 2 movies onto to DVD right now and my CPU temp is only at 35C. 😉
 
You're not getting errors or any signs of instability right? Just bad performance? Have you looked at the graphics card and CPU thermals in HWinfo to see if there is a thermal issue going on? Severe throttling could play a role I suppose.

Obviously, it could also be a hardware issue, and you might be back to your original plan that you are need of upgrading.
 
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