Upgrade CPU/RAM/Motherboard or GPU first?

[StevieM]

Hi, basically as the title says. I'm going to do both but unsure which would be best to do first as there will probably be a fair few months between upgrades, my current system is,

i5 4460
8GB RAM
GTX 1060 6GB

I'm considering a GTX 1070ti or a GTX 2060, price dependent (Seems I could get either for around the same cost, so whatever is the better option), for the GPU upgrade.

For the CPU I'd be looking at Ryzen 5 2600 or 2600X most likely, which would mean a new motherboard and RAM (I'd also go from 8gb to 16gb here).

Currently using a 1440p/60hz as my main monitor so ideally I'd like to play on that at 60fps.

Just looking to gather some opinions on what people think would be the best way forward, thanks.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

id go rtx 2060 , slap up an overlay to see how CPU to GPU usage is .

games like BFV would hit that cpu hard, specially when you cant overclock it but least you'll get a feel for how your system is doing . then Ryzen 3*** is June with B550 boards hitting mid wa through Q3 if i remember correctly. plenty of time to save up if you see some bottlenecks

 

[4K8KW10]

Hi, basically as the title says. I'm going to do both but unsure which would be best to do first as there will probably be a fair few months between upgrades, my current system is,

i5 4460
8GB RAM
GTX 1060 6GB

I'm considering a GTX 1070ti or a GTX 2060, price dependent (Seems I could get either for around the same cost, so whatever is the better option), for the GPU upgrade.

For the CPU I'd be looking at Ryzen 5 2600 or 2600X most likely, which would mean a new motherboard and RAM (I'd also go from 8gb to 16gb here).

Currently using a 1440p/60hz as my main monitor so ideally I'd like to play on that at 60fps.

Just looking to gather some opinions on what people think would be the best way forward, thanks.

Hi,

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £109.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £158.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £134.99

Total: £414.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)​

​

And go with an AMD GPU together with the AMD CPU.

 

[StevieM]

id go rtx 2060 , slap up an overlay to see how CPU to GPU usage is .

games like BFV would hit that cpu hard, specially when you cant overclock it but least you'll get a feel for how your system is doing . then Ryzen 3*** is June with B550 boards hitting mid wa through Q3 if i remember correctly. plenty of time to save up if you see some bottlenecks

Thanks for the reply. I was leaning towards GPU first due to Ryzen 3 but was unsure of the timeframe.

So even at around the same price would you go with a 2060 over a 1070ti then? I was just concerned that at 1440p I may run into issues with the 6gb the 2060 has, but I admit I don't really know much about this kinda stuff.

Hi,

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £109.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £158.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £134.99

Total: £414.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

And go with an AMD GPU together with the AMD CPU.

Thanks for the reply, is there a benefit of matching an AMD CPU with an AMD GPU? Also what would be the AMD equivalent to a gtx 1070ti or 2060?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

currently most games on average dont go over 4GB VRam , specially at 1440p. ones that do are 4k or have damn good texture packs .

heard ray tracing does eat some Vram though .

going AMD then Vega 64 for £400 - benefit is Freesync monitors are cheaper- but not nvidia cards can work on adaptive-sync monitors ( basically freesync standard)

does eat more power then RTX/GTX cards at its downfall but ages well

 

[4K8KW10]

Thanks for the reply, is there a benefit of matching an AMD CPU with an AMD GPU? Also what would be the AMD equivalent to a gtx 1070ti or 2060?

Well, the idea of matching Ryzen with Radeon is to avoid all possible compatibility concerns which can arise if you install a GeForce on the Ryzen platform.

In response to all the people saying "oh there's no problem", it may be worth doing a bit of research first before claiming no such issue exists For those interested, look at either AdoredTV's video on Rise of the Tomb Raider, Hardware Unboxed's Video on Ryzen and AMD vs Nvidia Graphics cards, or (my personal favourite) NerdTechGasm's video on AMD vs Nvidia's drivers. Essentially, the reasoning behind the issue (it is game and API dependent) is a multi-threading feature built into Nvidia's GPU driver that may end up exacerbating cross CCX delays in CPU-bound scenarios. It's actually a really interesting topic. As for whether it should dictate your purchasing decision, OP, it's likely too early to tell. If Nvidia's drivers are to blame, there's no telling what the timeline will be regarding fixes, so you may just want to look at the benches outlined and decide whether the performance hit matters to you. Another option if you were considering AMD alternatives to the 1070 is waiting for the RX 500 series. I'm not too well versed on how these are supposed to perform, but a poster on PCgaming just posted a picture after apparenty obtaining an RX 570 early, so the cards are likely to be released imminently. Hopefully this helps.

There have been some reported issues with NV GPUs and Ryzen on DX12. It probably won't last but it is there on some titles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/652doh/is_it_bad_to_get_ryzen_with_nvidia_gpu/

The equivalent is RX Vega 64.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX VEGA 64 Nitro+ 8GB HBM2 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £419.99

Total: £429.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)
​

In the past, I have seen compatibility issues of using Radeon together with Athlon 64. But back then, nvidia used to be a closer partner to AMD than ATi Technologies were. AMD even wanted to buy nvidia but nvidia's CEO had too many requirements...

 

[Deleted member 209350]

upgrade GPU now I think, see how the cpu/ram handles that. If it handles it ok, then bare with it for a couple of months until the release of the Ryzen 3000 series chips. If it handles it well then you're good to go. and it it handles it poorly then you'll have to probably upgrade the rest as well, but it could be costly

 

[MaXxBoulton]

GPU you have is up to gaming and the non overclock CPU you have will be starting to tow its ass.
CPU/Mobo/RAM is what you need to upgrade first

 

[KungFuSpaghetti]

I'd personally just keep saving for now, with Ryzen 3000 around the corner it's not a good time to upgrade, wait a little then you'll have more choice and the older Ryzen models will likely drop in price as well as Intel in reaction to AMD's pricing. As for the GPU, a 2060 just underwhelms me, it's basically no quicker than a 1070ti and I'd certainly not be paying £350-400 for 2 year old performance. 1070ti/2060 is a fair chunk faster than a 1060, but I think shelling out all that money the jump in performance would be borderline disappointing at this stage.