Upgrade CPU Only or CPU & GPU?

[JacSamuel]

Six months prior to this post, I built my first gaming PC with these parts listed on pcpartpicker:

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/JacSamuel/saved/vQn8TW

 

I'm finally ready to upgrade one or two things (CPU or CPU & GPU). I have a plan to upgrade from my Pentium G3258 to an i5 4460 (simply because I don't ever wish to overclock and do not feel like switching out MOBOs) and keeping my r9 280 and let a little more time pass before upgrading. However, I also have a plan to, along with buying the i5, purchase a GTX 970, but after doing some research I found it might not be best for me to do that with my current Corsair 430M PSU. Thus meaning that I would also be required to purchase a new PSU to power the upgrade.

 

My dilemma is whether to spend less money now and purchase just the CPU, or to also get the GPU and a PSU to power it. The main goal is more performance and FPS for games like DA:Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, AC Unity, The Crew, Far Cry 4, and more to come at high, if not ultra, settings.

 

I'm hoping that someone can help me figure out if upgrading the CPU to an i5 would allow me to gain more performance out of my rig or would it be best to just shovel out the money now for the other parts as well? Keep in mind that I'm not an overclocker at all and don't plan to be (part of the reason I'm buying a lock CPU), so my Pentium and r9 280 are running at stock speeds (relevant to the state in which I purchased them). If I were to buy only the CPU, the time I would wait before another upgrade will be another six months.

 

Thank you in advance for your help. It is greatly appreciated,

JacSamuel

[Gofspar]

CPU, that GPU is fine.

 

TIP: OC the 280 to the moon.

[i_build_nanosuits]

the pentium is your limiting factor when it comes to gaming, i'd get a i5-4460 or i5-4590 depending on the pricing, right now the i5-4590 is only 8$ more so i'd go with that one.

[soaringchicken]

You could go with the cpu upgrade and the 970, due to the 970's excellent power consumption I believe you would be able to make do for a while until you have the money to buy a new psu

[s3ns3]

400w is plenty for i5 4460 + gtx 970 

[i_build_nanosuits]

400w is plenty for i5 4460 + gtx 970 

it's not what i would call ''plenty'' but it's defenetly ''enough''.

[JacSamuel]

WOW!!! I walked away for a few mintes and already so many replies. Thank you all. I value your answers greatly.

[Guest]

the pentium is your limiting factor when it comes to gaming, i'd get a i5-4460 or i5-4590 depending on the pricing, right now the i5-4590 is only 8$ more so i'd go with that one.

Is it? This video shows that it doesn't really effect performance all that much at the moment:  (albeit it will start to limit in future games as it's only duo core. Easy to upgrade though)

[s3ns3]

it's not what i would call ''plenty'' but it's defenetly ''enough''.

well its enough then

[i_build_nanosuits]

Is it? This video shows that it doesn't really effect performance all that much at the moment:  (albeit it will start to limit in future games as it's only duo core. Easy to upgrade though)

 

these tests are flawed in many ways

1- he focused on the average framerates but look at the minimums...this is what matters the most and they are VERY low with the pentium and from my experience there is also a lot of stuttering and frametime variances with such a CPU in many games

2- it's a simulated dual core on X99 with DDR4 and ton of cache...linus made another video in which he clearly stated that the simulated g3258 performed significantly better than the real 3258

 

here is my video of a simulated g3258 running at 4.5ghz...this still perform a little better due to the i7 having more cache but at least it's on z87 and DDR3 so it's much closer to the real one.

look at the stuttering, heratic framerates and low GPU loads...this CPU is clearly not up to the task for such demanding games:

 

the average FPS if i would have mesured them would probably be not too bad...but the actual gaming experience left a lot to be desired to say the least.

the OP has a good GPU for 1080p gaming and for the games he mentionned being interested in playing his CPU is clearly the limiting factor to smooth gameplay.

He said: DA:Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, AC Unity, The Crew, Far Cry 4 and those are amongst the most CPU intensive games available and they all use 6 to 8 cpu threads except SoM which use only 4...but still he would benefit A LOT from a better CPU in such games that's a given and that is something that i have personaly tested countless time just look at my youtube channel you,ll realise that i love to mess around with CPU's and what not.

