Upgrading CPU for gaming - is it all just hype?

[DeerDK]

Hi everyone, I have been considering if i should upgrade my cpu or not. I recently upgraded my GPU from a GTX 960 to a RTX 3060, and i really felt the performance uplift, especially in the detail level I can run smoothly.

I keep reading that the performance uplift if I replace my old i5-4690K from 2014 with a modern CPU (i have lost my heart to the Ryzen 5600x, partly due to it's power efficiency) will also be significant.

But, Im usually pretty good at not just jumping on impulses and buying stuff i dont really need.

I currently play games like Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemtion 2, Civ6, HoI 4, CK3 TW Warhammer 2 ect, so on one hand i don't need to be on the edge in terms of hardware as long as it is playable, and my GPU upgrade did push me from 29 fps in RDR2 to 60/70ish with much higher settings.

 

My current build:

Monitor: TUF VG259Q - 25" 144 hz

Case: FD Define Mini C

Mobo: ASUS Z97I-PLUS
CPU: i5-4690k
GPU: MSI RTX 3060 Gaming X
RAM: Kingston 16GB DDR3-1866 HyperX FURY
SSD: Samsung 250 GB Evo 960 + 2 TB Evo 960
PSU: XFX XTS 460 Platinum Fanless
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S
HDD: WD Green 2 TB

 

So my question is, how much will I actually gain from an upgrade? If my current setup is "fine" should i just close my ears to all the "you need this" talk and hype? We are definetly talking nice to have over need to have.

 

Other things to consider:

• Should i wait for Alder Lake and AM5 to arrive, either to get a newer gen tech, or hope that Rocketlake or Ryzen 5000 with become cheaper?
• The last WANshow brought up, that manufacturers are increasing their prices, so I should probably not expect a pricedrop by waiting another year - it might get worse.
• Price is not really an issue. I have the money for a new CPU should i choose to buy one. The consideration is whether its money well spent or if it's just me getting too hyped.

Im sorry if im rambling. I hope you can help me get some angles on the subject. Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

[DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly]

In your case upgrading does make some sense. i5-4690k is only 4 cores and 4 threads which is nothing to write home about in 2021 . That said any modern CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads will be plenty for 95% of gaming workloads you can throw at it.

 

Something like R5 3600 or even R5 5600 would be a massive boost in performance for you , ofc you would need to swap a platform. I'm not too familiar with Intel CPUs currently so maybe someone else around here can you recommend equivalent Intel product.

 

I would also look into upgrading your PSU because one you have now is not even sufficient for your GPU. Only reason you are probably not running into troubles is because your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU. I would imagine swapping to a modern 6 cores 12 threads CPU would starve both of them for power .

[jaslion]

You'll see stability increases in performance and no more stutters but that only really applies to red dead redemption as that is the only heavy constantly active cpu game here. All your other strategy games will enjoy a nice benefit in turn speed.

 

* Depends if you are happy with the current performance. If answer is yes wait if answer is no buy.

* It depends ryzen boards and cpu's have basically tanked in prices every single time a new series came out BUT with the current state of the world I'd see that leftover supply dwindle quickly. But I also see the used market explode after people do cheap upgrades or move to am5/intel whatever

* Then it all depends on you if you wanna go for it or not as it doesn't seem to have a financial impact on you currently

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Hi everyone, I have been considering if i should upgrade my cpu or not. I recently upgraded my GPU from a GTX 960 to a RTX 3060, and i really felt the performance uplift, especially in the detail level I can run smoothly.

I keep reading that the performance uplift if I replace my old i5-4690K from 2014 with a modern CPU (i have lost my heart to the Ryzen 5600x, partly due to it's power efficiency) will also be significant.

But, Im usually pretty good at not just jumping on impulses and buying stuff i dont really need.

