[SOLVED] Which should i upgrade? My CPU ir GPU
- Thread starter Zbien
- Start date
Solution
That depends on your monitor, really:
- What is your monitor's resolution?
- What is your monitor's refresh rate?
- Does your monitor have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?
- If FreeSync, what is the FreeSync range?
If you don't know those details, the exact brand and model number of your monitor would be helpful.
- Apr 27, 2009
- 37,545
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I would say it is time for a platform upgrade, CPU side. Quad core gaming, for new AAA titles anyway, is dead. Your GPU is still pretty good. You could upgrade to an i7 7700/7700k, but for the cost of those, even on the used market, you could upgrade to a more modern platform. What are the rest of your system specs?
cryoburner
Judicious
- Oct 8, 2011
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Considering the game is still over 7 months away from release (It was recently delayed, if you were not aware), no one can say for sure at this point. As far as I know, they haven't even released official system requirements for it yet.
The capability of your graphics card will depend heavily on what resolution you will be using. Based on other compararable game releases, at 1080p resolution it will likely run the game quite well, and I would expect it to also run pretty well at 1440p. For 4K resolution, you would likely need to lower the settings a fair amount to get smooth performance though.
There's also raytracing to consider, and with optional raytraced lighting effects enabled, you would likely need a graphics card with raytracing acceleration just to get playable performance. Nvidia's 20-series cards might manage playable performance with raytraced effects enabled at 1080p, but I suspect the upcoming 30-series cards will handle that a lot better. If you want to run settings maxed including RTX, I would probably hold off on a graphics upgrade until closer to the game's release, when those future cards are likely to be out.
As far as the CPU goes, it's difficult to say for sure, as some games want more than four threads for optimal performance these days, and I would guess that's likely to be the case for a more open-world game like this. Again, there's no telling for sure how the game will perform on various hardware until it comes out though.
The capability of your graphics card will depend heavily on what resolution you will be using. Based on other compararable game releases, at 1080p resolution it will likely run the game quite well, and I would expect it to also run pretty well at 1440p. For 4K resolution, you would likely need to lower the settings a fair amount to get smooth performance though.
There's also raytracing to consider, and with optional raytraced lighting effects enabled, you would likely need a graphics card with raytracing acceleration just to get playable performance. Nvidia's 20-series cards might manage playable performance with raytraced effects enabled at 1080p, but I suspect the upcoming 30-series cards will handle that a lot better. If you want to run settings maxed including RTX, I would probably hold off on a graphics upgrade until closer to the game's release, when those future cards are likely to be out.
As far as the CPU goes, it's difficult to say for sure, as some games want more than four threads for optimal performance these days, and I would guess that's likely to be the case for a more open-world game like this. Again, there's no telling for sure how the game will perform on various hardware until it comes out though.
cryoburner
Judicious
- Oct 8, 2011
- 5,753
- 1,357
- 34,840
One other thing to add is that if you did decide to upgrade the CPU, I probably wouldn't spend $300+ on an older quad-core i7 for your existing motherboard at this point. Maybe if you found one pre-owned for a good price closer to $200, otherwise it's possible to get a more capable processor, like a 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 3600 for under $200 now, though it will require a new motherboard (and might benefit from faster RAM depending on what your system currently has). It sounds like Intel will be releasing processors with similar thread counts around this price range in the coming months as well, so again, if you primarily care about performance in this game, it's probably worth waiting a bit, both to see what the system requirements are actually like, and to see what new hardware gets released in the interim.
Expanding on what @cryoburner is saying - a basic thing to live by is "Don't upgrade until you need to."
Your system is fine so far. When Cyberpunk 2077 comes out, it might not be up to that, or it might be good enough for it. You can make the decision then, and who knows? There might be better CPU (or CPU/MB/RAM) deals going on at that point.
Your system is fine so far. When Cyberpunk 2077 comes out, it might not be up to that, or it might be good enough for it. You can make the decision then, and who knows? There might be better CPU (or CPU/MB/RAM) deals going on at that point.
- Feb 11, 2020
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- 10
Heres my full specs
CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 Quad-Core 3.4GHz
GPU: MSI GTX 1080
Monitor: LG 34UC79G-B IPS 34" UW-UXGA 21:9 144Hz FreeSync
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3600MHz CL19
Motherboard ATX MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon
- Feb 11, 2020
- 22
- 0
- 10
Heres my full specs
CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 Quad-Core 3.4GHz
GPU: MSI GTX 1080
Monitor: LG 34UC79G-B IPS 34" UW-UXGA 21:9 144Hz FreeSync
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3600MHz CL19
Motherboard ATX MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon
Ok, at 2560x1080 resolution, your GTX 1080 is plenty. It probably won't be able to hit 144fps constantly, but you can easily get smooth framerates, and the GTX 1080 (along with all other 10-, 16-, and 20- series Nvidia cards) supports FreeSync.
It seems like the limited cores/threads of your CPU would be what you'd upgrade, BUT.. I'd wait until something is a problem before doing any actual upgrading.
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