Would I need to change CPU to get better FPS?

[WildWayz]

Hi all,

 

My current system is:

Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz Ram, MSI Gamer X nVidia GeForce 1070 8GB, Windows 10 64 Bit. My OS HD is a 128GB SSD, but my 'gaming' drive is 6TB HDD

 

I have it hooked up to my 4K TV. I am looking at getting a solid 60fps @ 4K with ultra settings or near Ultra. Would upgrading the graphics card be enough, or would it be better off replacing the CPU, motherboard and RAM? Oh, and the liquid cooler (grr)....

[Xahid]

For 4K ultra, yes, aside from updating GPU, more CPU cores will be beneficial to improve FPS.

[Mando]

4ks sweet spot is also 32Gb ram. 

 

even with my sig machine and 16Gb of ram (+1080ti FE) its approx 25% slower than an identical build, the only difference is he has 4x8s at 2400mhz ram compared to my 2x8@3200mhz ram.

 

a 1070 wont do ultra in modern titles at a stable 4k@60fps, your talking a 1080ti or 1080 to be able to do that, even then its hit n miss.

 

for me itll be another 16Gb of DDR3200 when i purchase a 4k display.

[Mando]

Just now, Riva said:

Really? I play witcher 3 at ultra on the titan and it uses 2.3GB VRAM and another 0.5 RAM for textures.

system ram mate yes. 

[Mando]

2 minutes ago, Riva said:

I just checked and it was 2.5GB system RAM and 4.7 video RAM. This is at UHD @ 60fps. And i do have a second 4k UHD monitor hooked up as well

Im not saying i cant run eveything at ultra@4k, but i was surprised how much higher the identical machines FPS was over my own, the only difference was, an extra 16Gb of ram, while i was hitting say 55-60fps his was easily 70-90fps on average. Same components, same GPU (both EVGA 1080ti founders) This was in real world testing/burn in when i built the second machine.

 

I have way higher R/Ws over the drives (4x256SSDs in raid0 striped for games vol) but raw FPS his build trounced mine, it could only be the extra 16Gb of sys ram.

[WildWayz]

Thanks guys

Time to do the sad face and look at the possibility of building a new system - urrghhhh 

Are Ryzen CPUs now comparable to Intel ones, or is Intel still the ones to get? arrghhh at GPU prices!

[Mando]

31 minutes ago, Riva said:

Yeah if your GPU hasnt got enough memory for the textures it will use system RAM or even worse pagefile. I would aim for a GPU with 8GB of RAM

my 1080ti has 11Gb mate.

[Mando]

2 hours ago, Riva said:

Weird that you need so much system ram. It could depend on the game engine i guess.

yep, this was various titles and benchmarks tested, was surprised tbh. but hey whats another £150 for another 16Gb of ram compared to the £2k plus ive spent so far lol

2 hours ago, Riva said:

Based on benchmarks Ryzen is comparable. Threadripper seems better so far if you are going for the high end but at the same time we havent seen the i9 X/XE in benchmarks yet

yep, as games become more multicore aware, they Ryzens should in theory gain the edge over the i7s. definately the closest AMD have got in gaming circles to Intel for decades. #

 

im an intel & NV man personally, always have been always will.

[xendrome]

What motherboard are you using?

[WildWayz]

9 minutes ago, xendrome said:

What motherboard are you using?

A crap one...

Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V Motherboard

 

WOW - just looked up the order... was from 2012! Apart from the graphics card lol

[Mockingbird]

Here is a good one to upgrade to

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  (£178.95 @ Aria PC) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£79.47 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: *Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Total: £377.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-08 20:30 BST+0100

 

OR

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor  (£274.39 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£79.47 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: *Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Total: £473.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-08 20:38 BST+0100

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by Mockingbird

[WildWayz]

Is it worthwhile getting the X chip over standard?

 

PS thanks for the suggestions. That'll be a good start then save for a 1080.

 

Maybe 60hz 2k is more realistic?

[xendrome]

So the highest CPU that board can take is an i7-3770K which is only 10% faster, not worth the cost... time to upgrade CPU/MB/RAM.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

ok, I'm going to break with some here.  60fps - 4K at Ultra (or near) for a 1070 is going to be hard ... regardless of the CPU.  Heck ... even the 1080ti struggles on some games at achieving this.  With regards to the CPU ... once again it really depends on what you are playing.  Some games lean heavy on the CPU ... while most (I'd say) lean heavily on the GPU.  The higher the resolution the more strain the GPU takes (higher res really doesn't affect the CPU as much)

 

Anyway, the GPU is your bottleneck at 4K.  Volta should be coming early '18 ... see what it has to offer because if you want "a solid 60fps @ 4K with ultra settings or near Ultra" ... you're probably going to need to wait.  Save up your pennies. 