I currently play games like Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemtion 2, Civ6, HoI 4, CK3 TW Warhammer 2 ect, so on one hand i don't need to be on the edge in terms of hardware as long as it is playable, and my GPU upgrade did push me from 29 fps in RDR2 to 60/70ish with much higher settings.

 

My current build:

Monitor: TUF VG259Q - 25" 144 hz

Case: FD Define Mini C

Mobo: ASUS Z97I-PLUS
CPU: i5-4690k
GPU: MSI RTX 3060 Gaming X
RAM: Kingston 16GB DDR3-1866 HyperX FURY
SSD: Samsung 250 GB Evo 960 + 2 TB Evo 960
PSU: XFX XTS 460 Platinum Fanless
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S
HDD: WD Green 2 TB

 

So my question is, how much will I actually gain from an upgrade? If my current setup is "fine" should i just close my ears to all the "you need this" talk and hype? We are definetly talking nice to have over need to have.

 

Other things to consider:

• Should i wait for Alder Lake and AM5 to arrive, either to get a newer gen tech, or hope that Rocketlake or Ryzen 5000 with become cheaper?
• The last WANshow brought up, that manufacturers are increasing their prices, so I should probably not expect a pricedrop by waiting another year - it might get worse.
• Price is not really an issue. I have the money for a new CPU should i choose to buy one. The consideration is whether its money well spent or if it's just me getting too hyped.

Im sorry if im rambling. I hope you can help me get some angles on the subject. Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

I don’t think anything is going to get cheaper until one of those new systems comes out.  One thought is look at your cpu percentage use while you’re playing those games. If it doesn’t hit 100% you’re not going to get much.  If it does though it might be worth thinking about. Lga1151 doesn’t have particularly great ips by modern standards, but it’s clocks are fine.  It’s mostly just short on threads.  You’ve got 4, which means you’re having to stack some which means overhead.  The question is how much?  If it’s not bad now it will likely get that way soon as games advance.  If you’ve got a 60hz monitor more than 60fps just doesn’t mean that much without a monitor replacement. New CPUs may apparently be coming out sooner than expected though. Like the end of this year. One thought is your current machine by definition can’t run win11 because your cpu is way too old.  There will be an upgrade in your future.  From the sound of things everything but the case and GPU will need to be swapped. (Maybe not storage? Wasn’t me tioned)   At that point the case can probably go without much bother.  They’re cheap and all that screwdriver work becomes a pain.  I suspect if you’ve got a 60hz monitor it will include that as well. 

[DeerDK]

24 minutes ago, DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly said:

In your case upgrading does make some sense. i5-4690k is only 4 cores and 4 threads which is nothing to write home about in 2021 . That said any modern CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads will be plenty for 95% of gaming workloads you can throw at it.

 

Something like R5 3600 or even R5 5600 would be a massive boost in performance for you , ofc you would need to swap a platform. I'm not too familiar with Intel CPUs currently so maybe someone else around here can you recommend equivalent Intel product.

 

I would also look into upgrading your PSU because one you have now is not even sufficient for your GPU. Only reason you are probably not running into troubles is because your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU. I would imagine swapping to a modern 6 cores 12 threads CPU would starve both of them for power .

Is my PSU insufficient? I tried calculating the watts the components pull, and i should be relatively comfortable, although i would probably go 600W at my next upgrade.

 

In regards to Intel vs AMD the 11400 looks decent in terms of gaming, but as i said, the 500x is more energy efficient. The primary caveat is that a ryzen 5600x cost around 2200 Danish Kroner, where the i5 11400f is 1300 kr. For comparison the ryzen 3600 cost 1600 kr.

Prices for motherboard and ddr4 ram are more depending on brand than chipset.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

38 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Hi everyone, I have been considering if i should upgrade my cpu or not. I recently upgraded my GPU from a GTX 960 to a RTX 3060, and i really felt the performance uplift, especially in the detail level I can run smoothly.

I keep reading that the performance uplift if I replace my old i5-4690K from 2014 with a modern CPU (i have lost my heart to the Ryzen 5600x, partly due to it's power efficiency) will also be significant.

