i7 6700k Should i upgrade or optimize ?

[diwall]

Hello everyone, 

 

First thing, sorry if my English is not perfect, it's not my native language.

 

Well, actually i own a pretty good gaming system (normally...), with :

- i7 6700k @ 4.4ghz - Dark Rock 3 cooling system

- kfa2 hof 980 ti

- 1 x 16go ddr4 2400 mhz (yes, it was expensive when i bought it).

- Games installed on a 940 pro Samsung SSD

 

When i'm gaming, mostly on PUBG and a little bit on BFV, i'm around 50-70 fps in 1080p with medium settings. I'm up to 83°C on the GPU and CPU, i think is pretty hot.

If i record with OBS or just have some chrome tabs opened, the overall performance decrease too, which is logical but i'm expecting more of my setup.

 

What can be optimized ? CPU OC, RAM, GPU OC ?

And if i want to do some games but also multitasking, virtual machine, recording, encoding, MAO etc, etc.... What kind of processor should I get ? For my point of view, the r7 3700x is a good deal, the r9 3900x seems overkill for non professional usage. But maybe the r5 3600x is fine too. Generally, Intel is better with games, the i9 9990k is not worth the prize compared too the r9 3900x, the i7 9700k is one of the best for gaming but lack in multitasking compared to 3700x...

 

Or maybe the graphic card, change my 980 ti for ? I have one 144hz 1080p monitor and don't want to go with 1440p or 4k, 1080p is just fine for me. What kind of graphic card should i get ?

 

I don't have a dedicated budget, but i don't want to waste my money on a system that i can't use at even 50% or not "future ready".

 

If you could help me of what I have to do with your precious advises. 

 

Thanks and have a good day. 

[Fasauceome]

I think single channel memory is hurting you most, you could either add another 16GB 2400 dimm or get a new ram kit which I recommend. 2x8GB DDR4 3000 would give you a noticable performance boost.

[NelizMastr]

I think you're losing some performance due to GPU temps and single channel memory. I'd try to get a 2*8GB configuration rather than 1x16.

Also clean and repaste your graphics card. I think most Nvidia cards drop to base clock once they hit 80c, which means no more boost.

 

If you go Ryzen, you'll need to go dual channel memory for sure. 3700X would be about perfect if streaming is important.

[5x5]

Imo wait for next gen. The 9th gen intel parts are only 4-5% ahead in games and even lose in 1/3 of modern titles so if I'd say wait for now.

[NelizMastr]

Just now, 5x5 said:

Imo wait for next gen. The 9th gen intel parts are only 4-5% ahead in games and even lose in 1/3 of modern titles so if I'd say wait for now.

Next gen won't matter much though. 10nm will be 2021 and offer lower clocks with slight IPC improvements if the laptop parts are representative.

Anything 14nm will be more of the same.

[5x5]

3 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Next gen won't matter much though. 10nm will be 2021 and offer lower clocks with slight IPC improvements if the laptop parts are representative.

Anything 14nm will be more of the same.

I'm talking Zen 2+ moreso than the next Skylake Refresh.

[NelizMastr]

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

I'm talking Zen 2+ moreso than the next Skylake Refresh.

Wait for another year, maybe more for a slight performance bump? Skylake really isn't aging too well, so I'd advise against it. Zen2+ won't be a big jump from Zen2.

[Dubba]

Your system looks pretty balanced to me for 1080p gaming. Changing to a faster dual channel RAM kit could help you some but I don't think you'll max out your monitor's refresh rate with 980Ti, which is still a good 1080p card imo. 980Ti had GPU Boost 2.0 which wasn't that bad in terms of throttling with temperature, I guess you have it overclocked it already. Running at 80C while gaming hard is kinda what's expected on those.

[diwall]

Ok, so dual channel memory @ 3000mhz and some "cleaning" should be enough for the moment. It is interesting for the future if i take 3200 mhz memory instead of 3000 ? For example, if  i want to change my setup in one year ?

 

@Dubba my 980 ti is already overclocked by Kfa2 i think.

[5x5]

4 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Wait for another year, maybe more for a slight performance bump? Skylake really isn't aging too well, so I'd advise against it. Zen2+ won't be a big jump from Zen2.

And you know this how? Zen2+ hasn't been showcased yet. AMDs roadmap states higher clock potential and further cache and architecture refinements. I'd say waiting is okay considering his CPU is not terribly old.

[Dubba]

Please report how much it affects the performance too

 

Zen2 likes memory speeds of around 3600MHz most, no idea about intel, but DDR5 certainly won't be a thing in a years time

[Turtle Rig]

29 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Imo wait for next gen. The 9th gen intel parts are only 4-5% ahead in games and even lose in 1/3 of modern titles so if I'd say wait for now.

You have a great CPU but the video card is getting old now, that thing is years and years and years ago.  I would overclock that CPU of yours and grab a used 1070 or go with AMD 5700XT also ya single channel is no good as the guru peeps said above.  Having said that if I were you just play @ 1080p medium high and youll be ok until the prices of the 5700XT and or a used 1070 goes down. 

