Question What are the motherboard and ram requirements for latest games?

[Dave Thompson]

Hi,

I have a really old mobo (H81m DS2V) from 2013, and also use cheap value Kingston DDR3 ram (12gb). I use the best cpu that is possible, which is an i7 4790. Due to a small mobo and micro ATX case, I wasn't able to attach the heavy duty coolers, so I've only been using the low profile coolers similar but larger to the Intel's stock cooler. CPU temps have often been an issue for me.

Because game requirements never recommend anything except for CPU, GPU and quantity of ram, I have never bothered to upgrade the mainboard. However, I highly suspect I suffer with in-game performance due to hardware other than my i7 4790 and RX 580.

I tried to play "Detroit become human", and it had some annoying frame-drops at 60 fps that could not be fixed even on low graphics settings, and it makes me wonder where my "bottle-neck" actually is. My hardware is extremely close to the recommended, but maybe it was for 30 fps only? (I don't do 30fps gaming!)

Anyhow, thanks a lot for reading this. I want to replace the mobo, ram and cpu+cooler (and also the pc case), so I can enjoy smoother gameplay with the latest games, and as this Gigabyte mobo has lasted so long, I want to get another Gigabyte board. Any recommendations please without breaking the bank? Also interested in how "value ram" differs to more expensive ones.

Much grateful.

Dave

 

[tennis2]

motherboard doesn't really affect performance.

Most likely your ram is DDR3-1600. Nothing to worry about there.

Not sure what case you have, but I had a 120mm tower-style cooler on my 3770....in an mATX case.

 

[tennis2]

Simplified way a PC plays a game:

1. CPU figures out what needs to be in a given frame (imagine a rough sketch) based on user and game world input. Issues draw call to GPU to tell it what to render.
   • Think of this as positional tracking. How many things are moving (or have the potential to) from one frame to the next.
2. GPU receives draw call and makes a pretty picture. Sends to monitor when complete.
   • This is detail. Object is now in new position, how has lighting/shading/etc changed. Re-draw object per game/quality rules.
3. The GPU can't do any work until the CPU tells it what to draw. Raising graphics settings and/or resolution increases the complexity of the GPU's job, making it take longer to render each frame. Lowering settings decreases the complexity of the GPUs job making it take less time to render each frame.
4. If the GPU finishes rendering a frame before the CPU has finished figuring out what the next frame should contain, the GPU has to wait (<100% GPU usage).
5. Based on #3 & #4, you should be able to optimize for 90% or greater GPU usage (depending on a game's CPU stress and the CPU/GPU balance of a system)

 

[Dave Thompson]

Thanks for the replies. Surely mobos aren't supposed to be used for 9 years? Could the data and power flow degrade over time?

 

[Eximo]

Not really. Electronics are mostly all or nothing. Overheating and thermal protections aside, if the system works, it works.

Getting a new motherboard and chassis (for a new CPU cooler) will certainly improve temperatures and might give you peace of mind, but you would be looking at motherboards almost as old as the one you have now. Performance differences would be minor.

If you want better performance, you just have to start replacing things. A late model i3 is faster than your i7-4790. And a mid-range i5 or Ryzen 5 is a lot faster with six cores compared to 4. Not to mention the generational improvements in clock speed and IPC. 4Ghz+ is basically the standard boost of every CPU, with high end CPUs pushing well into 5Ghz.

 

[tennis2]

Thanks for the replies. Surely mobos aren't supposed to be used for 9 years? Could the data and power flow degrade over time?

You're probably due for a new CMOS battery...that's about it.

Like eximo said, all the replacement mobos for your CPU are going to be similar age to yours.

 

[Eximo]

I do have a lightly used ASUS Maximus Hero VI laying around...but I can't really recommend a board swap.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($136.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock B660M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($44.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $280.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-10-27 14:05 EDT-0400

 

[Dave Thompson]

Oh no, I realise I will need a new CPU with a new mobo. The case I have is flimsy, the cooler is not great at cooling, and I just feel I need to upgrade. I also have an issue with using my camera through my pc via a capture card to OBS Studio: I get intermitten stuttering, so that's another reason I am itching to upgrade, but I need evidence that paying loads of money will fix my little problems.

