Need help with upgrades

[Gedigan123]

Hey everyone,

I have a 500 euro (550 USD) budget to upgrade my pc with.

the focus is gaming, just as reference, I would love to play Battlefield 5 @ high settings 1080p 144Hz. (Hz aren't SUPER important, the higher the better ofcourse)

Currently my CPU is running at 65-68°C (149-154.4°F) on medium settings in BF5

my specs:

 

• Case: Corsair Air 540
• Mobo: Asus Z170-A socket 1151
• CPU: i5-6600K (3.5Ghz, 3,9Ghz boost)
• CPU cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H110i GT
• RAM: Corsair 8 GB DDR4-2133 (2x4GB 2133)
• PSU: Corsair CS650M
• GPU: ASUS STRIX-GTX980TI-DC3OC-6GD5
• Samsung 850 EVO, 250 GB SSD
• Western Digital Black, 1 TB
• Monitor: Acer XF272UP

Note that nothing is overclocked as I don't know how to do this.

 

if I forgot any valuable information you need to know, tell me and I will try my best to answer you!

[boggy77]

6 minutes ago, Gedigan123 said:

Battlefield 5 @ 1440p 144Hz

you can hit this at high details with a 2080ti.

for ultra, probably a rtx titan?

[HanZie82]

Guessing you already have the 144Hz monitor?!
But i would go for SSD's first. That will jsut make your life so much better, not having to wait on the PC.
Then maybe another stick of 8GB RAM, but thats cus im a multi-tasker to the max.
Only then i would go for another GPU, altho its still very nice.
And only if that wasnt enough i'd go for another mobo+CPU

All in all, its already a nice system.

But yeah like @boggy77 said; most likely just need a GPU change to get those numbers you want.

[Gedigan123]

3 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Guessing you already have the 144Hz monitor?!
But i would go for SSD's first. That will jsut make your life so much better, not having to wait on the PC.
Then maybe another stick of 8GB RAM, but thats cus im a multi-tasker to the max.
Only then i would go for another GPU, altho its still very nice.
And only if that wasnt enough i'd go for another mobo+CPU

All in all, its already a nice system.

But yeah like @boggy77 said; most likely just need a GPU change to get those numbers you want.

I have a 250 gig SSD/1TB HDD

and yes I have a 144 hz 1440p monitor, hence i want those graphics

 

I wrote down to get more RAM, thank you, does the 2133 really matter?

 

thanks for the info, seems my expectations are far too high, I'm going to change my topic to 1080p high settings

[Gedigan123]

17 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

you can hit this at high details with a 2080ti.

for ultra, probably a rtx titan?

thank you, I did not know it had that high demand, I'll change my topic slightly

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, Gedigan123 said:

I wrote down to get more RAM, thank you, does the 2133 really matter?

On Intel CPU's thats perfectly fine RAM, you might jsut want to have that little wiggle room of 16GB.

 

But yeah the most improvement would be from a newer/better GPU.

[boggy77]

if you only have 1 stick of ram, the priority would be getting another one. if it's 2x4, you're probably ok for now.

then spend your budget on a gpu. for 500 euro, you  might find a 2070 super. if not, look for a used 1080ti.

[Stu_Bear]

I'd buy a used gtx 1080 ti myself off fleabay...and pray you have enough left over to get one more stick of 8gb 2133mhz and run in dual channel.  That will be as good as it will ever get on a budget of $550 u.s.  If you have 4 ram slots...and the money allows...I'd upgrade to 32gb of ram...your system will find a use for it I promise...even if you can't tell.

[boggy77]

1 minute ago, Stu_Bear said:

I'd upgrade to 32gb of ram...your system will find a use for it I promise...even if you can't tell

for gaming it won't.

[HanZie82]

3 minutes ago, Stu_Bear said:

I'd buy a used gtx 1080 ti myself off fleabay...and pray you have enough left over to get one more stick of 8gb 2133mhz and run in dual channel.  That will be as good as it will ever get on a budget of $550 u.s.  If you have 4 ram slots...and the money allows...I'd upgrade to 32gb of ram...your system will find a use for it I promise...even if you can't tell.

Im sorry but that RAM part makes ABSOLUTLY no sense.

-"Your system will find a use for it" Well yeah not completely. If you dont have programs that use that amount thers just a lot of free RAM left over for others to use.

-"Even if you can't tell" Thats the dumbest thing i've ever heard. Why waste money on something you'd never notice. Im sorry. But it had to be said.

The rest of your comment is perfectly vaild.

[Stu_Bear]

Forgot to mention do yourself a favor and install battlefield 5 on your ssd...it will help a tad...and make certain your swap is pointed to ur ssd.

[HanZie82]

2 minutes ago, Stu_Bear said:

Forgot to mention do yourself a favor and install battlefield 5 on your ssd...it will help a tad...and make certain your swap is pointed to ur ssd.

Please dont put SWAP files on SSD, theres absolutly no reason.
1st of swap file is a dump for old RAM stuff that gets accessed very rarely.
2nd the increased reading writing of the swap file will increase the deteriation of SSD's tremendously. (its not worth the speed increase if any).

[Gedigan123]

5 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

if you only have 1 stick of ram, the priority would be getting another one. if it's 2x4, you're probably ok for now.

then spend your budget on a gpu. for 500 euro, you  might find a 2070 super. if not, look for a used 1080ti.

Thank you, yes I have 2x4GB ram, I'm a little sceptical on buying 2nd hand electronics, maybe I can look at refurbished ones from stores.

wrote down 2070 super and 1080ti (refurb), will definately look into it.