[Guest]

these tests are flawed in many ways

1- he focused on the average framerates but look at the minimums...this is what matters the most and they are VERY low with the pentium and from my experience there is also a lot of stuttering and frametime variances with such a CPU in many games

2- it's a simulated dual core on X99 with DDR4 and ton of cache...linus made another video in which he clearly stated that the simulated g3258 performed significantly better than the real 3258

 

here is my video of a simulated g3258 running at 4.5ghz...look at the stuttering, heratic framerates and low GPU loads...this CPU is clearly not up to the task for such demanding games:

Ah I guess that makes sense then,I thought it was impossible for a duo core to perform so well, thanks for pointing that out

[i_build_nanosuits]

Ah I guess that makes sense then,I thought it was impossible for a duo core to perform so well, thanks for pointing that out

in SOME games it does perform very well and on par with higher end parts...most of these games are MMO's and RTS or indie games built on older game engine that won,t make good use of more CPU threads, or games that are just not CPU intensive at all such as tomb raider for example.

[SteveGrabowski]

I would upgrade the CPU and wait at least for the R9 300 series before you consider a GPU upgrade. Since you already have the G3258, you can upgrade the BIOS if needed for a Haswell Refresh CPU (you can see your current BIOS version from the Mainboard tab in CPU-Z). I'd go with the Xeon E3-1231v3 since it has a good clockspeed (3.4GHz base / 3.8GHz turbo) and hyperthreading for a good price ($252 at newegg). Hyperthreading does nothing for the vast majority of games out right now, but there are a couple, namely Battlefield 4 and Dragon Age Inquisitions, that get a very large boost from it. Most newer games seem to get a little boost out of HT, but not much so far. If that's too expensive though the i5-4590 is a good deal at $200 for 3.3 GHz base / 3.7 GHz turbo. Of course the i5 4440 at $165 for 3.1 GHz base / 3.3 GHz turbo is probably the best bang for your buck processor on the market now, but if you only go for CPU right now it might make sense to go for one of the more premium Haswells I mentioned before.

[i_build_nanosuits]

I would upgrade the CPU and wait at least for the R9 300 series before you consider a GPU upgrade. Since you already have the G3258, you can upgrade the BIOS if needed for a Haswell Refresh CPU (you can see your current BIOS version from the Mainboard tab in CPU-Z). I'd go with the Xeon E3-1231v3 since it has a good clockspeed (3.4GHz base / 3.8GHz turbo) and hyperthreading for a good price ($252 at newegg). Hyperthreading does nothing for the vast majority of games out right now, but there are a couple, namely Battlefield 4 and Dragon Age Inquisitions, that get a very large boost from it. Most newer games seem to get a little boost out of HT, but not much so far. If that's too expensive though the i5-4590 is a good deal at $200 for 3.3 GHz base / 3.7 GHz turbo. Of course the i5 4440 at $165 for 3.1 GHz base / 3.3 GHz turbo is probably the best bang for your buck processor on the market now, but if you only go for CPU right now it might make sense to go for one of the more premium Haswells I mentioned before.

i5-4440 it is, 169$ free shipping at ncix:

http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=89861&vpn=BX80646I54440&manufacture=Intel&promoid=1368

 

OP if you happen to leave near a micro-center you could get this 4590 for 159$ (in store pick-up) that of course is a VERY good deal:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/432161/Core_i5-4590_37GHz_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor

[SteveGrabowski]

Wow, I didn't see you were running that Pentium at stock. Any Haswell i5 will offer an enormous improvement in gaming over a heavily overclocked G3258 (e.g., 4.7GHz), much less a stock one at 3.2GHz. My Xeon recommendation is only for future proofing because I expect most games to eventually be optimized for the octacore consoles and given lazy ports to PC that won't be optimized for our strong quadcores. An overclocked G3258 can't really push an R9 280, but an i5 or better combined with an R9 280 gives a hell of a powerful gaming system that should be great for playing all the games you list on High or better. Well, except AC Unity, whose settings you'll have to mess with, as it's extremely demanding.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Wow, I didn't see you were running that Pentium at stock. Any Haswell i5 will offer an enormous improvement in gaming over a heavily overclocked G3258 (e.g., 4.7GHz), much less a stock one at 3.2GHz. My Xeon recommendation is only for future proofing because I expect most games to eventually be optimized for the octacore consoles and given lazy ports to PC that won't be optimized for our strong quadcores. An overclocked G3258 can't really push an R9 280, but an i5 or better combined with an R9 280 gives a hell of a powerful gaming system.