 

[Eximo]

Well, that changes things a lot. Though I don't think anyone can give you implicit evidence it will fix your problems, just that it should run better regardless of problems. You would also be wanting to install a fresh OS, so you would essentially be starting from scratch.

If you are using both x16 slots, then the GPU is running in 8x mode. If you are using the chipset connected slots, they are will be running at PCIe 2.0 for your capture card. Probably not enough bandwidth through the chipset -> DMI to the CPU. Your drives and stuff would also run through there along with your network and USB devices, going to get jammed up doing all of that at once.

Newer CPUs have better connections to their chipsets and better PCIe speeds across the board. And of course, more CPU cores. Not to mention NVMe drives for true high speed storage.

For you I would almost say go for a 13600K for the extra efficiency cores. They can handle a lot of the background tasks and free up the main cores for your games.

 

[tennis2]

We're building a system now(!)? I was of the impression you just wanted to swap the mobo and keep everything else the same.

If we're doing a system upgrade, we'll need:
budget
country you're shopping in
what monitor do you currently have? or are you upgrading that also?

 

[Dave Thompson]

Well, that changes things a lot. Though I don't think anyone can give you implicit evidence it will fix your problems, just that it should run better regardless of problems. You would also be wanting to install a fresh OS, so you would essentially be starting from scratch.

If you are using both x16 slots, then the GPU is running in 8x mode. If you are using the chipset connected slots, they are will be running at PCIe 2.0 for your capture card. Probably not enough bandwidth through the chipset -> DMI to the CPU. Your drives and stuff would also run through there along with your network and USB devices, going to get jammed up doing all of that at once.

Newer CPUs have better connections to their chipsets and better PCIe speeds across the board. And of course, more CPU cores. Not to mention NVMe drives for true high speed storage.

For you I would almost say go for a 13600K for the extra efficiency cores. They can handle a lot of the background tasks and free up the main cores for your games.

You sound like you know, so I would like to use my interaction with you to help me find out what the weakest link is regards camera to capture card stuttering. It's a Soomfon capture device that uses a USB3 port and I got it off Amazon. It did state it will support 1080p at 60 fps, (although it didn't include 50 fps or 50 hz which is what the camera is running at along with a 50 hz display.) If I leave the Windows display on 60 hz, the fps stays low through OBS. Anyway, it's smooth for a couple of minutes, then it will stutter for several seconds until it settles down again. It seems to be triggered by moving the camera or adding light. Could this now be about the mobo and the efficiency of the USB3 ports? It's also not an "Elgato" capture card which is probably what I should have gone for, but it was triple the price. So I have two reasons to upgrade. Any ideas on that please?

Thanks for taking the time to reply to me, much appreciated.

 

[Eximo]

So the USB ports will going through the chipset, which connects to the CPU via DMI, which for 4th gen was DMI 2.0 at a max of 4 GT/s (~2GB/s)

We are currently on 4.0 for 16GT/s (~8GB/s) (I'm still on DMI 3 myself)

Keep in mind that is for everything connected to the PCH. Network, your other USB devices, SATA storage. So, video output to the capture card, my guess would be your capture card uses CPU and System memory to do its thing, processed data back to storage. All sharing that connection to the CPU.

I think here you are just running into resource limitations. When your capture stutters with additional light or camera movement, it has to show that by changing a lot of pixels at once. Which means its compression won't be as effective. The more the image stays consistent, the less new information has to be processed. So if what you are recording stays relatively the same, compression can make it small enough to fit through your bottleneck, which is likely DMI or your storage cache getting filled up.

NVMe SSD can have quite a bit of onboard memory, plus cache. Newer CPU will afford more bandwidth between storage and connected devices.

Platform would be a better term than motherboard. Because you can't improve these things without replacing the CPU as well, they go together. Now you do have a lower end chipset, but really the higher end ones will just have more SATA and USB in that generation, CPU DMI will remain consistent from H81 -> Z97 I believe.

