CPU or GPU upgrade?

[HermanMaraas]

My current desktop system is old and I'm in need of upgrading however I'm not able to upgrade the whole thing now. Now I dont do a lot of different heavy tasks on my system, but I play CSGO primarily and also some light photo/video editing (as I'm studying photography).

 

System specs are as following:

- CPU: I5-3570 (locked)

- GPU: ASUS GTX 660 (non-ti)

- RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600 Mhz

 

So what I'm wondering is if I should upgrade my CPU or GPU first. I'm know it's probably smartest to upgrade the whole system all at the same time, but that means I have to wait until probably around October. The long-term plans are to swap my CPU from the 3570 to a Ryzen 5 3600 (this includes also upgrading the motherboard to a B450-board and also a 16GB memory kit at 3200 Mhz speed), and to swap the GPU out for a 2060. But seeing that I mainly play CSGO I'm unsure what is the best to upgrade first if i decide to one upgrade or the other now. Many would say that upgrading the CPU would be best seeing the game is quite heavily CPU based. However from what I've read about upgrading either CPU or GPU the CPU upgrade might cause a worse bottleneck than the GPU upgrade.

[Jurrunio]

You'll bottleneck either component that you upgrade tbh. I'd say GPU should go first because it's the weaker one.

[cheez63]

GPU now, get the Ryzen bits later. I have a basically identical system (3470 and 8gb ddr3) with a 1070 and it gets 150+ fps in CS:GO

[HermanMaraas]

On 2/2/2020 at 9:49 AM, cheez63 said:

GPU now, get the Ryzen bits later. I have a basically identical system (3470 and 8gb ddr3) with a 1070 and it gets 150+ fps in CS:GO

Well tbf I get between 130-180 with this current setup. And seeing that the game is heavily cpu-dependent, one would think that a CPU upgrade (including upgrade in RAM, motherboard and PSU - and maybe CPU cooler) is a better upgrade. A friend of mine upgraded to a 8600k (OC'd a bit) and kept getting 200-300 fps with a GTX 570 from 2010.