What to upgrade?

[FeralWombat]

Howdy y'all,

 

I've been running into some performances issues on my computer lately, on more demanding/recent titles (mainly Destiny 2 and Black Ops 4).

I've decided to run msi afterbuner meanwhile playing few games to know where my performance bottleneck was coming from.

I don't have screenshots of these but here's a little description:

 

CPU (i5 6600k) is running at 100% utilization throughout pretty much the entire game (the cooler is doing work as the CPU is always turbo boosting to 3.9Ghz and temps never go above 63C)

GPU (MSI 1060 6gb) is running at about 65-75% utilization, temps also reaching about 65C

 

Up until here, I thought my CPU was the culprit for not reaching my desired performance, however I've also noticed the RAM usage:

 

RAM (1x8GB) reaches 7800-ish MB utilized (so pretty much all of it)

 

I've spoken to a friend about this, and he told that probably adding another 8gb dimm would decrease the CPU usage and I should see a slight performance bump. Googling this didn't allow to confirm, nor deny it. Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

So what are my alternatives:

RAM upgrade? It was pending but I wonder if I can gain more for less, elsewhere.

My mobo (an msi z170-a pro) supports up to a 7700k and this would be the only cpu above mine which would get close to justifying the cost for the performance boost (unless of course you know of something I don't). But the thing is that, looking at the used market around me, and for the price of a used 7700K I can get a new b450 mobo + a ryzen 2600 and still have loose change.

To be honest, I'd rather not change both mobo+cpu even selling my current (mostly because I'm not going to get any money out of it, unless I find someone really gullible...

OC the CPU to try to squeeze a bit more life out of it since there is still some headroom in the cooler? I'd need to upgrade my PSU to something a bit more powerful reliable for OC-ing (currently on a 3 year old corsair 450w).

 

I'd very thankful for your suggestions and alternatives, I'm basically looking for the most performance boost I can get for the least cash.

[Mephi00]

I think you should go for a cpu overclock because you still have enough headroom in temps and by adding another 8gig stick, please use the same model, you rig should hold on for some longer

[Taf the Ghost]

@FeralWombat

 

While we're at the end of 4 cores/4 Threads being a good purchase, you should still have plenty of life out of that system. All you need to do is get a 2x 8 Gb set of 3000 or 3200 memory. That'll solve most of your issues, though I have a suspicion: is your primary storage a HDD? If that's true, that's why the memory is causing the bottleneck, as any move outside of the Memory goes to a spindle drive.

 

4c/4t with a 1060 should be able to OC to 4.3-4.5 Ghz on a good air cooler without needing a new PSU. The only games you should have any issues with are the Assassin Creed games in crowded areas.

[FeralWombat]

thank you for the replies

I was more leaning towards this option of OC'ing and an additional ram stick, so I'm quite glad to see this feedback here also.

 

@Taf the Ghost I'm indeed using an HDD drive for these games as they are each 70+GB; perhaps an update here is also necessary?

[Taf the Ghost]

4 minutes ago, FeralWombat said:

thank you for the replies

I was more leaning towards this option of OC'ing and an additional ram stick, so I'm quite glad to see this feedback here also.

 

@Taf the Ghost I'm indeed using an HDD drive for these games as they are each 70+GB; perhaps an update here is also necessary?

Is your primary drive (or the Swap drive) on the HDD? The HDD has something to do with the fact you have to load that much content, but if it's your primary game, putting it on the SSD is faster. Also, at least in the States, we're seeing 500 Gb SSDs (good ones) between 55-75 USD; 1 Tb drives between 100-120 USD. Almost to the point of being able to move off HDDs for reasonable prices.

 

On the CPU front, I'd hold out until at least Ryzen 3rd Gen or whenever Icelake launches from Intel. Also, what speed is your memory running at?

[FeralWombat]

6 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Is your primary drive (or the Swap drive) on the HDD? The HDD has something to do with the fact you have to load that much content, but if it's your primary game, putting it on the SSD is faster. Also, at least in the States, we're seeing 500 Gb SSDs (good ones) between 55-75 USD; 1 Tb drives between 100-120 USD. Almost to the point of being able to move off HDDs for reasonable prices.

 

On the CPU front, I'd hold out until at least Ryzen 3rd Gen or whenever Icelake launches from Intel. Also, what speed is your memory running at?

Primary drive is an SSD, I was planning upgrading this soon since my SDD is also running out of space.

Memory at 2133mhz

[Taf the Ghost]

6 minutes ago, FeralWombat said:

Primary drive is an SSD, I was planning upgrading this soon since my SDD is also running out of space.

Memory at 2133mhz

There's the big culprit. 2133, even in dual channel, is going to introduce bottlenecks. Get a pair of 3000, at least, and then look up how to Tune your memory. You'll find a good chunk of performance out of your hardware right there.

 

Samsung 860 EVO 500 Gb or the Crucial MX500 500 Gb. Either should be had for under 75USD.

[FeralWombat]

good enough?

 

https://www.newegg.com/global/pl-en/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820236345&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker, LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

[thedangerine]

I would say get more ram and overclock since it sounds like you have the cooling to spare. It would be better to hold off for 3rd gen Ryzen since it will use an all new Zen 2 architecture