of course if he could push for a xeon or an i7 it could be worth it in the long run but since he is obviously on a tight budget here i would shoot for a core i5 as that will most likely allow him to upgrade to a stronger GPU sooner...and as far as i know even a locked i5 will be able to feed up as much as an overclocked GTX980 in most games without limiting the performance too much so it's already a pretty big step-up for im IMHO.

[SteveGrabowski]

of course if he could push for a xeon or an i7 it could be worth it in the long run but since he is obviously on a tight budget here i would shoot for a core i5 as that will most likely allow him to upgrade to a stronger GPU sooner...and as far as i know even a locked i5 will be able to feed up as much as an overclocked GTX980 in most games without limiting the performance too much so it's already a pretty big step-up for im IMHO.

 

I wouldn't be in such a rush to upgrade the GPU though. I don't think the OP has gotten an appreciation for how good a GPU the R9 280 is because the Pentium just cripples the hell out of it.

[i_build_nanosuits]

I wouldn't be in such a rush to upgrade the GPU though. I don't think the OP has gotten an appreciation for how good a GPU the R9 280 is because the Pentium just cripples the hell out of it.

no absolutely i totaly agree with you i owned an HD7950 prior to my GTX780 and for 1080p gaming it's a good card still.

[SteveGrabowski]

Just to explain nanosuit's comment if you don't know @JacSamuel, R9 280 = HD 7950 Boost.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Just to explain nanosuit's comment if you don't know @JacSamuel, R9 280 = HD 7950 Boost.

correct lol i should have been more specific...and mine was not even a boost...just regular and i was nearly maxing out BF4 at 1080p...in fact i was running ultra without much anti-aliasing though if i remember correctly and i was getting 60FPS+ (i'm competitive at BF4 so i can't stand drop bellow 60FPS.

[JacSamuel]

Thanks @SteveGrabowski and @i_build_nanosuits. Yeah, I'm still pretty fresh to the PC scene as I built that system so it would be $500 USD allowing me to buy the other parts of my setup. To tell the truth, I knew it wasn't a grand CPU, but when I finally downloaded some games, I was blown away that I could even hold 35+ FPS in games at max settings.

 

I think I'll go with the 4590 since I just noticed there's two MicroCenter locations 25 minutes from me. However, in three years that I've been admiring PC gaming from afar, I still haven't learned much about Xeon processors. If anyone has some good info or decent articles about them, would you be so kind as to post them here. If I can become educated about the Xeon, I might check it out instead. Again thank you all so far for bringing so many answers before the day was over for me. 

[SteveGrabowski]

Thanks @SteveGrabowski and @i_build_nanosuits. Yeah, I'm still pretty fresh to the PC scene as I built that system so it would be $500 USD allowing me to buy the other parts of my setup. To tell the truth, I knew it wasn't a grand CPU, but when I finally downloaded some games, I was blown away that I could even hold 35+ FPS in games at max settings.

 

I think I'll go with the 4590 since I just noticed there's two MicroCenter locations 25 minutes from me. However, in three years that I've been admiring PC gaming from afar, I still haven't learned much about Xeon processors. If anyone has some good info or decent articles about them, would you be so kind as to post them here. If I can become educated about the Xeon, I might check it out instead. Again thank you all so far for bringing so many answers before the day was over for me. 

 

The Xeon E3 1230v3 and above have hyperthreading, as do the i7's. Hyperthreading just gives a way for a quadcore to act like an octacore, a hexacore to act like a 12-core, and so on. It offers a lot of performance gains for servers or for video editing, for the most part not a lot for gaming. I just created a thread talking about it the other day, located here:

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/283004-so-how-much-does-hyperthreading-matter-for-gaming/

 

Hyperthreading just mainly helps increase utilization of the CPUs cores. So if one thread on a core is waiting for a piece of data to be retrieved from RAM, the other thread on the core can start executing and getting productive computation done. Without hyperthreading that core would just have to wait for the data to be fetched from RAM, and do nothing until it gets it. So hyperthreading doesn't give the same level of performance as doubling your cores does. But it can give up to 30% or so better performance for certain workloads.

