Should I Upgrade?

[f1nesser]

I have a bit of a conundrum. I recently started playing Insurgency: Sandstorm, a notoriously poorly optimized game, that supposedly is quite CPU heavy. I'm struggling to get past 90 frames on medium settings which feels pretty sluggish. However, I can't decide how I want to fix this. I currently have an I5-9600k(which is slightly overclocked) a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Black, a GTX 1660Ti(which I pushed pretty far with OC), and 16 GB of DDR4 Ram. When monitoring usage during a game, I noticed that my CPU usage was at 100%, and that my GPU was hovering around 80%. My dilemma is: do I upgrade my CPU to something like an I7-9700k and hope that the increased core count will push me over the 144 fps threshold, or do I upgrade my CPU cooler to something like the Noctua NH-D15, or perhaps even watercooling. Is the CPU upgrade worth it? If I upgrade the CPU I will upgrade the cooler regardless.

 

For reference, I get around 350 fps on native res(1080p) in CSGO on medium settings, and around 140-180 in COD Warzone on somewhat high settings. 

 

Thanks for reading this, any help is appreciated. 

 

[WunkusMcDunkus]

2 minutes ago, f1nesser said:

My dilemma is: do I upgrade my CPU to something like an I7-9700k

This will depend on your board.

 

Usually if a game is badly ported/optimised, hardware won't make the huge difference you'd think.

[f1nesser]

I've got an ASROC Z390 Pro 4

[WunkusMcDunkus]

2 minutes ago, f1nesser said:

ASROC Z390 Pro 4

This would take a 9700k but wouldn't handle OC'ing it too well.

[f1nesser]

would it be worth upgrading the motherboard, as I think z390 boards can only take 8th and 9th gen

[f1nesser]

would an AMD CPU at a comparable price to the i7 perform better overall, i dont mind spending another 175-200 USD on a different motherboard if it means better long term performance on an AMD chip

[ChromExe]

14 minutes ago, f1nesser said:

would an AMD CPU at a comparable price to the i7 perform better overall, i dont mind spending another 175-200 USD on a different motherboard if it means better long term performance on an AMD chip

judging by the other games you listed, I think its just optimized poorly, not hardware related so I don't know why you want to switch

[f1nesser]

i plan on playing other games similar to insurgency: sandstorm. eg. escape from tarkov, arma3, squad etc and I'm just worried i'll run into similar issues with my current platform. my goal for all these games is just to maintain 144 fps and higher on medium high settings