Should I upgrade?

[LilPach]

Obviously upgrades are always good but my question is it worth it/necessary if so what to upgrade. 
Current Specs:

Ryzen 1600

gtx 1660ti 

16gb 2133mhz Ddr4 Corsair ram

500w evga psu 

msi b350 pro-vdh 

500gb ssd 

 

This is used mainly to only play fortnite and to stream at 720p60fps. Btw I use my gpu to encode with the new nvenc.

[Bombastinator]

That’s not horrible.  Did you clock the ram too?

[LilPach]

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

If I was to upgrade stuff in that machine I would buy faster ram, and maybe a big air cooler, and then overclock both.  My understanding is that while the 1600 is slower than the 2600, it overclocks better and gets as much out of fast ram as the rest of the zen family.  My understanding is that the 1600 gets more from fast ram than from a cpu overclock.  I would then save money to get a big GPU once it becomes clear what the requirements are going to be recent rumors of the speed of the upcoming console GPUs are mildly horrifying.

I’ve already got a big aio water cooler but idk if it’s because of my mobo but I can’t get my oc past 3.7 ghz at 1.35v

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, LilPach said:

I’ve already got a big aio water cooler but idk if it’s because of my mobo but I can’t get my oc past 3.7 ghz at 1.35v

That’s not horrible.  Did you clock the ram too?

[LilPach]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

That’s not horrible.  Did you clock the ram too?

Tbh I don’t really know how to overclock ram the one time I did my whole pc wouldn’t boot and I had to hard reset the bios, I have the Corsair vengeance lpx c14 I believe so you think I could oc it higher, and should I try to oc my 1660 ti as well?

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, LilPach said:

Tbh I don’t really know how to overclock ram the one time I did my whole pc wouldn’t boot and I had to hard reset the bios, I have the Corsair vengeance lpx c14 I believe so you think I could oc it higher, and should I try to oc my 1660 ti as well?

I don’t know much about overclocking ram other than it’s free and it’s supposed to be more useful for the 1600 then a cpu overclock.  Overclocking graphics cards strikes me as useful only in very specific situations where you’re very close to a number you want to reach but can’t hit it consistently.  There should be at least one guide on how to overclock ram for that chip on b350 or possibly even that specific mobo on this site.

[LilPach]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t know much about overclocking ram other than it’s free and it’s supposed to be more useful for the 1600 then a cpu overclock.  Overclocking graphics cards strikes me as useful only in very specific situations where you’re very close to a number you want to reach but can’t hit it consistently.  There should be at least one guide on how to overclock ram for that chip on b350 or possibly even that specific mobo on this site.

So do you think if I can nail a good oc on my ram my system is good for bit longer?

[Bombastinator]

55 minutes ago, LilPach said:

So do you think if I can nail a good oc on my ram my system is good for bit longer?

I think your system is good for a bit longer whether you nail an overclock or not.  
 

You’ve got time.

 

if you want to take some action though, maybe see what you can get out of your current ram.  
it’s free, it won’t hurt anything and it might help a bit.

You should probably do that anyway before you look at buying new faster ram, which would be my next suggestion.  If you just have to upgrade something because your wallet itches, ram is the obvious one.  If you do fast fast (like 3200 or 3600 low cas would be your best bet, mostly because ryzen 3 or a new mobo would like it. If you find your system can handle the speed then bonus. X570 is out but it may (or may not) see an update before AMD ditches am4.  Its imperfect.  It has fans on it.  You can wait.  Pcie4.0 isn’t important atm.  The ram may be faster than your cpu can deal with but you can run it slower.  As for your cpu, ryzen 3 will be on am4 so doing it now is silly.
 

My cpu is a good bit slower than yours, I’ve got a 580 which is not too far from what you got, but definitely no faster, and I game fine.  If you want to change only one thing that is the thing That is most likely to need to be changed, but you don’t need to do it yet.  A time may come in the moderately near future (like as early as spring) when your GPU no longer cuts it and my whole rig will have to enter the land of open source backup machine, but what you got is fast enough you can get a look at what is coming before you need to do anything.  Your CPU as it sits is likely fast enough to survive the new consoles which means it’s probably good for about 5 years.  I personally would upgrade the motherboard to the not yet out x570 successor before I did the cpu honestly.  If they get the speed of infinity fabric up you may be able to handle faster ram yet.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t know much about overclocking ram other than it’s free and it’s supposed to be more useful for the 1600 then a cpu overclock.  Overclocking graphics cards strikes me as useful only in very specific situations where you’re very close to a number you want to reach but can’t hit it consistently.  There should be at least one guide on how to overclock ram for that chip on b350 or possibly even that specific mobo on this site.

Overclocking RAM is a massive pain in the ass, and not worth the hassle IMO.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Overclocking RAM is a massive pain in the ass, and not worth the hassle IMO.

This may be the case.  I’ve never done it.  Ram is cheap.  It would give him something to mess with though.

[LilPach]

9 hours ago, Arika S said:

and is it struggling with this?

 

if it's doing everything you need it to, then don't upgrade, it's a waste of money to have better hardware that's not being utilized.

 

Ok sounds good yeah tbh doesn’t really struggle.