upgrade cpu or gpu?

[jonobang]

Currently have a i7 2600 cpu which turbo boosted runs up to around 3.7-3.8 ghz on average, and my gpu is a r9 390 sapphire nitro 8G vram, im thinking for gaming performance it would probably be more efficient to upgrade to a 1080ti or something for raw performance but my CPU is pretty old, the motherboard and ram has been replanced but ive carried this CPU over many times and is pretty old. What do you guys think?

[bleedblue]

Depends, what games do you play?

[GoldenLag]

GPU is the clear upgrade. 

 

though i would probably drop to a 1080 or Vega 64. keep the surplus towards a new CPU, mobo, RAM combo

 

r5 2600+ B450 Tomahawk + Ram

[jonobang]

Just now, bleedblue said:

Depends, what games do you play?

Many things, I play anything from indie titles to lately ive been playing assassins creed odyssey and anything in between. GTA 5, arma 3 etc etc. 

[jonobang]

3 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

GPU is the clear upgrade. 

 

though i would probably drop to a 1080 or Vega 64. keep the surplus towards a new CPU, mobo, RAM combo

 

r5 2600+ B450 Tomahawk + Ram

would i see much of a performance boost from a standard 1080 or vega 64 vs what i currently have? all of them have 8 gigs of vram and i know there is more to that but i know ill be getting enough for a 1080ti and i think i would probably see a much larger boost in performance from a card with 11 gigs of ddr5 vram, also i should note im gonna be done with amd cards, i love the price point for the most part but the software and drivers in my opinion have been awful to me.

[Cereal5]

4 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

GPU is the clear upgrade. 

 

though i would probably drop to a 1080 or Vega 64. keep the surplus towards a new CPU, mobo, RAM combo

 

r5 2600+ B450 Tomahawk + Ram

^ That seems pretty solid to me. The used market for GTX 1080s is priced really well right now, I'd encourage you to look into that

[Cereal5]

Just now, jonobang said:

would i see much of a performance boost from a standard 1080 or vega 64 vs what i currently have? all of them have 8 gigs of vram and i know there is more to that but i know ill be getting enough for a 1080ti and i think i would probably see a much larger boost in performance from a card with 11 gigs of ddr5 vram, also i should note im gonna be done with amd cards, i love the price point for the most part but the software and drivers in my opinion have been awful to me.

Vram matters very little in terms of performance. The only thing it contributes to is if you need more. The 390 is a fairly old card, and while still good, doesn't hold a candle to today's cards

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, jonobang said:

would i see much of a performance boost from a standard 1080 or vega 64 vs what i currently have? all of them have 8 gigs of vram and i know there is more to that but i know ill be getting enough for a 1080ti and i think i would probably see a much larger boost in performance from a card with 11 gigs of ddr5 vram, also i should note im gonna be done with amd cards, i love the price point for the most part but the software and drivers in my opinion have been awful to me.

oh, im just dropping in suggestions at the same price point.

 

1080 is roughly 90% faster than the 390

1080ti is roughly 132% faster than the 390

 

you are due a CPU upgrade very soon. and if you only play at 1080p there isnt a good incentive to go for the 1080ti

[jonobang]

2 minutes ago, Cereal5 said:

Vram matters very little in terms of performance. The only thing it contributes to is if you need more. The 390 is a fairly old card, and while still good, doesn't hold a candle to today's cards

so im guessing it matters less the amount and more to the type? like ddr4 vs ddr5 and such? and would the gpu cause a larger bump in performance vs the cpu?

[jonobang]

1 minute ago, GoldenLag said:

oh, im just dropping in suggestions at the same price point.

 

1080 is roughly 90% faster than the 390

1080ti is roughly 132% faster than the 390

 

you are due a CPU upgrade very soon. and if you only play at 1080p there isnt a good incentive to go for the 1080ti

that does make sense, and with the price drop (im looking at a budget of roughly $1200) that would allow me a lot of wiggle room for a new cpu/ram/mobo setup. 

[Cereal5]

4 minutes ago, jonobang said:

so im guessing it matters less the amount and more to the type? like ddr4 vs ddr5 and such? and would the gpu cause a larger bump in performance vs the cpu?

You're missing the point... Compare the GPU to a CPU, and VRAM to RAM. If you have 16GB of RAM, you can run pretty much anything a normal consumer would use. If you have 32GB of RAM, it doesn't make your CPU faster. It just gives you more RAM that you don't need. If you want to be faster, you upgrade the CPU. The same works in GPUs. Your R9 390 has 8GB of VRAM, but the graphical processor itself is rather slow. The GTX 1080 has 8GB of VRAM as well, but it has a much faster processor. That is what matters. The memory on the 1080 Ti is the same type as the 1080 (GDDR5X). Besides, you won't need more than 8GB unless you're playing shadow of mordor in 4k with ultra-overkill settings, in which case you'll probably only get 25 FPS anyways.

 

edit: what resolution do you play on?

[GoldenLag]

4 minutes ago, jonobang said:

that does make sense, and with the price drop (im looking at a budget of roughly $1200) that would allow me a lot of wiggle room for a new cpu/ram/mobo setup. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($103.13 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($124.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Gaming OC 11G  Video Card  ($704.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1172.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-17 03:03 EDT-0400

 

a lot of room

 

CPU, MOBO, and Ram

 

1080ti included and a new PSU because if you havent upgraded it i would get a new one just in case.

