Upgrade CPU or GPU?

[TitanXYZ]

Budget (including currency): £1000-1500 (GBP)

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming (ESO) - 4k

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 6700k - 2070 Super

 

Wondering what is the best upgrade currently to get more gaming performance. I'm thinking CPU because my 6700k is reasonably old now and they seem a lot easier to get hold of than gpus but which would give me the most performance upgrade for 4k gaming?

 

*edit* Is this also a bad time to upgrade? Is new stuff due to be coming out in the next few months?

 

[CommanderAlex]

I'd upgrade the CPU to something like a 5600X/5800X and a decent B550 motherboard (check out the Motherboard tier list!!!). 

[pcmr69420666]

I’d upgrade the cpu to a 9900k or a 5600x

[TitanXYZ]

Just now, pcmr69420666 said:

I’d upgrade the cpu to a 9900k or a 5600x

 

3 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

I'd upgrade the CPU to something like a 5600X/5800X and a decent B550 motherboard (check out the Motherboard tier list!!!). 

Any benefit to getting the 5900x over the 5800x, or is it just marginally better?

[--SID--]

At 4K the CPU doesn't matter much. (6700K is comparable to i3-10100) For 4K gaming I recommand upgrading the GPU.

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/features/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-ampere-cpu-scaling-benchmarks

 

You see upgrading the CPU adds a 5% performance boost

while upgrading the GPU gives a 90% performance boost.

[CommanderAlex]

2 minutes ago, TitanXYZ said:

 

Any benefit to getting the 5900x over the 5800x, or is it just marginally better?

The 5900X will be marginally better and will be better suited if your doing production (productivity) work or need the extra cores for certain programs. 

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

I'd upgrade the CPU to something like a 5600X/5800X and a decent B550 motherboard (check out the Motherboard tier list!!!). 

 

5 minutes ago, pcmr69420666 said:

I’d upgrade the cpu to a 9900k or a 5600x

 

4 minutes ago, TitanXYZ said:

 

Any benefit to getting the 5900x over the 5800x, or is it just marginally better?

 

 

I see no point at all in upgrading the cpu since elder scrolls online is NOT a heavily threaded game and not seriously cpu bound either. At 4k op would just be better of getting a new gpu.

 

Then again eso is pretty easy to run so what is the current issue atm op? Do you want higher fps, better graphics,...?

[TitanXYZ]

Just now, jaslion said:

 

 

 

 

I see no point at all in upgrading the cpu since elder scrolls online is NOT a heavily threaded game and not seriously cpu bound either. At 4k op would just be better of getting a new gpu.

 

Then again eso is pretty easy to run so what is the current issue atm op? Do you want higher fps, better graphics,...?

Higher fps, in 4k during trials it can sometimes dip to 40fps, and a solid 60 would be nice

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, TitanXYZ said:

Higher fps, in 4k during trials it can sometimes dip to 40fps, and a solid 60 would be nice

Ok so op what I'd like you to do is simply put afterburner up on the screen and monitor what part is maxing out. Is your gpu at 100% or are certain cpu CORES (not overall usage) at 100%. Then we can go from there as that will tell us what part is causing problems.

[TitanXYZ]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

Ok so op what I'd like you to do is simply put afterburner up on the screen and monitor what part is maxing out. Is your gpu at 100% or are certain cpu CORES (not overall usage) at 100%. Then we can go from there as that will tell us what part is causing problems.

nvidia overlay puts gpu utilisation at 90%+ - suppose this could probably be the solution to knowing which part to upgrade? Outside of ESO am I likely to see more improvements by changing cpu though, as newer games come out?

[--SID--]

1 minute ago, TitanXYZ said:

Outside of ESO am I likely to see more improvements by changing cpu though, as newer games come out?

Just build a whole new system when Alder Lake comes out.

[jaslion]

Just now, TitanXYZ said:

nvidia overlay puts gpu utilisation at 90%+ - suppose this could probably be the solution to knowing which part to upgrade? Outside of ESO am I likely to see more improvements by changing cpu though, as newer games come out?

I'd say yes since 8threaded cpu's are going to be the next ones on the chopping block for a consistent smooth experience once the old consoles become irrelevant.

 

However I'd not upgrade now since it's fine AND intel is launching their new cpu's really soon with amd following in early 2022. So I'd not invest in a dead platform right now and just wait a bit longer so you end up in a new hardware cycle.