But, Im usually pretty good at not just jumping on impulses and buying stuff i dont really need.

I currently play games like Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemtion 2, Civ6, HoI 4, CK3 TW Warhammer 2 ect, so on one hand i don't need to be on the edge in terms of hardware as long as it is playable, and my GPU upgrade did push me from 29 fps in RDR2 to 60/70ish with much higher settings.

 

My current build:

Monitor: TUF VG259Q - 25" 144 hz

Case: FD Define Mini C

Mobo: ASUS Z97I-PLUS
CPU: i5-4690k
GPU: MSI RTX 3060 Gaming X
RAM: Kingston 16GB DDR3-1866 HyperX FURY
SSD: Samsung 250 GB Evo 960 + 2 TB Evo 960
PSU: XFX XTS 460 Platinum Fanless
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S
HDD: WD Green 2 TB

 

So my question is, how much will I actually gain from an upgrade? If my current setup is "fine" should i just close my ears to all the "you need this" talk and hype? We are definetly talking nice to have over need to have.

 

Other things to consider:

• Should i wait for Alder Lake and AM5 to arrive, either to get a newer gen tech, or hope that Rocketlake or Ryzen 5000 with become cheaper?
• The last WANshow brought up, that manufacturers are increasing their prices, so I should probably not expect a pricedrop by waiting another year - it might get worse.
• Price is not really an issue. I have the money for a new CPU should i choose to buy one. The consideration is whether its money well spent or if it's just me getting too hyped.

Im sorry if im rambling. I hope you can help me get some angles on the subject. Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

Just overclock the absolute sht out of your 4690k

 

Safe volt around 1.45v though keep your cpu under 80c otherwise lower the volts abit

[DeerDK]

28 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You'll see stability increases in performance and no more stutters but that only really applies to red dead redemption as that is the only heavy constantly active cpu game here. All your other strategy games will enjoy a nice benefit in turn speed.

 

* Depends if you are happy with the current performance. If answer is yes wait if answer is no buy.

* It depends ryzen boards and cpu's have basically tanked in prices every single time a new series came out BUT with the current state of the world I'd see that leftover supply dwindle quickly. But I also see the used market explode after people do cheap upgrades or move to am5/intel whatever

* Then it all depends on you if you wanna go for it or not as it doesn't seem to have a financial impact on you currently

Thanks, thats a good thing to be aware of. 

 

Whether im happy. Thats the thing. It runs, load times are fine, so its very possible that im just sitting in a working VW from 2014 and looking enviously at the new 2021 models. So thats why im putting an ear to the ground, cause enthusiasts will always go for the new exciting tech, but users might say "nah, man, you are fine"

[DeerDK]

4 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Just overclock the absolute sht out of your 4690k

 

Safe volt around 1.45v though keep your cpu under 80c otherwise lower the volts abit

Hmm, could try that. I dont know squat about OC, but i probably should look into it.

[DeerDK]

31 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t think anything is going to get cheaper until one of those new systems comes out.  One thought is look at your cpu percentage use while you’re playing those games. If it doesn’t hit 100% you’re not going to get much.  If it does though it might be worth thinking about. Lga1151 doesn’t have particularly great ips by modern standards, but it’s clocks are fine.  It’s mostly just short on threads.  You’ve got 4, which means you’re having to stack some which means overhead.  The question is how much?  If it’s not bad now it will likely get that way soon as games advance.  If you’ve got a 60hz monitor more than 60fps just doesn’t mean that much without a monitor replacement. New CPUs may apparently be coming out sooner than expected though. Like the end of this year. One thought is your current machine by definition can’t run win11 because your cpu is way too old.  There will be an upgrade in your future.  From the sound of things everything but the case and GPU will need to be swapped. (Maybe not storage? Wasn’t me tioned)   At that point the case can probably go without much bother.  They’re cheap and all that screwdriver work becomes a pain.  I suspect if you’ve got a 60hz monitor it will include that as well. 