 

[Dave Thompson]

Thanks for your effort to educate me, but a lot of it is over my head sadly. I will come back to this thread to remind me when I decide to upgrade, which I think will be very soon.

 

[Eximo]

Further study into how the different types of capture cards work would be worthwhile. The El Gato are expensive because they do their own processing and take the load off your system. USB ones tend to have the hardware to decode video signals, but all the compression is done by your CPU.

 

[Dave Thompson]

Further study into how the different types of capture cards work would be worthwhile. The El Gato are expensive because they do their own processing and take the load off your system. USB ones tend to have the hardware to decode video signals, but all the compression is done by your CPU.

I suppose there is much truth to the saying "you get what you pay for", but when the reviews are good you grab the "bargain". Would you perhaps have a few mins to see if the stutter would be due to the Soomfon device rather than my PC? (Actually, this issue is more important to me than the stutter in some games.)

If you do fancy finding out for me, the capture device is "SF-CT003". This is plugged in to USB3 port on my H81m-DS2V running 12 gb of KIngston value ram with an i7-4790. (PSU is a Corsair, and I have tried using a powered USB3 hub ). I use a Sony AX53 camcorder outputting 1080p 50fps HDMI display. I suppose with Amazon's exceptional returns policy, I may be able to try the Elgato without losing. Hmmm.

Connecting the camera direct to PC was a new thing for me, and I would very much like to fix the intermittent stuttering. I use it for the live chromakey function on OBS.

No pressure anyway, but my research often ends up going nowhere.

 

[Dave Thompson]

IT'S TIME!

Can I carry on with this thread?

I am going to be ordering some parts in the next few days, but I am stuck on which motherboard to get. I have just ordered a Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower, which looks great (at least in the pictures). Now then, mobo, cpu and ram...

I want to stay with Gigabyte seeing as this current board is still going after 9 years, so skimping on it is probably not a good idea. I was looking at the B550 Gaming-X V2 for £140, and then I thought about leaving room for upgrades over several years, so I am now looking at the B550 Aorus Pro AC for £180 (with bluetooth).

I have also got my eye on the Ryzen 5 5600, but is that overkill at this stage? Should I go for the bottom of the 6-core range to start off with?

I intend to reuse the 4 year old Corsair TX650M PSU and the XFX RX-580, as I haven't had that GPU long and I'm interested to see how it performs with an updated system.

Upgrading from:
Gigabyte H81m DS2V (2013)
Kingston DDR3 value ram (12gb)
i7 4790 (non-K 4C 8T)
Crappy mATX case with poor airflow that rattles.

I want to stay around £500, so I have three questions please:

1. Which GB Mobo and AMD CPU combo do you recommend? (Ideally with bluetooth as I have a BT game controller I would quite like to enjoy wirelessly).

2. When it comes to DDR4 ram, do I simply go for the highest speed that the board can handle? (Looking at Amazon, a common speed seems to be 3200mhz).

3. Will I have better game performance with an M.2 SSD? I have a WD Blue Sata SSD right now.

Thanks a lot!!

 

[tennis2]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor (£135.59 @ NeoComputers)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AS500 70.81 CFM CPU Cooler (£39.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£136.25 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory (£49.99 @ Corsair UK)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£87.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £449.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-23 02:26 GMT+0000

 

[Dave Thompson]

Thank you! That site is very interesting. I will have a play around with it now.

I was having other thoughts too.

How about:
Keep the mobo, put it into the new Corsair case, get an i7 4790k and overclock it (I believe the board does allow it contrary to other claims), get a beefy cooler, and swap out the 12 gb of value ram for 16 gb of high quality ram.

I still get an upgrade, as even this i7 4790 doesn't get to its full potential due to poor cooling.

I might be able to squeeze more life out of this board. Hmmm🤔

 

[tennis2]

Don't bother "upgrading" from a 4790 to a 4790K. People want far too much $$ for K-series CPUs, even that old.

8 years is enough. Not saying the i7-4790 is worthless. Just don't use it for gaming.

 

[Dave Thompson]

Don't bother "upgrading" from a 4790 to a 4790K. People want far too much $$ for K-series CPUs, even that old.

