[SOLVED] What should i be upgrading next?

[PrinceSJP]

I'm just wondering what i should be looking to upgrade next, as i want to be able to play games at 1440p @144hz and am not sure what to upgrade first.

Specs-

Motherboard - ASUS ROG Strix Z270E
CPU - i5 6600
GPU - GTX 1060 6GB
RAM - 16gb

Everything seems to be getting good frames on most newer games by tweaking the settings at 1080p.

Any suggestion is appreciated

 

[Karadjgne]

The i5 can handle 144Hz, but only in some games. Other games like gta:v or battlefield 5 are optimized for 8 threads +, so tend to put those older quad core cpus at a disadvantage, bogging them down with upto 100% cpu usage.

The 1060 can handle 1440p@60Hz for many games, but will cap out long before reaching 144fps or even close. You'll really need the power of at least a 1080, 2070 to get more consistent results.

What's next depends on your budget. You'll need a cpu, gpu, possibly a good 550w psu minimum

 

[PrinceSJP]

The i5 can handle 144Hz, but only in some games. Other games like gta:v or battlefield 5 are optimized for 8 threads +, so tend to put those older quad core cpus at a disadvantage, bogging them down with upto 100% cpu usage.

The 1060 can handle 1440p@60Hz for many games, but will cap out long before reaching 144fps or even close. You'll really need the power of at least a 1080, 2070 to get more consistent results.

What's next depends on your budget. You'll need a cpu, gpu, possibly a good 550w psu minimum

Thank you, that's really helpful

 

[Cioby]

This may be solved but I feel I must add to this. It's not only the core counts or whatever, basically at lower resolutions, a i7 especially overclocked, will get you 10-50 more fps in let's say even Witcher 3 at 1080p. This actually is affected by newer generations too. Tested this myself since I upgraded to a 8700k from 4770k. In games at 4K the difference is inexistent or very small. At 1440p or 1080p you might actually lose a lot of fps, even with a good i7. I say look at some youtube videos of your favorite games + your CPU at your desired resolution or a comparison between CPUs.

GPU will always give you the best boost of performance, but at lower resolutions a very strong CPU will actually help boost that even higher. quick example:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnc5oj2ImjQ

 

[Karadjgne]

No. The cpu sets the fps limit. It's got to decode/process the game code first. It can only do that so many times a second. Does not matter what the resolution is, that's all on the gpu. The cpu will process the same code X amount of times per second for 1080p or 1440p or 4k. After that, it's all on the gpu to reproduce the picture and live upto the limit set by the cpu. Most times, the gpu doesn't have the ability at higher resolutions to reproduce the amount of pixels as fast as at lower resolutions. There's @1.7x as many pixels in 1440p as at 1080p. That's what drops fps when changing resolution higher, and the needs of a more powerful gpu.

Witcher 3 is not only bandwidth intensive, but also high thread count game. It's brutal on any cpu, but more especially on quad thread cpus as the already saturated bandwidth per core now has to prioritize data, which slows down IPC and therefore fps. A move to i7, 8 threads can alleviate the backlog, but not as well as moving to 8 cores, as even hyperthreading is just splitting bandwidth 2x per core to handle the 2nd thread.

You can't boost fps. That's already limited and capped by the ability of the cpu. 'Boosting fps' is a falicy as such, all you can do is increase the gpu ability to match fps the cpu can output. The fps is already there, you just need a gpu strong enough to get it.