Okay. My monitor is 1080p 144 hz, but with a 3060 i probably wont hit that unless i play CS:GO anyway.

Can you recommend monitoring software for figuring out how strained my cpu is?

I actually just got my case, as the new GPU couldn't fit my old Node 304. I wanted a Sapphire 5600xt but my retailer had to give up, and gave me a good price on the MSI card instead.

[DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly]

13 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

I tried calculating the watts the components pull,

RTX 3060 requires ( according to NVIDIA at least ) at minimum a 550w PSU . That number ofc is probably derived from what a regular setup including RTX 3060 could look like and require power wise /  draw , so yeah , in reality real usage will be lower , but then it comes to PSU it's always better to have more than less.

 

Also XFX is not a reputable PSU manufacturer so i would invest into better and more powerful PSU in any case.

[DeerDK]

7 minutes ago, DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly said:

RTX 3060 requires ( according to NVIDIA at least ) at minimum a 550w PSU . That number ofc is probably derived from what a regular setup including RTX 3060 could look like and require power wise /  draw , so yeah , in reality real usage will be lower , but then it comes to PSU it's always better to have more than less.

 

Also XFX is not a reputable PSU manufacturer so i would invest into better and more powerful PSU in any case.

That is true. But with a stated powerdraw at 170w, i figure that a 550w PSU is wearing belt and suspenders. I tries looking at max power draw as well as spikes, and 190w seems to be its max.

https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/dominic-moass/nvidia-rtx-3060-review-ft-gigabyte-gaming-oc/30/

Kitguru has a total system powerdraw around 300w for Cyberpunk 2077 (with a 10900k), so for now i think i have some headroom.

From what i learned bach in 2014 when i bought it, that particular psu seems to be a rebranded seasonic, and i would say that so far i have not had any issues with it. Its fanless platinum model.

Anyway, I can totally see your point, and i will definetly upgrade the wattage next time, but for now i don't think it's the primary concern.

[LienusLateTips]

19 minutes ago, DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly said:

Also XFX is not a reputable PSU manufacturer so i would invest into better and more powerful PSU in any case.

Don't buy by brand. Even Apevia and Gigabyte make some decent PSU models.

 

Also, that XFX unit is a SeaSonic rebrand.

 

31 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Is my PSU insufficient? I tried calculating the watts the components pull, and i should be relatively comfortable, although i would probably go 600W at my next upgrade.

 

In regards to Intel vs AMD the 11400 looks decent in terms of gaming, but as i said, the 500x is more energy efficient. The primary caveat is that a ryzen 5600x cost around 2200 Danish Kroner, where the i5 11400f is 1300 kr. For comparison the ryzen 3600 cost 1600 kr.

Prices for motherboard and ddr4 ram are more depending on brand than chipset.

I'd go for the i5 11400 in your scenario. No reason to get the 5600X for that much more.

Pair it with a quality B560 board and preferably DDR4 3000/3200 and you'll be set.

There is a large performance bump. 

 

You are running a little close with the PSU. It's a quality PSU and I have faith in the protections, so you should try running it on the 460W unit. Worst comes to worst most likely the system just shuts down and you buy a 650W PSU.

[Mling]

I have a 6800XT, 5600X, and a 1080P 144Hz monitor. My CPU rarely gets over 50% load. The only game I share with you is RDR2 and for me, on this game, the GPU is the bottleneck. I do like to play on high settings at 1080P. Have a look at system monitor graphs. What does your CPU & GPU look like?

[jaslion]

36 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Thanks, thats a good thing to be aware of. 

 

Whether im happy. Thats the thing. It runs, load times are fine, so its very possible that im just sitting in a working VW from 2014 and looking enviously at the new 2021 models. So thats why im putting an ear to the ground, cause enthusiasts will always go for the new exciting tech, but users might say "nah, man, you are fine"

The moment you will start playing any more AAA games from the last 4 years you'll quickly see that i5 struggle a lot but for your current games selection it is fine. Slower but fine.