8 years is enough. Not saying the i7-4790 is worthless. Just don't use it for gaming.

Hi again!

Oh boy, I am getting brain-fog from all my research. Never bought a mobo before.

Yeah, I think I will stick to plan A, as I would like quality bluetooth, the faster USB3, faster ram, and ofcourse a 6-core CPU (which seems to be fast becoming the norm). Given the Corsair iCUE 220T case I've just ordered, do you think I should go for a mATX board? I don't really need all those ram and PCI-E slots, so are there any disadvantages to staying with a micro board? I just assumed they get hot, but with a new case, cooler and fans, I may be happy with the temps. I am more excited about the case with 3 RGB fans lol!

 

[Dave Thompson]

Hey I noticed you have a Ryzen 5600G, so maybe you know the answer. I have my TV as well as an LCD monitor at my desk, The monitor plugs into the VGA slot on the mobo and the IGPU controls it. When I switch on my TV (plugged into graphics card), the monitor goes off and the RX580 takes over. I would like to keep it that way, so do I go for a Ryzen with an IGPU, or just plug the monitor into the DVI on the graphics card via an adapter?

Cheers

 

[Eximo]

I would just recommend plugging both monitors into the RX580 rather than get a 5600G. Not that it matters a whole lot, but a 5600G only has 8x PCIe lanes for a graphics card. It uses the other 8 lanes for the internal GPU.

Ryzen 5600 is actually the superior CPU compared to the 5600G, they are not the same thing underneath.

5600G only does PCIe 3.0 as well. The 5600 does PCIe 4.0. 5600 has more cache and slightly higher frequencies.

You can stick with Micro ATX in that chassis if you want to. No real temperature difference between Micro and ATX, just cost. Less features usually. Cost difference between a decent MicroATX board and an entry level ATX board is about the same. But the entry level Micro ATX boards are really cheap.

 

[Dave Thompson]

I would just recommend plugging both monitors into the RX580 rather than get a 5600G. Not that it matters a whole lot, but a 5600G only has 8x PCIe lanes for a graphics card. It uses the other 8 lanes for the internal GPU.

Ryzen 5600 is actually the superior CPU compared to the 5600G, they are not the same thing underneath.

5600G only does PCIe 3.0 as well. The 5600 does PCIe 4.0. 5600 has more cache and slightly higher frequencies.

You can stick with Micro ATX in that chassis if you want to. No real temperature difference between Micro and ATX, just cost. Less features usually. Cost difference between a decent MicroATX board and an entry level ATX board is about the same. But the entry level Micro ATX boards are really cheap.

Hi, Yes, I had read that there is a significant difference between the two CPUs, but I had also read that that even the Ryzen 5 3600 is still a great performer, so I was considering the 5600G. I wanted some room to upgrade over a few years, so I dont want to put the best in it to start with. Is the Ryzen 5 5600 a bit overkill? I don't think I have seen any games that demand it.

Trouble is, I want to stay with Amazon as a seller, because they give you peace-of-mind. I just know if there is any issue, they won't mess me around like so many other companies do. Sadly, they don't have any Gigabyte mATX boards, and I don't want to chance it with 3rd party sellers. I might go for the Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO AC ATX, what do you think about that board?

There is a timer on the Amazon site for "Black Friday" which starts in 3 hours. I don't know what deals I will get, but this is probably my moment to order the rest of the parts.

Thanks for talking to me, and just look at this gorgeous case!

View: https://youtu.be/PnhgftmWZns

 

[Dave Thompson]

OK, I am about done now....went ahead with B550 Aorus Pro AC, and I am going to get a used Ryzen 3600 off ebay (I successfully get used CPUs on there). But, what about ram? Does one need to upgrade ram every time they upgrade CPU? Will 3600mhz ram be fine for both the Ryzen 3600 and 5600? I am interested in learning how to overclock maybe, so would 4000mhz fit all? Thanks.

 

[Dave Thompson]

Anyway...

I went for Kingston FURY Beast 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 3600 MHz DDR4 CL17.

Thanks for the replies. I realise I wasn't in much need of help, but it was good to document my thoughts and research.

Signing out...
Cheers.