What should I upgrade first?

[Apollospaceman]

In the future I want to upgrade my pc and I'm not sure what I should upgrade first. I have an i3-4170 and a GeForce GTX 960ftw. I'm thinking it's the cpu that should be upgraded. Also my pc gets a little hot (Not sure what actual temperature) after playing Fallout 4 for a few hours. Should I get a better cooling system? My case is a Cooler Master Elite 130. Thanks!

 

[TomGle]

As the i3 is only dual core, it would probably be best to upgrade that first. What is your current heatsink and PSU? If you get a more powerful CPU, it might be necessary to upgrade at least one, depending on what you upgrade to. But the GPU you have now is fine.

 

[Apollospaceman]

My heat sink is the stock Intel heat sink that came with the processor. My psu is a Seasonic 550w modular power supply.

 

[geofelt]

Neither your cpu nor your graphics card is unusually power hungry.
The stock cooler will do the job for any non overclocked cpu like the i3-4170.
If the stock cooler is mounted properly, I would expect to see 10-15c. over ambient.

In what way is your pc not now doing the job?

For gaming, the limitation will be either the cpu or the gpu.
Which, depends on the games you play.
Your balance now is very good.

For fast action shooters, or greater than 1080P resolutions, likely a graphics upgrade would come first.
For sims, strategy and mmo type games, single core performance is more important. For a boost in that, you are looking at a i5-4690K with an overclock.

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To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) 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.

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 core. 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 processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

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.
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