[DeerDK]

1 minute ago, Mling said:

I have a 6800XT, 5600X, and a 1080P 144Hz monitor. My CPU rarely gets over 50% load. The only game I share with you is RDR2 and for me, on this game, the GPU is the bottleneck. I do like to play on high settings at 1080P. Have a look at system monitor graphs. What does your CPU & GPU look like?

I would have to find some monitoring software to answer that question. Any recommendations?

[jaslion]

Just now, DeerDK said:

I would have to find some monitoring software to answer that question. Any recommendations?

Msi afterburner. Doesn't get much easier than that.

[Mling]

Just now, DeerDK said:

I would have to find some monitoring software to answer that question. Any recommendations?

use the built in task manager. That should be good enough.

[DeerDK]

Just now, jaslion said:

Msi afterburner. Doesn't get much easier than that.

Does that one monitor CPU? I wasn't aware. Thanks 

[DeerDK]

21 minutes ago, LienusLateTips said:

Don't buy by brand. Even Apevia and Gigabyte make some decent PSU models.

 

Also, that XFX unit is a SeaSonic rebrand.

 

I'd go for the i5 11400 in your scenario. No reason to get the 5600X for that much more.

Pair it with a quality B560 board and preferably DDR4 3000/3200 and you'll be set.

There is a large performance bump. 

 

You are running a little close with the PSU. It's a quality PSU and I have faith in the protections, so you should try running it on the 460W unit. Worst comes to worst most likely the system just shuts down and you buy a 650W PSU.

Okay, thats a very good point.

Would you consider a MSI MAG B560M PRO-VDH WIFI a quality board, or should I go higher? RGB is not a priority.

[jaslion]

57 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Does that one monitor CPU? I wasn't aware. Thanks 

It monitors all you just have to enable what you want to see during gameplay.

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, DeerDK said:

Okay. My monitor is 1080p 144 hz, but with a 3060 i probably wont hit that unless i play CS:GO anyway.

Can you recommend monitoring software for figuring out how strained my cpu is?

I actually just got my case, as the new GPU couldn't fit my old Node 304. I wanted a Sapphire 5600xt but my retailer had to give up, and gave me a good price on the MSI card instead.

CPUZ is I understand a current preferred on that is free.  There are several.  Paid ones will have extra features but CPUZ seems to be the currents standard.  There is also a GPUZ which can tell you how hard your gpu is working too.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Bombastinator
Ihateautocorrect

[Bombastinator]

6 hours ago, DeerDK said:

Okay, thats a very good point.

Would you consider a MSI MAG B560M PRO-VDH WIFI a quality board, or should I go higher? RGB is not a priority.

There was a hardware unboxed episode where they tested b560 boards and discovered they are not all created equal.  I didn’t pay a lot of attention but it may be worth watching.  Something about cheap b560 boards being gimped in some way.  There is also memory rank, and a thing I heard call 1x8 vs 1x16 to consider.  This might also be rank.  I don’t know.

[Jonathan Lee]

So if the question is "will I notice a difference if I upgrade to a modern CPU?" The answer is yes. Overall system responsiveness increase, generally snappiness of system is better, games will feel smoother.

 

If the question is "Will you get higher frame rates?" Maybe. Going from you're current CPU to an i5-11400 or 5600X is a HUGE uplift. You get 3 things: more cores, more threads and higher IPC (instructions per clock cycle). While you can OC your current CPU to match or beat current CPU's in the market, there is no way to improve the IPC of a CPU. I would definitely recommend the upgrade if you can afford it. You can also consider an 8 core intel (10700/11700) as well to provide better multitasking ability.

 

I do think you will get a massive CPU bottleneck with your current CPU if you upgrade your GPU to 3060.