[WildWayz]

Thanks Jim

 

Think I'll upgrade the CPU, board and memory - maybe the drives too. Got a 750w PSU so should be fine with that.

 

Then save for the Volta...

[Elliot B.]

13 hours ago, Mando said:

4ks sweet spot is also 32Gb ram. 

 

even with my sig machine and 16Gb of ram (+1080ti FE) its approx 25% slower than an identical build, the only difference is he has 4x8s at 2400mhz ram compared to my 2x8@3200mhz ram.

 

a 1070 wont do ultra in modern titles at a stable 4k@60fps, your talking a 1080ti or 1080 to be able to do that, even then its hit n miss.

 

for me itll be another 16Gb of DDR3200 when i purchase a 4k display.

16 GB system RAM is more than enough for current 4K gaming.

 

The GPU clock rate and VRAM are what's important.

[Mockingbird]

4 hours ago, WildWayz said:

Is it worthwhile getting the X chip over standard?

 

PS thanks for the suggestions. That'll be a good start then save for a 1080.

 

Maybe 60hz 2k is more realistic?

The "X" processors are better binned which means that they can overclocked higher.

 

I don't know what that is worth to you.

 

I have a Ryzen 7 1700X so I guess that it is worth it to me.

[T3X4S]

I didnt know CPUs made that much of a difference with 4K.  (guess you learn something new every day.)

Thats good to know since I have been thinking about building a beast of a machine, now I have a real reason to do so.

[WildWayz]

Slight tweak to Mockingbird's suggestion

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor  (£274.39 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X31 69.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£53.98 @ YoYoTech) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£96.97 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£132.12 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£80.87 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £757.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 09:02 BST+0100

 

 

Still not sure about buying the extra storage. My current 7TB is spread out over a couple of 2TB drives and a 3TB external... and my SSD is quite small and a few years old, so it may begin to get read only sectors... Also the CPU cooler. I am assuming that my  Corsair CW-9060007-WW Hydro Series H60 can only be used on the Intel chips/mobo?

[WildWayz]

Just read on an Amazon review that someone HAS used it with their Ryzen CPU just fine out of the box... so I can knock off the liquid cooler I guess...

[WildWayz]

Or would this be better - again using my current H60 cooler?
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£299.94 @ Aria PC) 
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste  (£6.49 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Motherboard: MSI - Z270 GAMING M3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£124.20 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£132.12 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£80.87 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £763.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 09:51 BST+0100

[Mockingbird]

1 hour ago, WildWayz said:

Slight tweak to Mockingbird's suggestion

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor  (£274.39 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X31 69.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£53.98 @ YoYoTech) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£96.97 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£132.12 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£80.87 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £757.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 09:02 BST+0100

 

 

Still not sure about buying the extra storage. My current 7TB is spread out over a couple of 2TB drives and a 3TB external... and my SSD is quite small and a few years old, so it may begin to get read only sectors... Also the CPU cooler. I am assuming that my  Corsair CW-9060007-WW Hydro Series H60 can only be used on the Intel chips/mobo?

I replaced the MSI B350 Tomahawk with the AsRock AB350 Pro 4.

 

The B350 Tomahawk seems to have a lot of issues esp. with long post time.

 

The AB350 Pro 4, on the other hand, is more reliable and don't have any known issues.

 

I also replaced the 120mm liquid cooler with a bigger (& cheaper)  240mm liquid cooler.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor  (£274.39 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Seidon 240V 95.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£46.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£85.18 @ BT Shop) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£119.50 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£132.12 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£80.87 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £739.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 09:51 BST+0100

Edited August 9, 2017 by Mockingbird

[WildWayz]

Thanks again Mockingbird

I used to be so up on hardware before I got married... now it's like I am a total n00b again

[Mockingbird]

2 minutes ago, WildWayz said:

Or would this be better - again using my current H60 cooler?

Corsair's website said that Corsair H60 is compatible with AM4/Ryzen right out-of-the-box.

[Mockingbird]

11 minutes ago, WildWayz said:

Thanks again Mockingbird

I used to be so up on hardware before I got married... now it's like I am a total n00b again

I was out of the loop for a very long time and only had to catchup recently because I wanted to upgrade my hardware.

 

Anyway, as I said, Corsair H60 is compatible with AM4/Ryzen right out of the box.