Question Worth the CPU upgrade?

[Tiebar90]

Hey folks just wondering if it would be worth upgrading my current CPU to a newer one. I ask this because I feel like ive been getting lower FPS im my games lately and having to turn down settings to compensate. I am unsure of why. All drivers are updated, no viruses found, and cooling numbers seem to be okay. I dont know if im having a bottleneck or what? I play games like mw2, hell let loose, red dead redemption 2, days gone, last of us , etc. A big variety.
The big concern ive had is last of us . I know the game is a poorly optimized port and has had many issues from reviews but i had no bugs or crashing. my issue is my cpu usage is 90%-100%. The temps of my cpu stay at about 70-78 degrees can see 80-82 degree jumps when its running at 90% or higher. 29-33 degrees at idle. I did redo my thermal paste with no changes. Ive noticed on games my task manager cpu % stays low but idk if this is a glitch because afterburner shows my gpu temps going up in games showing its working.
forgive me for being dumb lmao

My specs:
-i5 12600k 3.7Ghz
-MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ProSeries Motherboard
-MSI GeForce RTX 3080 LHR 10GB GDRR6
-4x CORSAIR - VENGEANCE RGB Series 32GB total 3000 MHz PC4-24000 DDR
-H100i PRO 240mm cpu cooler
-Multiple SSDs 2.75GB total
-Cooler Master MasterCase H500P Mesh White ARGB Airflow ATX Mid-Tower
-Windows 10 64

What do you guys think? I will take any suggestions even though I asked about the CPU

 

[Hellfire13]

Last of Us is very heavy on CPU...

This might be why The Last of Us has terrible stuttering on PC

The Last of Us on PC has some major issues with stuttering and crashes, and we might have a glimpse into why.

www.digitaltrends.com

If you are planning to upgrade for that one game, then thats a moot point. Your build looks fairly balanced, but if you go upgrade to a 13700k for a larger range of games specially CPU intensive, that should give you more longevity, as well as performance in such games as this one.

 

[geofelt]

What might have changed since all was well?
If you have a problem with one game, check for game patches and go to the game forum to check on game settings.

Do you also run other apps concurrently such as discord?
I hear about issues with that.

 

[Tiebar90]

Last of Us is very heavy on CPU...

This might be why The Last of Us has terrible stuttering on PC

The Last of Us on PC has some major issues with stuttering and crashes, and we might have a glimpse into why.

www.digitaltrends.com

If you are planning to upgrade for that one game, then thats a moot point. Your build looks fairly balanced, but if you go upgrade to a 13700k for a larger range of games specially CPU intensive, that should give you more longevity, as well as performance in such games as this one.

Yeah I assumed it was the game itself. Do you think an upgrade to a 13700k is really worth it? What kind of performance do you think ill gain? How about something like an i9 12900k?
Its not just the last of us though. I have noticed I had to turn off things like DLSS in call of duty, move some settings down to high-medium in some other games. This sudden change is why I thought it was temp at first, but no change with re-doing the thermal paste, unless i did it horribly lmao.

What might have changed since all was well?
If you have a problem with one game, check for game patches and go to the game forum to check on game settings.

Do you also run other apps concurrently such as discord?
I hear about issues with that.

Nothing really. And its not just one game. I have noticed FPS drops in a few. And some of these drops I would be getting 120 fps and then suddenly drop to 80fps then back to 110-120. 80 FPS is still fine but a drop from 120 to 80 instantly is certainly noticable.

And I do not have discord in the background but keep steam up, epic games, teamspeak, HW monitor and msi afterburner for temperature monitoring. But I have kept these up for years without an issue.

 

[Tiebar90]

How is my RAM? thats the oldest part I have in my computer. I imagine its okay. I also play on a 32inch 1440p 144hz monitor if that matters

 

[Viking2121]

How is my RAM? thats the oldest part I have in my computer. I imagine its okay. I also play on a 32inch 1440p 144hz monitor if that matters

Ram is fine, not the fastest thing in the world but anything faster wouldn't really be noticeable and not even worth it.

 

[geofelt]

Ram speed is not likely to be a performance problem for intel processors.

