What should I upgrade? FX to Ryzen or 280X to GTX 1080

[FrancisBar]

Hey, I'm gonna do a pretty big update pretty soon to my PC. I am gonna update both my CPU/RAM/MOBO and the GPU. But I'm gonna do them separate.
Wondering if it's better to buy the GTX 1080 first or the upgrade to Ryzen 1600, 16GB of DDR4 Ram and the Aorus K5 Motherboard.

Current Rig is : R9 280X ; FX-8350 ; 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 ; MSI 970 Gaming ; 750W Power Supply.

Was gonna buy a Aorus RX 580 8GB, but prices due to Bitcoin mining are stupidly high and a RX 580 costs about 350€ while a MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X costs 595€.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

I'd say go with the CPU, your GPU is still good enough for 1080p at almost high settings, right now being bottlenecked by your CPU.

 

[geofelt]

Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer with many participants tend 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.
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. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------

 

[FrancisBar]

I will upgrade both of them, just want to know which one should I upgrade first

 

[why_wolf]

probably makes more sense to do the CPU now and hope that by the time you're ready to buy the GPU that prices have evened out again.

 

[FrancisBar]

probably makes more sense to do the CPU now and hope that by the time you're ready to buy the GPU that prices have evened out again.

I'm not exactly sure, but isn't the GTX 1080 suppoused to be around 700-800€?
Isn't 600€ pretty cheap for the GPU in question?
For reference, the RX 580 here now is 350€.

 

[geofelt]

I will upgrade both of them, just want to know which one should I upgrade first

Try the tests to see what is more effective.
It is easier to upgrade graphics first since that can easily be carried forward to a new build.
That said, I suspect you will get little from a graphics upgrade because FX is really a very weak processor.
Best to look to ryzen or kaby lake.
If your tests show little benefit from 8 threads, I would go with the fewer but stronger kaby lake cores

 

[theonerm2]

I would upgrade the graphics card first because you will still see a big improvement in frame rate whereas if you just upgraded your CPU you wouldn't really see that big of an improvement in your frame rate. Later when you upgrade your CPU you will see another improvement in frame rate but it will be a smaller improvement. It will be more stable with a better CPU though.

So... Upgrade GPU.... Get a huge boost in performance now.

Then upgrade the CPU later and get slightly more performance and better stability in the frame rate.