 

edit: would just get a 1080 instead.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/V4M323/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-1080-8gb-windforce-oc-8g-video-card-gv-n1080wf3oc-8gd

[jonobang]

1 minute ago, Cereal5 said:

You're missing the point... Compare the GPU to a CPU, and VRAM to RAM. If you have 16GB of RAM, you can run pretty much anything a normal consumer would use. If you have 32GB of RAM, it doesn't make your CPU faster. It just gives you more RAM that you don't need. If you want to be faster, you upgrade the CPU. The same works in GPUs. Your R9 390 has 8GB of VRAM, but the graphical processor itself is rather slow. The GTX 1080 has 8GB of VRAM as well, but it has a much faster processor. That is what matters. The memory on the 1080 Ti is the same type as the 1080 (GDDR5X). Besides, you won't need more than 8GB unless you're playing shadow of mordor in 4k with ultra-overkill settings, in which case you'll probably only get 25 FPS anyways.

 

edit: what resolution do you play on?

i play in 1080p with 60hz, nothing fancy, thinking about upgrading to 2k in the future but no nearby plans for 4k.

[Cereal5]

Just now, jonobang said:

i play in 1080p with 60hz, nothing fancy, thinking about upgrading to 2k in the future but no nearby plans for 4k.

To be honest you don't need to upgrade at all. If your plans are to upgrade to 1440p, then get a GTX 1080 and a monitor (don't forget those cost money also lol). I think you'll be much happier with that then upgrading your CPU and getting 5 more FPS than you don't even see because you only have a 1080p 60Hz monitor.

[jonobang]

2 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($103.13 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($124.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Gaming OC 11G  Video Card  ($704.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1172.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-17 03:03 EDT-0400

 

a lot of room

 

CPU, MOBO, and Ram

 

1080ti included and a new PSU because if you havent upgraded it i would get a new one just in case.

i got a 850 watt psu so im good there so if i downgrade to the 1080 non ti version and uninclude the psu andm aybe throw in a new case with the extra money, im looking at a decent build methinks.

[jonobang]

Just now, Cereal5 said:

To be honest you don't need to upgrade at all. If your plans are to upgrade to 1440p, then get a GTX 1080 and a monitor (don't forget those cost money also lol). I think you'll be much happier with that then upgrading your CPU and getting 5 more FPS than you don't even see because you only have a 1080p 60Hz monitor.

the only reason im looking into upgrading is because in some of the games i play i see dips to 30 or lower fps in games like witcher 3 and assassins creed odyssey. every other game i play runs great though for the most part usually in the 40-60 range so im not concerned there, most with A. futureproofing and B. making sure any game i run on my current monitor runs at 40-60, not just most.

[Cereal5]

Just now, jonobang said:

the only reason im looking into upgrading is because in some of the games i play i see dips to 30 or lower fps in games like witcher 3 and assassins creed odyssey. every other game i play runs great though for the most part usually in the 40-60 range so im not concerned there, most with A. futureproofing and B. making sure any game i run on my current monitor runs at 40-60, not just most.

Download MSI afterburner and watch your CPU and GPU usage. If your CPU reaches 80% or higher, then you are likely encountering a CPU bottleneck. If you're not, then that's just normal framing due to action on screen and such

[jonobang]

2 minutes ago, Cereal5 said:

Download MSI afterburner and watch your CPU and GPU usage. If your CPU reaches 80% or higher, then you are likely encountering a CPU bottleneck. If you're not, then that's just normal framing due to action on screen and such

well in my benchmarks for odyssey in particular my gpu was pretty much at a constant 100% and my cpu was around 40-50%

[voiha]

27 minutes ago, jonobang said:

Many things, I play anything from indie titles to lately ive been playing assassins creed odyssey and anything in between. GTA 5, arma 3 etc etc. 

How is your experience with AC:Odyssey ? Any 100% CPU Usage or other issues ?

Because I'm with i7 7700 and in AC:Origins I get 100% usage even with the latest patch.

[Cereal5]

1 minute ago, jonobang said:

well in my benchmarks for odyssey in particular my gpu was pretty much at a constant 100% and my cpu was around 40-50%

Then I would definite upgrade your GPU. And monitor if you want, like I said.

 

13 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($103.13 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($124.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Gaming OC 11G  Video Card  ($704.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1172.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-17 03:03 EDT-0400

 

a lot of room

 

CPU, MOBO, and Ram

 

1080ti included and a new PSU because if you havent upgraded it i would get a new one just in case.

 

edit: would just get a 1080 instead.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/V4M323/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-1080-8gb-windforce-oc-8g-video-card-gv-n1080wf3oc-8gd

However this is a really good upgrade path if you just want to do it all now. Like I said earlier you can get a used GTX 1080 for under $400 so that will save you $300 off that price, and if you don't need a PSU then that's another 100

[jonobang]

this is what im looking at utilization-wise in odyssey right now, around 60-70% cpu usage in benchmark and pretty much a constant 100% in gpu usage.

[grss1982]

10 hours ago, jonobang said:

Currently have a i7 2600 cpu which turbo boosted runs up to around 3.7-3.8 ghz on average, and my gpu is a r9 390 sapphire nitro 8G vram, im thinking for gaming performance it would probably be more efficient to upgrade to a 1080ti or something for raw performance but my CPU is pretty old, the motherboard and ram has been replanced but ive carried this CPU over many times and is pretty old. What do you guys think?

HardwareCanucks did a video on the difference between an 2600k and a 8700k being paired with a 1080 Ti.  Might want to check that out to get some ideas on performance numbers:

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=2600k 1080 ti canucks&qs=n&form=QBVR&sp=-1&pq=2600k 1080 ti ca&sc=0-16&sk=&cvid=868DD3D80613441FA69C35B287FB07B4