What to upgrade?

[sam.berwick03]

I recently bought a pc super cheap and it works great but... I’ve started playing games like gta v and pubg and it’s starting to struggle. so I’m wondering what would you guys recommend upgrading from the parts list?

•Intel - Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
•Noctua - NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler
•ASRock - Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
•Corsair - Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
•OCZ - Agility 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
•Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
•Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 680 2GB Video Card
•Cooler Master - CM 690 II Advanced NVIDIA Edition ATX Mid Tower Case
•FirePower - ZX 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
•LG - CH12LS28 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer

 

[Candan]

What's your budget? Your GPU is your weakest point at the minute.

 

[sizzling]

Monitor cpu (each core) and gpu usage while gaming, which ever is staying near 100% is your limiting factor. I'm not sure which will be holding your system back. What do you want to improve, more fps, better game settings?

 

[Barty1884]

Can you elaborate on how it's "struggling" exactly?

FPS dips? Lower settings etc?

Are you monitoring temperatures, just to ensure you're not throttling at all?

A GTX 680 is definitely showing it's age a bit, and it's not the powerhouse it once was; BUT should still be more than capable for decent 1080p/60Hz gaming.
GTAV should be fine , PUBG should be too - perhaps with some settings turned down a bit. Medium(ish) should be more than playable.

The i5-3570K is still a good CPU, and has aged pretty well - I assume you're overclocking it? If not, I would definitely do so.

To upgrade from a GTX 680, the absolute minimum I'd look at would be a 6GB 1060 or 4GB RX580 but, even then, it's arguable whether the upgrade would net you sufficient gains to justify the outlay. Personally, I don't think they would*.

*Performance would definitely increase, but it's not going to be Night vs Day.

 

[theyeti87]

CPU is still very capable, particularly for 1080 resolution gaming. 16GB of RAM is great. You've got solid state storage, very good.

Agree with the comment that your GPU is the weak spot.

 

[sam.berwick03]

Temps are all good, below 50-60 under load, I can get 60 fps on high-medium on pubg with performance boost (little oc) I was also wondering how much more difficult it is to run 1920x1080 compared to 1440x900?

 

[Barty1884]

Pushing 1920x1080 is 2,073,600 pixels.
1440x900 is 1,296,000 pixels.

Essentially you need to push 60% more pixels...... so 60% increase in difficulty.