upgrade i5 6500 or RX 480??

[PhysicsNerd]

So I want higher performance in games pretty much. I have a 3440 1440p monitor and obviously my RX480 can't load that many pixels (I play like BF1, Witcher, GTA5 and etc). However I might also do a bit of coding in the coming few years. And I was wondering what should I get upgrade first if my main focus is on gaming I guess. Would getting a new gpu give me way higher fps if my cpu seems to bottleneck sometimes? (My cpu goes up to 100% when I'm playing bf1 for some reason..)

[Princess Luna]

That is actually a CPU bottleneck, too much stuff goes on during BF1 gameplay, your processor is not being able to process every single thing fast enough to feed your graphics card what she has to render on the screen.

 

All those games you listed, GTA V, Witcher, BF1, are very demanding on your CPU to the point it bottlenecks your RX480... even though not much since the RX 480 is not the highest end either.

 

If you want to upgrade something here I would advise going with the i7 7700, you'll be able to update the motherboard bios since you already have a skylake CPU on it, so no point in getting the 6700 and I can assure you the clock frequency boost on the 7700 is more than welcome.

 

With the hyper-threading these games that enjoys the extra 4 threads will see a benefit in performance and more frames as it will then be capable of squeeze all of the RX480 juice [:

 

Edit* realized your motherboard is Z chipset, all the better get the i7 7700k already and rock on.

[maartendc]

Battlefield 1 is a very CPU intensive game. That being said, your CPU is great, I dont know if upgrading it will help much.

 

RX 480 is really a 1080p card. You will get more benefit going to something like a GTX 1070 or even 1080. Most games are more GPU intensive, so this will get you more performance over a wide variety of games.

 

Long story short: I'd say upgrade GPU, but be aware that performance in BF1 might still be choppy when playing 64 player multiplay.

 

I am CPU bottlenecked in Battlefield 1 as well. However, I upgraded from a GTX 980 to 980ti, and still saw good performance increase overall. Just the very hectic scenes with a lot of explosions and players on screen will get a bit choppy, as the CPU is having to do a lot of physics calculations etc.

 

 

[mapegl]

I would suggest a 1070 first. That will give you a decent bump on performance.  And then get a ryzen 5 later.

You might have a fairly small cpu bottleneck at first, but it shouldn't be too bad. But upgrading the cpu first won't give you a great benefit.

Check if you have stuff running in the background or even malware.  A 6500 is not something that should bottleneck a 480. I could downclock my 6600k later tonight and try of you want. 

[PhysicsNerd]

@Princess Cadence 

@maartendc

The thing is Im thinking either getting the Ryzen 5 1600x or the vega high end gpu. So I think my main question is: if I run games at 3440*1440 (more gpu intensive), would I get a good enough bump in fps if i get a new gpu? Or would I still get a cpu bottleneck and limiting my fps to below 70 or something.

 

 

 

@mapeglOh That would be super helpful thank you! I already made sure I closed everything else.

[Princess Luna]

Honestly if you want to run those games on ultra wide 1440p with good frames and quality you gonna need to upgrade both CPU and GPU... Also I would still go for Kaby Lake because you already got the motherboard and cooler.

[maartendc]

1 hour ago, PhysicsNerd said:

@Princess Cadence 

@maartendc

The thing is Im thinking either getting the Ryzen 5 1600x or the vega high end gpu. So I think my main question is: if I run games at 3440*1440 (more gpu intensive), would I get a good enough bump in fps if i get a new gpu? Or would I still get a cpu bottleneck and limiting my fps to below 70 or something.

Yes, You will definitely get a good bump in FPS with a better GPU. Your GPU is really not powerful enough to drive your resolution. The CPU on the other hand will only be a limited factor in a handful of games.

 

I see people all the time building PC's with your CPU and pairing it with a 1080 or something.

[mapegl]

1 hour ago, PhysicsNerd said:

So I want higher performance in games pretty much. I have a 3440 1440p monitor and obviously my RX480 can't load that many pixels (I play like BF1, Witcher, GTA5 and etc). However I might also do a bit of coding in the coming few years. And I was wondering what should I get upgrade first if my main focus is on gaming I guess. Would getting a new gpu give me way higher fps if my cpu seems to bottleneck sometimes? (My cpu goes up to 100% when I'm playing bf1 for some reason..)

 

1 hour ago, PhysicsNerd said:

 

@mapeglOh That would be super helpful thank you! I already made sure I closed everything else.

I will do that for you then....running something else at the moment and waiting for it to finish though. 

Do you run a preset? If yes, which one? I mean it doesn't make sense if I use totally different graphics options compared to you. ;-)

[mapegl]

1 hour ago, PhysicsNerd said:

 

@mapeglOh That would be super helpful thank you! I already made sure I closed everything else.

I downclocked to 3500. Can't go any lower for some reason. My mobo always goes back up to a 35 multiplier. 

 

Anyways, I played at 3440x1440 which gave me decent fps over 50 and a cpu usage under 90%, however at 2560x1080 I get well above 60, but my CPU usage spikes to 100% frequently....

 

So your readings are definitely correct. You just barely hit the limit of your CPU I would say.

[Guest]

you realize that 3440x1440 has the same number of pixels as a 4k display?

 

Are you sure you don't have a 2560x1080? Which is equivalent to a 1440p display?

 

You're going to need a 1080/ti to power 3440x1440. 

 

 

 

[mapegl]

1 minute ago, Alexokan said:

you realize that 3440x1440 has the same number of pixels as a 4k display?

 

Are you sure you don't have a 2560x1080? Which is equivalent to a 1440p display?

 

You're going to need a 1080/ti to power 3440x1440. 

 

 

 

Actually no. 3440x1440 is less than 3840x2160. Both factors  (horizontal and vertical pixel count) are higher on a 4k display...

We are talking about 5 million vs 8.3 million pixels...

I have to note that I would not recommend playing at about 50fps. So I agree with you that one should either upgrade the GPU or play at a lower resolution or details. 

 

[PhysicsNerd]

Ahh I see so at 3440x1440 resolution the cpu is running under 90%? Then in that care I think I'll get a gpu upgrade, since at higher resolution I'll most likely get a gpu bottleneck rather than a cpu bottleneck.

[mapegl]

6 hours ago, PhysicsNerd said:

Ahh I see so at 3440x1440 resolution the cpu is running under 90%? Then in that care I think I'll get a gpu upgrade, since at higher resolution I'll most likely get a gpu bottleneck rather than a cpu bottleneck.

The thing with the 3440x1440 test is that I used an RX480 for that. The cpu has to work less, because it has to prepare less frames for the GPU.  If you get a higher end gpu, it will push out more frames and the cpu will again have to prepare more frames and thus lag behind.  

 

[Clyne]

CPU, I have a Fury that's OC'd to the point where it performs near 980 Ti/1070 levels.

My i5-6500 is struggling in some games (FH3, WD2, Mafia 3) and would gain FPS if I were to get a 7700K.