How old is your H100i?
In time, any aio cooler will have air intrude through the tubes, or the pump, being a mechanical device will start to fail or get clogged.
The only remedy is replacement.

Noctua maintains a list of suitable coolers.
Here is the list for the 12600K:

INTEL Core i5-12600K | CPU Compatibility | Noctua Compatibility Centre

Series: Alder Lake-S, Socket: LGA1700

ncc.noctua.at

If you are looking for stronger cpu performance for cpu limited games, concentrate on the single thread performance.
Run the cpu-z bench on your 12600K.
You should see a single thread rating around 700:

CPU-Z Benchmark for Intel Core i5-12600K (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - April 2025

valid.x86.fr

13th gen has more performance per clock so that is a plus.
The 13700k is better, but not that much better. It's value is more threads which are not that useful for gamers.
A 13900K is as good as it gets today.
Unless your need is urgent, keep an eye out for the 14th gen raptor lake refresh due out this fall.

 

[Hellfire13]

Yeah I assumed it was the game itself. Do you think an upgrade to a 13700k is really worth it? What kind of performance do you think ill gain? How about something like an i9 12900k?
Its not just the last of us though. I have noticed I had to turn off things like DLSS in call of duty, move some settings down to high-medium in some other games. This sudden change is why I thought it was temp at first, but no change with re-doing the thermal paste, unless i did it horribly lmao.

keep steam up, epic games, teamspeak, HW monitor and msi afterburner for temperature monitoring

For CPU intense games more cores will help yes, specially when you are multitasking a lot.
Over time as the components age, FPS drop is a very common issue. Usually happens over time due to the dynamic nature of the various updates.

 

[Tiebar90]

Sorry for the delay guys been in the hospital for some medical issues. I also have done some more investigation to let you know more.

Ram speed is not likely to be a performance problem for intel processors.

How old is your H100i?
In time, any aio cooler will have air intrude through the tubes, or the pump, being a mechanical device will start to fail or get clogged.
The only remedy is replacement.

Noctua maintains a list of suitable coolers.
Here is the list for the 12600K:

INTEL Core i5-12600K | CPU Compatibility | Noctua Compatibility Centre

Series: Alder Lake-S, Socket: LGA1700

ncc.noctua.at

If you are looking for stronger cpu performance for cpu limited games, concentrate on the single thread performance.
Run the cpu-z bench on your 12600K.
You should see a single thread rating around 700:

CPU-Z Benchmark for Intel Core i5-12600K (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - April 2025

valid.x86.fr

13th gen has more performance per clock so that is a plus.
The 13700k is better, but not that much better. It's value is more threads which are not that useful for gamers.
A 13900K is as good as it gets today.
Unless your need is urgent, keep an eye out for the 14th gen raptor lake refresh due out this fall.

My h100i is about 5 years old. Do you think the temps could be an issue? I dont really ever see more then 70-75 degrees on my cpu unless im doing a cpu stress or, to bring up last of us again, when shaders are installing it goes to 100%. Thats when cpu temps hit 80-90 degrees But im ruled out that issue just being poorly optimized game.
I also watched a video on youtube about getting more FPS on hell let loose and it fixed the drops. I play now on high settings with 120-140fps.

But out of obsession and OCD i watched some other stuff....
I started to pay attention to my task manager and CPUID HWmonitor for my GPU/CPU temps/usages.
Is it normal for me to be playing games and have the CPU usage be higher then the gpu?
For example playing rdr2 right now im getting 45-50% CPU usage for RDR2 alone on task manager, overall usage 63% which is about the same total on CPUID. But the GPU usage on task manager is 2% on task manager for RDR2 and 9% total and CPUID shows a total GPU usage of 24%.
From my understanding when you have higher cpu usage vs gpu usage while gaming doesnt that mean a cpu bottleneck?
CPU temps during al this are about 55-50 degrees C.
GPU is 45-55 with fans 100% on afterburner.

so i guess im concerned for that ratio of utilization between the two lmao.

