CPU upgrade?

Menthis · 27 Dec 2018 at 16:41

I've really fallen behind with technology.... Haven't had to upgrade for a while. I have a z170-E mobo. And want to upgrade my 6600 CPU. Budget of 300.. What's my best option? Would rather Intel over AMD but open to recommendations. Purely for gaming.
Nvidea GTX 1070.

Jason Scott · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:06

Amd all day long for that price - you need ram (100 for 16gb), motherboard (about 60-70) plus a Ryzen 2600 (about 140). An aftermarket cooler for another 25 is advised too

Menthis · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:53

I Have an Asus 170-E does this not take a CPU upgrade? with Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz

Devrij · 28 Dec 2018 at 00:19

Menthis said:
I Have an Asus 170-E does this not take a CPU upgrade? with Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz

Your only serious drop in option is a 6700K (circa £250). That'll add more threads to chew through cpu heavy tasks.

I have a couple questions before I rush you off to the shop to buy one though:

1. Have you overclocked your 6600(K?)

2. What makes you think you're cpu limited right now? Are there particular games where you aren't seeing 99% gpu usage and you're unhappy with inconsistent framerates/times?

3. What games do you usually play? Some newer games will benefit from the extra threads of a 6700K (4 physical, 8 logical), but you might actually benefit from a side grade to AMD where you could have 6 or 8 physical and double that in logical threads if those are the games you really love. That said, the majority of games are heavily dependent on clockspeed rather than thread count, so your chip would outperform a Ryzen 2xxx chip in those. That makes the 6700K a reasonable balance of adding more threads but keeping the clockspeed advantage (assuming you overclock).

Terrorfirmer · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:47

6700K is the best hassle free option with significant boost though the new price doesn't really make much sense.

Try get one cheap 2nd hand.

If you were going to drop £250 on a new 6700K you might as well just get a Ryzen 2600X + B450M for the same price and sell your old CPU and board.

The 6600 would choke though on a lot of the latest games. Trying to play Battlefield online would be painful with framedrops.

Menthis · 19 Feb 2019 at 18:38

Devrij said:
Your only serious drop in option is a 6700K (circa £250). That'll add more threads to chew through cpu heavy tasks.

I have a couple questions before I rush you off to the shop to buy one though:

1. Have you overclocked your 6600(K?) It's slight overclocked Yes.

2. What makes you think you're cpu limited right now? Are there particular games where you aren't seeing 99% gpu usage and you're unhappy with inconsistent framerates/times? I currently do play a lot of Battlefield V and do see quite bad frame rate drops. I can only think it's the CPU just not keeping up.

3. What games do you usually play? Some newer games will benefit from the extra threads of a 6700K (4 physical, 8 logical), but you might actually benefit from a side grade to AMD where you could have 6 or 8 physical and double that in logical threads if those are the games you really love. That said, the majority of games are heavily dependent on clockspeed rather than thread count, so your chip would outperform a Ryzen 2xxx chip in those. That makes the 6700K a reasonable balance of adding more threads but keeping the clockspeed advantage (assuming you overclock).

Menthis · 19 Feb 2019 at 18:39

Terrorfirmer said:
6700K is the best hassle free option with significant boost though the new price doesn't really make much sense.

Try get one cheap 2nd hand.

If you were going to drop £250 on a new 6700K you might as well just get a Ryzen 2600X + B450M for the same price and sell your old CPU and board.

The 6600 would choke though on a lot of the latest games. Trying to play Battlefield online would be painful with framedrops.

Battlefield is the exact game i'm trying to play... it does choke a lot. frames are up and down and it's quite painful to play even on low settings. It sits around 100 but then drops down pretty low and then back up again.

EsaT · 19 Feb 2019 at 18:44

Might be all background stuff disrupting execution of game in many CPU cores.
Unless you've specifically limited what you install to your PC and allow to run at background, it's by now semi full of bloated crap.

tamzzy · 19 Feb 2019 at 18:46

your cpu is gonna get choked by BFV

for the purposes of the graph, your 6600k is basically equivalent to the 7600k

(sauce: https://www.techspot.com/review/1754-battlefield-5-cpu-multiplayer-bench/)

Menthis · 19 Feb 2019 at 21:03

Say i had £5-600 to spend what would be the suggestion? I have DDR4 ram, GTX 1070.

tamzzy · 19 Feb 2019 at 21:25

Menthis said:
Say i had £5-600 to spend what would be the suggestion? I have DDR4 ram, GTX 1070.

how much ram you have? 16gb is ideal currently. also depends on how likely you are to upgrade in the future.

assuming you already have 16gb ram and don't need to spend more on ram:

9900k is the best gaming chip currently
on the intel side - you have 9900k (8c16t) + mobo (£600)
or 9700k (8c8t) + z390 mobo. (£500)

AMD side is a bit more complicated, as ryzen 3000 is due to be released in the middle of the year.
supposedly have higher core count, and IPC should be matching intel equivalent, and 'cheaper' - but all rumours currently, so take with a pinch of salt.
thing with AMD ryzen is that it likes fast ram (3200mhz), if you have 2400mhz ram, you can 'lose' 5-10% FPS just by utilising the slower ram
but ryzen is much cheaper than the intel equivalent
2700x (8c16t) + b450 mobo (£430)
with the ryzen platform, you can upgrade, if you want to the ryzen 3000 chips later down the line. the platform is supported until 2020, unlike intel's where you have to change the mobo every couple generations.

Menthis · 19 Feb 2019 at 21:40

I do have 16GB of HyperX Fury DDR4 2666

I have always found Intel to be better imo, did replace an AMD years back with Intel. but i'm not up to speed with current tech. Just getting tired of fps jitter for newer games these days. Due an upgrade.

I've just realised as well i actually have a 6400, not a 6600.......

tamzzy · 19 Feb 2019 at 21:54

Menthis said:
have always found Intel to be better imo, did replace an AMD years back with Intel.

AMD has only come out from the dead a couple years ago, that's why.

Menthis · 20 Feb 2019 at 08:43

What's the recomended mobo if i was to go for the 9700K?

B1scu1T · 20 Feb 2019 at 08:50

Menthis said:
What's the recomended mobo if i was to go for the 9700K?

If you're going with a K, then you need to look at the Z390 boards, otherwise no overclocking is possible and you might as well go for non-K. Then you're looking at £100+ for a motherboard.

I would also recommend looking at AMD 2600 + B450 for the budget you have.

Menthis · 20 Feb 2019 at 11:42

B1scu1T said:
If you're going with a K, then you need to look at the Z390 boards, otherwise no overclocking is possible and you might as well go for non-K. Then you're looking at £100+ for a motherboard.

I would also recommend looking at AMD 2600 + B450 for the budget you have.

I have a slightly higher budget of 5-600 now so i think i'll go with the 9700k with mobo.