A Hard Choice - Better CPU or GPU

[troop129]

Budget (including currency): $250

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: After Effects, Premiere Pro, Inventor, Fusion 360

I have an i5-8400 (6 cores 6 threads) with 8gb ram, 16gb optane accelerating a 1tb hard drive. I have 250 dollars to upgrade this machine to either 1) i7-8700 + 16gb ram or 2) Just buy a 1660s. Which one would give me better performance in After Effects, better CPU+RAM but no GPU or not as good CPU with a GPU?

Thanks!

[VeganJoy]

current gpu? or are you just using the igpu

[boggy77]

3) 8gb ram + second hand 1070

[tank234]

I would go with a better cpu and ram if you are using those programs because most of them use the cpu and ram more than the gpu. From what I heard but not too sure either as some video editing programs use the gpu to encode as well

[nathanyule]

More ram and a used 980 ti (if you can find one). Like boggy77 said, a 1070 works good as well. 

[troop129]

Thanks for your suggestions, but let me clear up a few things.

The real limiting factor is not really the budget or anything, but the pc itself. It is SMOL. And the power supply is only 330 watts. So the best card i could run is prob a 1660ti. But the size is limiting there, so the best card is 1660s. I am using the iGPU (UHD 630) in the 8400 rn.

 

Everywhere I look, there is a split between gpu or cpu upgrade, and my choices are either upgrade cpu now, and maybe ram, and sit for like a few years. Or, I can upgrade the GPU now, wait like a month or two to get more $$, then another 8gb ram.

[brob]

If you are currently using the iGPU upgrade to a discrete GPU. You might also consider adding an ssd.

[RejZoR]

Overclock that i5 8400 and invest in GPU. In fact it should not bottleneck a GPU much even at stock. Just enable Enhanced Multithreading so it boosts to 4GHz on all cores and gives no fucks to timed limits.