[boggy77]

1 minute ago, Gedigan123 said:

yes I have 2x4GB ram

monitor your usage during games. unless you go over 90% utilisation, you don't need to get more ram

[Gedigan123]

2 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Please dont put SWAP files on SSD, theres absolutly no reason.
1st of swap file is a dump for old RAM stuff that gets accessed very rarely.
2nd the increased reading writing of the swap file will increase the deteriation of SSD's tremendously. (its not worth the speed increase if any).

little too technical for me, should i or shouldn't I put it on the SSD? I don't know what SWAP files are

[boggy77]

37 minutes ago, Gedigan123 said:

Note that nothing is overclocked as I don't know how to do this.

might help if you look at some tutorials on this. you can squeeze a few more frames by overclocking your cpu and your new gpu when it arrives.

Overclocking the gpu is actually extremely easy using msi afterburner.

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, Gedigan123 said:

little too technical for me, should i or shouldn't I put it on the SSD? I don't know what SWAP files are

Nothing you should be bothered about if you don't know.
But a SWAP file is a file on your harddrive that it uses if you have unused or to full RAM. Windows manages it itself just well enough to not be to bothered.

It was more a response to him/her.

[Stu_Bear]

People always reject my suggestion at 32gb of ram...I'm use to it.  It does help...lots of data sets are stored there even if task manager shows you only using a fraction of it.  MS and Linux use more than what is suggested.  Also, for reasons I'm not smart enough to share it proves out that a gpu with a wide bus is aided by a larger volume of ram...wish I knew why that is the case....or maybe i'm drawing conclusions where there is none.  I look at too many graphs

[Gedigan123]

Just now, boggy77 said:

might help if you look at some tutorials on this. you can squeeze a few more frames by overclocking your cpu and your new gpu when it arrives.

Overclocking the gpu is actually extremely easy using msi afterburner.

I use msi afterburner, but I always think it's going to explode if i crank it up too much haha.

I had another thing, because I thought my CPU was the 'bottleneck' since it's on 100% at pretty much its max temprature and my GPU is running on 95% and only on like 65°C (google says max is 84°C)

[boggy77]

Just now, Gedigan123 said:

I use msi afterburner, but I always think it's going to explode if i crank it up too much haha.

I had another thing, because I thought my CPU was the 'bottleneck' since it's on 100% at pretty much its max temprature and my GPU is running on 95% and only on like 65°C (google says max is 84°C)

you seem to have a very good cpu cooler so i'd try to clean it and re-apply the thermal paste and try to overclock it. it shouldn't go close to max temperature unless something is wrong.

[HanZie82]

2 minutes ago, Stu_Bear said:

People always reject my suggestion at 32gb of ram...I'm use to it.  It does help...lots of data sets are stored there even if task manager shows you only using a fraction of it.  MS and Linux use more than what is suggested.  Also, for reasons I'm not smart enough to share it proves out that a gpu with a wide bus is aided by a larger volume of ram...wish I knew why that is the case....or maybe i'm drawing conclusions where there is none.  I look at too many graphs

Oh yeah going for 32GB will definitely improve some things. But i also always think of the price aspect. Its double the price for 2% extra performance  (if even that high) in normal usage.
If you on the other hand do photo or video editing 32GB is almost a necessity.

[HanZie82]

4 minutes ago, Gedigan123 said:

I use msi afterburner, but I always think it's going to explode if i crank it up too much haha.

I had another thing, because I thought my CPU was the 'bottleneck' since it's on 100% at pretty much its max temprature and my GPU is running on 95% and only on like 65°C (google says max is 84°C)

The worst thing that can happen if you OC it from windows, is that the PC will shut down.
You then turn it back on (if needed remove the OC) and you all good again.

Only if you play around in the BIOS with OC settings things relly can go wrong. So dont worry to much and most important. Take your time! Do a single setting change so you know whats what and then test for double the amount you think it needs.

[Gedigan123]

2 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

you seem to have a very good cpu cooler so i'd try to clean it and re-apply the thermal paste and try to overclock it. it shouldn't go close to max temperature unless something is wrong.

it's on +-65°C (google says 72°C is max) so it's kinda close right? also wouldn't overclocking make the temperatures go up even more? it used to run on 3.9Ghz what a friend did for me, but he lives in a different country now, but it somehow reset?

How do i check if my CPU cooler is even working fine?

any recommendations on termal paste?

also, sorry for so many questions, i just don't know that much about all of this as my friend used to do all of this for me

[boggy77]

5 minutes ago, Gedigan123 said:

it's on +-65°C (google says 72°C is max) so it's kinda close right? also wouldn't overclocking make the temperatures go up even more? it used to run on 3.9Ghz what a friend did for me, but he lives in a different country now, but it somehow reset?

How do i check if my CPU cooler is even working fine?

any recommendations on termal paste?

also, sorry for so many questions, i just don't know that much about all of this as my friend used to do all of this for me

65 in games is fine. try overclocking it and monitor temps, you can go up to 75 no problems.

arctic silver 5, thermal grizzly are good options. watch a tutorial on youtube on how to reapply thermal paste.

[HanZie82]

13 minutes ago, Gedigan123 said:

it's on +-65°C (google says 72°C is max) so it's kinda close right? also wouldn't overclocking make the temperatures go up even more? it used to run on 3.9Ghz what a friend did for me, but he lives in a different country now, but it somehow reset?

How do i check if my CPU cooler is even working fine?

any recommendations on termal paste?

also, sorry for so many questions, i just don't know that much about all of this as my friend used to do all of this for me

Don't worry, just keep asking the questions! They good questions!
That's how one can learn.