Should I Upgrade My CPU or MB?

[casey9090909]

MSI Z390

i5-9600 4.4ghz

RTX 2060

24 gb ram

 

This is my first PC build (gaming) and my CPU has become my bottleneck when running certain demanding games like Escape from Tarkov with multiple background applications like Discord and Firefox. According to pangoly.com, based on my motherboard, the only CPUs I could upgrade to would give me a 0.6ghz increase. That sounds like it could be enough but I'm just a novice. Would it be more worth my time and money to go through the headache of swapping my motherboard and getting an even better CPU?

[TatamiMatt]

6 minutes ago, casey9090909 said:

MSI Z390

i5-9600 4.4ghz

RTX 2060

24 gb ram

 

This is my first PC build (gaming) and my CPU has become my bottleneck when running certain demanding games like Escape from Tarkov with multiple background applications like Discord and Firefox. According to pangoly.com, based on my motherboard, the only CPUs I could upgrade to would give me a 0.6ghz increase. That sounds like it could be enough but I'm just a novice. Would it be more worth my time and money to go through the headache of swapping my motherboard and getting an even better CPU?

It depends on your budget, how much are you looking to spend on this upgrade? And how much is the CPU upgrade your looking to buy?

[Hinjima]

4 minutes ago, casey9090909 said:

MSI Z390

i5-9600 4.4ghz

RTX 2060

24 gb ram

 

This is my first PC build (gaming) and my CPU has become my bottleneck when running certain demanding games like Escape from Tarkov with multiple background applications like Discord and Firefox. According to pangoly.com, based on my motherboard, the only CPUs I could upgrade to would give me a 0.6ghz increase. That sounds like it could be enough but I'm just a novice. Would it be more worth my time and money to go through the headache of swapping my motherboard and getting an even better CPU?

Its not all about Ghz when it comes to CPU. The i5-9600 is a 6 Core / 6 threaded CPU, you can put a 9900k in the motherboard that has 8 cores and 16 threads! This will be quite a decent increase and you can buy these CPU's used for quite cheap now'a'days.

This would be the easiest option.

 

2nd option is to buy a brand new motherboard with a newer CPU to increase the performance even more.

[YoungBlade]

The only true upgrade from the i5 9600 would be a Core i9 9900(K)(F). It not only has 2 more cores, but also has HyperThreading enabled on them, meaning that it more than doubles the number of processing threads over the Core i5. However, for gaming and multitasking, the Core i9 9900(K)(F) is decidedly mid-range at best by today's standards. The Ryzen 5 7600(X) or Core i5 13600K are both much faster, especially for gaming. And because it's the best CPU available on that socket, the Core i9 is often quite overpriced for what it is on the used market.

 

What country are you in? That will let us compare prices to see if a used i9 9900(K)(F) would actually make sense or not compared to getting other new or used parts.

[casey9090909]

40 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

The only true upgrade from the i5 9600 would be a Core i9 9900(K)(F). It not only has 2 more cores, but also has HyperThreading enabled on them, meaning that it more than doubles the number of processing threads over the Core i5. However, for gaming and multitasking, the Core i9 9900(K)(F) is decidedly mid-range at best by today's standards. The Ryzen 5 7600(X) or Core i5 13600K are both much faster, especially for gaming. And because it's the best CPU available on that socket, the Core i9 is often quite overpriced for what it is on the used market.

 

What country are you in? That will let us compare prices to see if a used i9 9900(K)(F) would actually make sense or not compared to getting other new or used parts.

^ I'm in the US

41 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

It depends on your budget, how much are you looking to spend on this upgrade? And how much is the CPU upgrade your looking to buy?

^ My budget is only hypothetical. I'd like to explore all of my options to assess the trade offs of multiple options like:

* going cheap now and getting the i9-9900kf model

* going expensive now and buying MB capable of more than an i9-9900kf

*waiting for prices to go down on a better board and CPU

Edited March 12 by casey9090909
correction by jaslion

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, casey9090909 said:

going cheap now and getting the i9-9600kf model

That doesn't exist. Do you mean the 9900kf?

 

The 9900kf used is quite expensive like an easy 250$ if not more.

 

For that money you can LITERALLY buy a ryzen 5600, b550 board AND cooler new. Which will be a BIG upgrade over your i5 and the 5600 matches a 9900k's gaming performance with ease.

 

Spend 50$ more and you have a 5700x3d in range a high end gaming chip.

 

Spend 400$ and you are on the newest platforms with a 7600x, b650 ds3h and 32gb of ram.

[StarsMars]

59 minutes ago, casey9090909 said:

i5-9600 4.4ghz

my CPU has become my bottleneck when running certain demanding games like Escape from Tarkov with multiple background applications like Discord and Firefox. According to pangoly.com, based on my motherboard, the only CPUs I could upgrade to would give me a 0.6ghz increase. 

 

Would it be more worth my time and money to go through the headache of swapping my motherboard and getting an even better CPU?

There are multiple answers here depending on your needs and budget.

 

If you primarily play Tarkov, I would recommend getting an AMD x3d chip. That could be the 5700x3d 5800x3d 7800x3d and so on. Tarkov benefits from the extra L2 and L3 cache that x3d chips have.

Upgrading from a 9600 to a 9900k would help with the background applications, but I don't think you would see a monumental leap in gaming.

 

So imo, your options are to get a new motherboard and cpu. Potentially cooler and ram depending on the cpu you choose. You're looking at upwards of $500. 

Or you could get a used 9900k, which would cost about $275 to $300 for a marginal upgrade. (not worth imo)

 

But then if you upgrade to a fast cpu, your 2060 is going to hold you back. Best option, hold out until you're ready for a new build.

53 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

Its not all about Ghz when it comes to CPU. The i5-9600 is a 6 Core / 6 threaded CPU, you can put a 9900k in the motherboard that has 8 cores and 16 threads! This will be quite a decent increase and you can buy these CPU's used for quite cheap now'a'days.

The 9900k is a better chip but not a worth while upgrade for the cost imo.

 

22 minutes ago, jaslion said:

For that money you can LITERALLY buy a ryzen 5600, b550 board AND cooler new. Which will be a BIG upgrade over your i5 and the 5600 matches a 9900k's gaming performance with ease.

 

Spend 50$ more and you have a 5700x3d in range a high end gaming chip.

 

Spend 400$ and you are on the newest platforms with a 7600x, b650 ds3h and 32gb of ram.

I think the 5700x3d would be a solid move.

[casey9090909]

Thank you all for the helpful advice! I'll be going AMD.

 

If I wanted to sell my current PC, what would it be worth? What are the best ways to sell it?

 

Additional Specs:

*PCIe 256 gb ssd for the OS and a 2 TB sata SSD for storage

*Crap wire management

*Air Cooled

*Built 2019

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, casey9090909 said:

Thank you all for the helpful advice! I'll be going AMD.

 

If I wanted to sell my current PC, what would it be worth? What are the best ways to sell it?

 

Additional Specs:

*PCIe 256 gb ssd for the OS and a 2 TB sata SSD for storage

*Crap wire management

*Air Cooled

*Built 2019

Case, psu,...?

 

Really also dependa on looks.

 

If it looks like crap 400-500$. If it looks nice (good cable management and rgb) 600$ if not more