CPU or GPU upgrade

[Matthew_EWaring]

So I am planning on upgrading my pc but I am wondering on which to upgrade first. I have a 4690k and a 970 and I want to upgrade to a 1080 and possibly a ryzen cpu. Some people on forums say that the 4690k wont bottleneck the 1080 but then some say that it will do. The main function of the pc is games btw. My question is which would be the best to upgrade first?

[PCGuy_5960]

Upgrade your GPU first and then get a used 4790K (they are cheap on ebay right now)

[Matthew_EWaring]

2 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Upgrade your GPU first and then get a used 4790K (they are cheap on ebay right now)

Seems like the better idea, 4790k's are going for around £180 which seems pretty reasonable.

[PCGuy_5960]

10 minutes ago, Matthew_EWaring said:

Seems like the better idea, 4790k's are going for around £180 which seems pretty reasonable.

Yeah, it's almost as cheap as a 1500X and much better

[Matthew_EWaring]

Just now, PCGuy_5960 said:

Yeah, it's almost as cheap as a 1500X and much better

I was thinking about going for the 1600 but from reviews, the improvement is only slight

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, Matthew_EWaring said:

I was thinking about going for the 1600 but from reviews, the improvement is only slight

The 1600 is better, but if you are only gaming, the 4790K is 5-10% better than the 1600 and it is cheaper because you don't have to change your motherboard+RAM.

[Matthew_EWaring]

Just now, PCGuy_5960 said:

The 1600 is better, but if you are only gaming, the 4790K is 5-10% better than the 1600 and it is cheaper because you don't have to change your motherboard+RAM.

Yeah I was just thinking that so overall would be cheaper. I want to also get another 8GB of ram as it seems some games seem to crash from memory issues. 

[genexis_x]

Upgrade CPU first, will last longer than GPU

Get used i7/Xeon or upgrade to Ryzen

[Matthew_EWaring]

20 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Upgrade CPU first, will last longer than GPU

Get used i7/Xeon or upgrade to Ryzen

With my current rig, I feel that my 4690k is causing game stutter in gta and low performance in bf1. I was thinking about going for a 1600.

[JJVGaming]

3 hours ago, Matthew_EWaring said:

With my current rig, I feel that my 4690k is causing game stutter in gta and low performance in bf1. I was thinking about going for a 1600.

How much ram do you have? I found by upgrading to 16gb from 8gb the stuttering in GTA was completely gone. Also, I dont have bf1 but I think the recommended settings for ram is 16gb.

[Matthew_EWaring]

5 hours ago, JJVGaming said:

How much ram do you have? I found by upgrading to 16gb from 8gb the stuttering in GTA was completely gone. Also, I dont have bf1 but I think the recommended settings for ram is 16gb.

I have 8gb but yeah it seems to not be enough for some games

[aithos]

There is very little actual difference between the CPUs from the last several generations, if you have a Haswell or newer one then the only real benefit to going newer are platform improvements.  If it's a choice between upgrading MB/CPU or GPU then I'd go with the latter unless you can wait and do a whole new build at the same time.  Also, a lot of whether you bottleneck the CPU depends on the resolution you're gaming at.

[Matthew_EWaring]

2 hours ago, aithos said:

There is very little actual difference between the CPUs from the last several generations, if you have a Haswell or newer one then the only real benefit to going newer are platform improvements.  If it's a choice between upgrading MB/CPU or GPU then I'd go with the latter unless you can wait and do a whole new build at the same time.  Also, a lot of whether you bottleneck the CPU depends on the resolution you're gaming at.

I only play games at 1080p but I push most games for as much fps as I can since I have a 144Hz monitor

[aithos]

2 hours ago, Matthew_EWaring said:

I only play games at 1080p but I push most games for as much fps as I can since I have a 144Hz monitor

If you play at 1080p then that changes my answer, which is now: upgrade your monitor.  What you have now is more than sufficient to play any game on the market in 1080p with ultra settings without breaking a sweat.  If you have a 144hz monitor then it doesn't really do you any good to go above that, and you won't see any graphical improvement by upgrading either your GPU or your CPU.

 

What you should do then is get a 1440p IPS monitor with at least 120hz and ULMB.  I have the Asus PG279Q and consider it the all-around best gaming display on the market, it absolutely blows away everything else (it can go up to 165hz but ULMB is capped at 120hz and makes a MUCH bigger difference in quality/experience than the higher refresh rate).

 

Trust me.  Upgrade display, then GPU, then CPU.

[Matthew_EWaring]

21 minutes ago, aithos said:

If you play at 1080p then that changes my answer, which is now: upgrade your monitor.  What you have now is more than sufficient to play any game on the market in 1080p with ultra settings without breaking a sweat.  If you have a 144hz monitor then it doesn't really do you any good to go above that, and you won't see any graphical improvement by upgrading either your GPU or your CPU.

 

What you should do then is get a 1440p IPS monitor with at least 120hz and ULMB.  I have the Asus PG279Q and consider it the all-around best gaming display on the market, it absolutely blows away everything else (it can go up to 165hz but ULMB is capped at 120hz and makes a MUCH bigger difference in quality/experience than the higher refresh rate).

 

Trust me.  Upgrade display, then GPU, then CPU.

That is the thing, when I am trying to play games like bf1, GTA V etc, I would have to play them at normal quality just to stay above 60fps

[aithos]

9 minutes ago, Matthew_EWaring said:

That is the thing, when I am trying to play games like bf1, GTA V etc, I would have to play them at normal quality just to stay above 60fps

If you're struggling to play those games in 1080p above 60 fps with your specs then there is something else going on.  I'm running a 4770k and SLI 780ti's and I'm gaming in 1440p and have no problem at all maintaining well above 60fps even in modern AAA titles with very high settings at WORST.  In most games I easily hit 90+ fps consistently and in competitive games I'm usually 140+ fps.

[Matthew_EWaring]

Just now, aithos said:

If you're struggling to play those games in 1080p above 60 fps with your specs then there is something else going on.  I'm running a 4770k and SLI 780ti's and I'm gaming in 1440p and have no problem at all maintaining well above 60fps even in modern AAA titles with very high settings at WORST.

Yeah it started a while ago, im always careful on what I download and always run malware and anti virus checks but I dont know what the issue could be.