[diwall]

5 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

You have a great CPU but the video card is getting old now, that thing is years and years and years ago.  I would overclock that CPU of yours and grab a used 1070 or go with AMD 5700XT also ya single channel is no good as the guru peeps said above.  Having said that if I were you just play @ 1080p medium high and youll be ok until the prices of the 5700XT and or a used 1070 goes down. 

 

Maybe i didn't explained perfectly, sorry for that. Yes i want to play in 1080p, but with higher settings and better framerate ^^. I was just saying that i have around 40-70 fps with medium settings actually, and i find this disappointing. But maybe it's normal perf with my set up. 

[5x5]

6 minutes ago, diwall said:

 

Maybe i didn't explained perfectly, sorry for that. Yes i want to play in 1080p, but with higher settings and better framerate ^^. I was just saying that i have around 40-70 fps with medium settings actually, and i find this disappointing. But maybe it's normal perf with my set up. 

Feel free to ignore his posts. The CPU is fine for your card. Get another stick of ram for dual channel operation and see if you can tune your system settings as well. Check Nvidia control panel to make sure you are on high performance, update your bios and firmware. DDU the Nvidia driver and see about overclocking the card a bit.

[paulmohr]

Mostly what the others said. Not sure I would take your card apart though unless you are mechanically inclined and like doing that kind of stuff. Cleaning it sure wouldn't hurt though. Maybe check to see how good the air flow is in your case.

 

I mainly just wanted to say your English is great, don't worry about it. Better than a lot of people that live in the US lol. And most of us only understand English, not two or three other languages. Years ago we had a foreign exchange student from Denmark. She was helping me put together some furniture or something. I asked her if she could read the instructions well enough to help me out. She said "I speak, read and write 5 languages, how about you?". I was like nope, I can barely grasp my own lol.

[diwall]

15 hours ago, paulmohr said:

Mostly what the others said. Not sure I would take your card apart though unless you are mechanically inclined and like doing that kind of stuff. Cleaning it sure wouldn't hurt though. Maybe check to see how good the air flow is in your case.

 

I mainly just wanted to say your English is great, don't worry about it. Better than a lot of people that live in the US lol. And most of us only understand English, not two or three other languages. Years ago we had a foreign exchange student from Denmark. She was helping me put together some furniture or something. I asked her if she could read the instructions well enough to help me out. She said "I speak, read and write 5 languages, how about you?". I was like nope, I can barely grasp my own lol.

Thank you . I'm french (sorry omelette du fromage) and i work in Switzerland so I must have a good level in English cause I don't speak German (yet). Anyway, I will not touch anything about the GPU I think but I can try to change my thermal paste on my CPU, I didn't change it since I installed my CPU few years ago. I just discovered (because apparently, I'm a noob in watercooling ^^) that there is an all in one system (like Corsair H100i for example) and those systems doesn't require a water pump or tubes. It's because the cooling liquid is already inside ? It's interesting, it could be a good way to improve the cooling of my CPU.

[VEXICUS]

19 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

You have a great CPU but the video card is getting old now, that thing is years and years and years ago.  I would overclock that CPU of yours and grab a used 1070 or go with AMD 5700XT also ya single channel is no good as the guru peeps said above.  Having said that if I were you just play @ 1080p medium high and youll be ok until the prices of the 5700XT and or a used 1070 goes down. 

OP already owns a 980ti, so no point of getting a 1070. The are pretty similar in performance.

[VEXICUS]

I'll recommend to sell your current 16gb 2400mhz ram. And get a 16gb dual channel kit with a faster frequency (I'll recommend 3000mhz-3200mhz).

 

I'll also recommend you to repaste your CPU and GPU for decrease in temps.

I think your gpu might be clogged with dust or you might have a overclock on your gpu. So, I'll recommend to give a good cleaning to that gpu. Because hall of fame series cards don't run that hot.

[FellTheSky]

if i was you my upgrades priorities would be

 

GPU

RAM

CPU 

in that order

[paulmohr]

I didn't notice the cooler you had, that should work fine. I wouldn't spend the money on an AIO. I have the H100i pro and its ok, but it isn't amazing. I don't know a lot about Intel cpus but that temp seems high with that cooler unless you are feeding it a ton of voltage.

[diwall]

Hello everyone, 

 

I'll update this post, it could be interesting for some people.

 

I changed in my setup : 

- Ventirad : BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 --> Thermalright Le Grand Macho RT

- Case : Cooler Master Storm Enforcer --> Corsair Carbide Airflow 540

- RAM : 1x 16go 2400mhz C15 --> 2x8go 3200mhz C16

 

Result : 

- CPU temp drop from 71-83 (Stock) degrees to 50-62 degrees (Stock)

- No more framrerate drop in PUBG, 120 FPS in 1080p medium/low (cause.... it's PUBG)

- After cleaning the GPU, the GTX 980 Ti still hit 83 degrees. But i understood that this chipset is generally power consuming.

 

It was a little investment compared to buy a new GPU for example, but it was worth it. Thanks you for your advises all .