Build Recommendations

[yaint]

Budget (including currency): $100-$300 USD

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Coding, Call of Duty, Modded Minecraft, Fortnite, The Finals

My current build is:

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Cores
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterAir G100M RGB 22.63 CFM CPU Cooler 
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B360-F GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: MSI VENTUS XS OC GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB Video Card 
Case: Deepcool MATREXX 55 A-RGB 3F ATX Mid Tower Case 
Power Supply: Rosewill PHOTON-550 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply 

I need to update my build as I’ve been using 90%+ of my CPU when running most games. My load times on Fortnite are terrible and I’m unable to play sometimes since it lags so bad. Same lag happens on most games too.

Also, sometimes while playing games, my computer will freeze and then shut down. After this happens I have to turn my computer on and off many times over while the VGA light on my motherboard is on until it finally recognizes my GPU again it’ll turn on and boot. 

[SpookyCitrus]

The VGA light issue is most likely a GPU or PSU issue. With your CPU usage and FPS issues it could very well be a failing GPU. That Rosewill PSU doesn't fill me with confidence either. You'll want to figure out which one is bad before doing any sort of upgrading on the system.

 

If it's a bad GPU you'll need most if not all of your budget to replace that 2060 and should be able to get a pretty decent upgrade. If it's the PSU that needs replacing it won't eat up as much as the budget but will eat up close to a third of it if you get a quality unit, which I recommend doing.

 

If it's a bad PSU and replacing it doesn't alleviate some of the strain on the CPU, with the GPU functioning normally again, it may be a more worthwhile upgrade the CPU this go around with your budget.

Though budget and current motherboard don't really allow for much in terms of worthwhile upgrades. The B360 boards are pretty limited, grabbing an i7-9700(non-k because you don't have an overclock allowing board) could be a little beneficial if you can snag a used one for a good price. You may even be able to find a bundle of a Z390 motherboard paired with a 9700K or 9900K within your budget, you'll just need to look around, if you find a 9900K for a decent price you'll fur sure want to get rid of that Rosewill unit if you haven't already needed to.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

That Rosewill PSU doesn't fill me with confidence either

why?

even the psu tierlist says its b tier and 12v rail is 45.9a or 550w so it isnt below its advertised 550w at all

 

as for amazon reviews the 1 and 2 star ratings were ppl that got lemons/DOA aside from that one guy complaining about the colour of the pcie power cable with the 3 star reviews highlighting noise issues though 4 and 5 star reviews make up 82% of the reviews so it should still be a decent unit

 

3 hours ago, yaint said:

My load times on Fortnite are terrible and I’m unable to play sometimes since it lags so bad. Same lag happens on most games too.

what does cpu gpu and ram usage look like in games? storage utilization via taskmanager might also be helpful

 

kinda sounds like your windows install is cooked and you need to reinstall windows

 

3 hours ago, yaint said:

Also, sometimes while playing games, my computer will freeze and then shut down

as this isnt an immideate shutdown i have my suspicions on instability mainly ram so also run memtest86 bootable to test rams, if it errors at xmp try with xmp off just to check for defective sticks

 

3 hours ago, yaint said:

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Cores
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterAir G100M RGB 22.63 CFM CPU Cooler 
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B360-F GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory

once the stability issues are solved as you seem to do more cpu intensive stuff than gpu intensive stuff id reccomend jumping to am5 and reselling all of these to add to the budget

 

for the cpu mobo and rams microcenter has a 7700x bundle for 400$ and a 9700x bundle for 450$ though id prefer the 9700x bundle

the 48gb for an extra 10$ i wouldnt take it due to the slow 5200 rating so itll be trash at stock and itll be trash at overclocking for future cpus that require faster ram

 

afaik worst 24gbit is micron atm that still hits ~7000 but there may still be an even worse ic while the hynix a die on the 32gb 6000c32 will do well over 9000 and should not hold future cpus back aside from maybe the apus thatll probably breach the 12000 mark this gen (current zen4 apus top out at ~11000 freq on air albiet stability at only ~8400) but who cares about those =p

 

if theres budget leftover which i suspect there will even 50$ ish paired with the resale price of your 2060 should still be enough to get you a used 5700xt or 6600xt that are equivalent to a gtx 1080 in performance, 100$ ish paired with gpu resale price you might even be able to upgrade to a 6700(xt) or 3070

[yaint]

On 10/2/2024 at 2:39 AM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

why?

even the psu tierlist says its b tier and 12v rail is 45.9a or 550w so it isnt below its advertised 550w at all

 

as for amazon reviews the 1 and 2 star ratings were ppl that got lemons/DOA aside from that one guy complaining about the colour of the pcie power cable with the 3 star reviews highlighting noise issues though 4 and 5 star reviews make up 82% of the reviews so it should still be a decent unit

 

what does cpu gpu and ram usage look like in games? storage utilization via taskmanager might also be helpful

 

kinda sounds like your windows install is cooked and you need to reinstall windows

 

as this isnt an immideate shutdown i have my suspicions on instability mainly ram so also run memtest86 bootable to test rams, if it errors at xmp try with xmp off just to check for defective sticks

 

once the stability issues are solved as you seem to do more cpu intensive stuff than gpu intensive stuff id reccomend jumping to am5 and reselling all of these to add to the budget

 

for the cpu mobo and rams microcenter has a 7700x bundle for 400$ and a 9700x bundle for 450$ though id prefer the 9700x bundle

the 48gb for an extra 10$ i wouldnt take it due to the slow 5200 rating so itll be trash at stock and itll be trash at overclocking for future cpus that require faster ram

 

afaik worst 24gbit is micron atm that still hits ~7000 but there may still be an even worse ic while the hynix a die on the 32gb 6000c32 will do well over 9000 and should not hold future cpus back aside from maybe the apus thatll probably breach the 12000 mark this gen (current zen4 apus top out at ~11000 freq on air albiet stability at only ~8400) but who cares about those =p

 

if theres budget leftover which i suspect there will even 50$ ish paired with the resale price of your 2060 should still be enough to get you a used 5700xt or 6600xt that are equivalent to a gtx 1080 in performance, 100$ ish paired with gpu resale price you might even be able to upgrade to a 6700(xt) or 3070

Thank you for the in depth reply.

 

I’ve been using this computer with XMP on for years (6+). I didn’t used to have issues like this, started probably a year or two ago. I turned it off though and will see if it makes a difference. My CPU usage while gaming is always 90% or more. Sitting at 65%+ just on the desktop with Discord and Spotify open. 
 

In the game The Finals during launch my CPU is at 100% utilization, RAM is at 58% and my GPU is at 18%. Once in the main menu it is 100%, 77%, and 65% respectively. I’ve crashed multiple times attempting to get into the game and when I do get the chance to load it it runs smooth until it lags then goes again until eventually I do something in the match where the game freezes and crashes.