 

[thestryker]

I wouldn't rely on task manager to tell you much of anything usage wise accurately. Afterburner will give you the most accurate GPU usage information, and if you have RTSS setup properly you can just show CPU/GPU usage in an overlay while playing games and that'll be pretty much the most accurate measure you'll get.

edit: upgrading to a 13th or 14th gen K SKU on a DDR4 board is just going to end up with leaving performance on the table.

 

[geofelt]

Some games are cpu limited, and some are graphics limited.
Fast action games are typically graphics limited.
If you lower resolution and settings and get more fps, then your cpu is capable of driving a stronger graphics card.

Some games are cpu limited. sims, MMO and strategy games for example.
Usually such a game will only make useful use of only a handful of threads. 6-8 at most.
The single thread performance becomes most important.

Multiplayer games with many participants are the type that can use many threads.
If you are concurrently multitasking that needs more threads and perhaps ram.

You really never want to see any resource at 100% or near it.
If you do, you are losing performance since the resource will be waiting some of the time.

Game resources are not steady state. They may alternate between cpu bound and graphics bound.
Yes, it is complicated.

Modern Intel processors and motherboards will try to turbo up a few cores if the workload and cooling capability permit.
One Intel engineer said "if you are not touching 100c. you are leaving performance on the table"
The processors are ok with 100c. The importance is that 100c. is the throttle point where the chip will reduce performance a bit tp protect itself.

But, that does not mean that one should go out and buy a big aio cooler.
The difference is small.
Here is an interesting study of 13900K using less than top coolers:

Core i9-13900K Cooling Guide: Testing Intel's Flagship With Budget Air and Big AIOs

The Core i9-13900K can push even the most capable liquid coolers to their limits, but you don’t lose that much performance if you go with budget-priced air cooling.

www.tomshardware.com

13th gen heat issues are overstated:

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


Coming down to your original question...
The worth of a cpu upgrade is something only YOU can determine.

My take is that if you have the budget, go ahead. Or, you will forever wonder if you should have.

 

[Tiebar90]

I wouldn't rely on task manager to tell you much of anything usage wise accurately. Afterburner will give you the most accurate GPU usage information, and if you have RTSS setup properly you can just show CPU/GPU usage in an overlay while playing games and that'll be pretty much the most accurate measure you'll get.

edit: upgrading to a 13th or 14th gen K SKU on a DDR4 board is just going to end up with leaving performance on the table.

Yeah i loaded up the usage on afterburner and its much more accurate then task manager. thank you for that advice.

Some games are cpu limited, and some are graphics limited.
Fast action games are typically graphics limited.
If you lower resolution and settings and get more fps, then your cpu is capable of driving a stronger graphics card.

Some games are cpu limited. sims, MMO and strategy games for example.
Usually such a game will only make useful use of only a handful of threads. 6-8 at most.
The single thread performance becomes most important.

Multiplayer games with many participants are the type that can use many threads.
If you are concurrently multitasking that needs more threads and perhaps ram.

You really never want to see any resource at 100% or near it.
If you do, you are losing performance since the resource will be waiting some of the time.

Game resources are not steady state. They may alternate between cpu bound and graphics bound.
Yes, it is complicated.

Modern Intel processors and motherboards will try to turbo up a few cores if the workload and cooling capability permit.
One Intel engineer said "if you are not touching 100c. you are leaving performance on the table"
The processors are ok with 100c. The importance is that 100c. is the throttle point where the chip will reduce performance a bit tp protect itself.

But, that does not mean that one should go out and buy a big aio cooler.
The difference is small.
Here is an interesting study of 13900K using less than top coolers:

Core i9-13900K Cooling Guide: Testing Intel's Flagship With Budget Air and Big AIOs

The Core i9-13900K can push even the most capable liquid coolers to their limits, but you don’t lose that much performance if you go with budget-priced air cooling.

www.tomshardware.com

13th gen heat issues are overstated:

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


Coming down to your original question...
The worth of a cpu upgrade is something only YOU can determine.

My take is that if you have the budget, go ahead. Or, you will forever wonder if you should have.

thats a lot of information but really useful reading thank you

afterburner shows my gpu usage at 97% and my cpu at 53% during RDR2 right now....
looks like im just being overly paranoid about my performance and fps.