 

I found it offered very substantial gains in a couple of games, but minimal gains (and sometimes small losses) in average framerates for most recent games I'm interested in. But these two games are pretty recent, and by buying a Xeon I made a bet that games are going to be written for more cores in the future, as the XB1 and PS4 consoles are octacores and PC gamers often get lousy ports optimized for the consoles, not for our hardware. Future proofing is a great way to waste money since we don't really know what's coming, but I figured I'd spend the extra $50 and get the safer bet since it wasn't going to come out of my GPU budget (there is nothing $50 better than a GTX 970). Time will tell whether it was a waste or not, but it was only $50 for me versus say $400 or so had I bought into Haswell-E for the purposes of future proofing.

 

Xeon E3's are basically i5's and i7's with a couple of features added and taken out, and they are marketed for lower end servers at pretty nice prices. Xeon E5's are much more expensive and targeted at servers and workstations, and are weaker than i3/i5/i7/Xeon E3 for gaming. But they're way better for servers, video editing, and the like.

 

Core i5 is definitely the sweet spot for gaming performance for your money right now, and your i5-4590 should be a great gaming CPU for a few years. It will remove so much of the stutter you get gaming on a G3258 at high or ultra. Just make sure your BIOS is new enough to install the i5 before you remove your Pentium.

[SteveGrabowski]

I was surprised BF4 and DAI showed such enormous gains in framerate from HT when CPU bound though. And then you see enormous gains in playability from HT in the 2 core / 4 thread i3 vs the 2 core / 2 thread Pentium (even when the Pentium has 1GHz higher clock speed), which makes me think HT could again be useful if the 4C barrier gets crossed in the lifetime of my CPU just like the 2C barrier did in the last couple of years. But like I said in the last post, it's a big guess that people have been wondering about every year since maybe 2011 or so. 

[JacSamuel]

The Xeon E3 1230v3 and above have hyperthreading, as do the i7's. Hyperthreading just gives a way for a quadcore to act like an octacore, a hexacore to act like a 12-core, and so on. It offers a lot of performance gains for servers or for video editing, for the most part not a lot for gaming. I just created a thread talking about it the other day, located here:

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/283004-so-how-much-does-hyperthreading-matter-for-gaming/

 

Hyperthreading just mainly helps increase utilization of the CPUs cores. So if one thread on a core is waiting for a piece of data to be retrieved from RAM, the other thread on the core can start executing and getting productive computation done. Without hyperthreading that core would just have to wait for the data to be fetched from RAM, and do nothing until it gets it. So hyperthreading doesn't give the same level of performance as doubling your cores does. But it can give up to 30% or so better performance for certain workloads.

 

I found it offered very substantial gains in a couple of games, but minimal gains (and sometimes small losses) in average framerates for most recent games I'm interested in. But these two games are pretty recent, and by buying a Xeon I made a bet that games are going to be written for more cores in the future, as the XB1 and PS4 consoles are octacores and PC gamers often get lousy ports optimized for the consoles, not for our hardware. Future proofing is a great way to waste money since we don't really know what's coming, but I figured I'd spend the extra $50 and get the safer bet since it wasn't going to come out of my GPU budget (there is nothing $50 better than a GTX 970). Time will tell whether it was a waste or not, but it was only $50 for me versus say $400 or so had I bought into Haswell-E for the purposes of future proofing.

 

Xeon E3's are basically i5's and i7's with a couple of features added and taken out, and they are marketed for lower end servers at pretty nice prices. Xeon E5's are much more expensive and targeted at servers and workstations, and are weaker than i3/i5/i7/Xeon E3 for gaming. But they're way better for servers, video editing, and the like.

 

Core i5 is definitely the sweet spot for gaming performance for your money right now, and your i5-4590 should be a great gaming CPU for a few years. It will remove so much of the stutter you get gaming on a G3258 at high or ultra. Just make sure your BIOS is new enough to install the i5 before you remove your Pentium.

 

That's pretty cool. I see what you mean about the "bet". I'll check into it myself too, but for now I'll go with the i5 you recommended. Thanks for the link.