CPU/GPU upgrade decision

[kontemplator]

Budget (including currency): 300 - 400 €

Country: Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 1080p FPS/RPG Gaming, (Battlefield V, Witcher III, ...)

 

I am currently looking into upgrading my system, mainly because i recently bought Battlefield V and my current setup seems to struggle a lot with it (constantly low fps). This upgrade has been a long time coming, as you can imagine by the somewhat "dusty" components of my build. The decision i am facing is whether to upgrade Mainboard+CPU+RAM or go for a new GPU. I suspect the CPU and RAM to be the bottleneck in this situation, since the components really are quite old, but before blindly making an investment that doesn't help much in the end, i just wanted to get some opinions on this.
 

Relevant Specs:

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 Zotac

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 @4 X 3.2 GHz

RAM: 2x4GB DDR3, 1333 MHz

MB: msi 870A-G54

PSU: 630 Watt Xilence Performance A Series Non-Modular 80+

 

For the CPU upgrade path i was thinking of something like this (~ 360 €):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X

MB: msi B450-A Pro MAX

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 DIMM CL16 (Dual Kit)

 

I haven't yet looked into suitable GPUs. I would really appreciate some advice on which way to go here, let me know if you have any further questions.

[_Omega_]

the ram could be a bit faster

 i would go for a 5700XT Pulse

[Ixionn]

8 minutes ago, kontemplator said:

Budget (including currency): 300 - 400 €

Country: Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 1080p FPS/RPG Gaming, (Battlefield V, Witcher III, ...)

 

I am currently looking into upgrading my system, mainly because i recently bought Battlefield V and my current setup seems to struggle a lot with it (constantly low fps). This upgrade has been a long time coming, as you can imagine by the somewhat "dusty" components of my build. The decision i am facing is whether to upgrade Mainboard+CPU+RAM or go for a new GPU. I suspect the CPU and RAM to be the bottleneck in this situation, since the components really are quite old, but before blindly making an investment that doesn't help much in the end, i just wanted to get some opinions on this.
 

Relevant Specs:

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 Zotac

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 @4 X 3.2 GHz

RAM: 2x4GB DDR3, 1333 MHz

MB: msi 870A-G54

PSU: 630 Watt Xilence Performance A Series Non-Modular 80+

 

For the CPU upgrade path i was thinking of something like this (~ 360 €):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X

MB: msi B450-A Pro MAX

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 DIMM CL16 (Dual Kit)

 

I haven't yet looked into suitable GPUs. I would really appreciate some advice on which way to go here, let me know if you have any further questions.

I would for sure say the CPU is the biggest bottleneck here, those Phenom II chips are very dated and underpowered nowadays. Even an upgrade to 3rd or 4th gen Intel would likely give you a huge performance jump, if not Ryzen like you mentioned. I would keep the 970, at least until you see how it performs with the CPU upgrade, then make your decision. The 970 is still a respectable GPU nowadays, it's about on par if not better than a GTX 1050. If you were to upgrade the GPU I would look into a GTX 1070 or better. Also I don't know a huge amount about Ryzens, but I believe you will want faster than 2666Mhz Ram for it.

[_Omega_]

so that is what i would take for the CPU part

https://geizhals.de/?cat=WL-1586235

[aexel05]

25 minutes ago, kontemplator said:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X

Paying for the extra X doesnt really make a lot of sense. Guess you are better off investing that money in a better Ram kit. here is a handy latency calculator for comparing RAM 

 

At this moment, this is the cheapest, faster RAM. https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/p6RFf7/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2b3200c16

[kontemplator]

11 minutes ago, Ixionn said:

I would for sure say the CPU is the biggest bottleneck here, those Phenom II chips are very dated and underpowered nowadays. Even an upgrade to 3rd or 4th gen Intel would likely give you a huge performance jump, if not Ryzen like you mentioned. I would keep the 970, at least until you see how it performs with the CPU upgrade, then make your decision. The 970 is still a respectable GPU nowadays, it's about on par if not better than a GTX 1050. If you were to upgrade the GPU I would look into a GTX 1070 or better. Also I don't know a huge amount about Ryzens, but I believe you will want faster than 2666Mhz Ram for it.

Thank you, that helped a lot. I was already itching for getting a new CPU

 

10 minutes ago, _Omega_ said:

so that is what i would take for the CPU part

https://geizhals.de/?cat=WL-1586235

Thank you, a few euros more for faster RAM might be a good idea. I guess i only have to decide on 3600 or 3600X then. But i do have one more question, regarding the MB: I've seen a lot of people recommending the B450 Tomahawk, but to me its not quite clear what the advantages are compared to the B450-A Pro MAX for example. I already compared them on the msi website, but for me its not really obvious why the Tomahawk is better for my use case.

[kontemplator]

8 minutes ago, jonahadami said:

Paying for the extra X doesnt really make a lot of sense. Guess you are better off investing that money in a better Ram kit. here is a handy latency calculator for comparing RAM 

 

At this moment, this is the cheapest, faster RAM. https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/p6RFf7/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2b3200c16

Alright, so that one is now solved

[_Omega_]

6 minutes ago, kontemplator said:

Thank you, a few euros more for faster RAM might be a good idea. I guess i only have to decide on 3600 or 3600X then. But i do have one more question, regarding the MB: I've seen a lot of people recommending the B450 Tomahawk, but to me its not quite clear what the advantages are compared to the B450-A Pro MAX for example. I already compared them on the msi website, but for me its not really obvious why the Tomahawk is better for my use case.

the VRM cooling on the Tomahawk is quite a bit better for just a bit more and with the B450 MAX Boards you should be able to upgrade to Ryzen 4000 for what a bit better board would be good. But if you planing to just run the 3600 in it the -A Pro MAX it will be more than fine for that.