Anything here worth upgrading?

Relentless81 · 9 Oct 2019 at 18:38

Hi,

The itch has started, I wouldn't mind some more FPS in the games I play, I'm getting between 60/70 FPS at 1440P with a mix of high and medium settings at the moment but I feel like I'm missing out.

Current spec is -

Ryzen 2600X Default settings and Dark Rock (non pro) 4 Cooler
MSI B450 Pro Carbon
Team Group Dark Pro 3200 16GB
Vega 56 Pulse

In terms of CPU the usage always seems low during gaming, I'm not sure if upgrading to a 3600X would be worth it, is it worth buying a better cooler and OCing my current CPU? I bought the X version because I wasn't too fussed about OCing at the time but if its worth it I could invest in a better cooler and have a look into it however it does seem to hold its boost clocks quite well with the current cooler in the mid 60c's

GPU is a bit of a caveat because I dont want a nvidia GPU so the obvious choice is 5700XT but it seems a lot of people say its not worth the upgrade, my 56 sits at around 1600 in gaming and 950 memory I'm not sure how that compares to a stock 5700XT

Any other ideas other than turning settings down? Thats not an option BTW!

Thanks

Minibiker · 9 Oct 2019 at 18:42

Overclock the CPU I'm sure you'll get some gains from that, not mental gains but will help a tad...

Do you have an app to monitor temps?

Is your RAM running at its higher speed?

Relentless81 · 9 Oct 2019 at 18:55

Minibiker said:
Overclock the CPU I'm sure you'll get some gains from that, not mental gains but will help a tad...

Do you have an app to monitor temps?

Is your RAM running at its higher speed?

Not worth swapping out for a 3600 then? I would need to upgrade the cooler if I'm going to OC.

Yeah I have an app for temps etc and my RAM is running at XMP 3200 CAS16

Minibiker · 9 Oct 2019 at 19:40

Relentless81 said:
Not worth swapping out for a 3600 then? I would need to upgrade the cooler if I'm going to OC.

Yeah I have an app for temps etc and my RAM is running at XMP 3200 CAS16

I think it will be minimal difference between your CPU and the 3600... As you said before maybe a solid cooler and Overclock the 2600x

Relentless81 · 9 Oct 2019 at 20:03

Minibiker said:
I think it will be minimal difference between your CPU and the 3600... As you said before maybe a solid cooler and Overclock the 2600x

Yeah I've just been doing some reading and watching Youtube vids and an upgrade to 3600 seems pointless, in fact it confirmed the reason I went with the X in the first place and thats OC'ing is pretty pointless inc PBO

I might invest in a better cooler so XFR can do its thing a bit better and look into the 5700XT cost to change from current GPU

Minibiker · 9 Oct 2019 at 20:10

Relentless81 said:
Yeah I've just been doing some reading and watching Youtube vids and an upgrade to 3600 seems pointless, in fact it confirmed the reason I went with the X in the first place and thats OC'ing is pretty pointless inc PBO

I might invest in a better cooler so XFR can do its thing a bit better and look into the 5700XT cost to change from current GPU

Sounds like a good shout... The 5700XT is a slightly quicker GPU but has a higher power consumption around 225w compared to 180w (ish)

Relentless81 · 10 Oct 2019 at 07:45

Minibiker said:
Sounds like a good shout... The 5700XT is a slightly quicker GPU but has a higher power consumption around 225w compared to 180w (ish)

My Vega 56 pulls 250W at the moment according to Wattman

I did some more reading and the 5700XT appears to be 15 to 20% quicker so its all down to cost to change which I'll look into next

NovaKill4 · 10 Oct 2019 at 08:39

Relentless81 said:
I might invest in a better cooler so XFR can do its thing a bit better

Have you checked your temps? i would have thought the cooler you have would easily cool a 2600X with XFR enabled.

Relentless81 · 10 Oct 2019 at 10:58

NovaKill4 said:
Have you checked your temps? i would have thought the cooler you have would easily cool a 2600X with XFR enabled.

Yeah mid 60's and XFR is enabled and regularly hits the desires speeds but my cooler is the non pro Dark Rock 4 and a better cooler means it will those speeds more often for longer periods of time

Alan1969 · 10 Oct 2019 at 17:14

I liked the performance improvement that a 3600 gives that I have now bought two! (one with a x570 and the other for the wife with a B450 ITX).

I think that you will notice some general improvement (snappiness and reduced turn times, and faster disk clean-up etc) with a 3600 but not necessarily much higher FPS.

Another point to note is that you are getting 60-70 FPS at the moment - what refresh rate does your monitor do? If your monitor can only do 60 Hz like mine then your display wont go any faster than 60 FPS even if your GPU can send the message quicker.

A Vega56 is still a good GPU for 1440 (that's what I use).

Relentless81 · 10 Oct 2019 at 19:14

Alan1969 said:
Another point to note is that you are getting 60-70 FPS at the moment - what refresh rate does your monitor do?

Its 144hz which is why I feel like I'm missing out

Gray2233 · 10 Oct 2019 at 19:24

If your CPU usage is low you're not going to see much of an improvement by upgrading to a 3600, perhaps wait until the back end of November and see if the Black Friday sales make it a little more appealing to buy a new GPU and/or CPU?

I'd also say that overclocking Ryzen cpu's probably has less benefit than overclocking your RAM for the platform. Take a look at this:

https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ryzen-dram-calculator/

This should help you see how far you can push your RAM, play around a little and see if you can OC, and if so if you see gains in what you're playing. As I said, it's only a month and a bit until we see a decent sale hit, and obviously should you see something prior at a good price there's no harm in pulling the trigger. A 5700XT would probably be a good gain for you though, and given your low CPU usage it would probably be where you saw the best gains.

Out of interest, what resolution are you playing at, and which games are you playing?

If you want a better cooler I'd recommend the following:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Scythe SCMG-5PCGH Mugen 5 "PCGH Edition" CPU Cooler= £46.99

Total: £46.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)

My go-to used to be the Brocken 2 PCGH + AM4 Bracket as it could be had for around £25 in total, but OCUK no longer sell it. The Mugen 5 is a step up however, and well worth the investment given the performance it offers.

The Dark Rock 4 should be more than sufficient however, if you already own it I doubt you'll see much (if any) benefit from changing.

orbitalwalsh · 10 Oct 2019 at 20:35

Dark rock 4 is a damn good cooler ^^^^ and seems OP already using it .

Wait till Zen3 rocks out next year

.

Relentless81 · 10 Oct 2019 at 21:06

I'm playing at 1440p and mostly play Hunt Showdown and also currently playing Hellblade

@orbitalwalsh it's the non Pro Dark Rock 4, do you think it's still worth upgrading with it being the non Pro?

I'm not a fan of silver coolers, has to be black unfortunately

Yeah CPU I'll wait for the 2020 refresh, I might see what kind of prices the 5700XT Nitro are in November

tamzzy · 10 Oct 2019 at 21:25

Relentless81 said:
do you think it's still worth upgrading with it being the non Pro?

no. totally not worth the money.
not sure why you're getting advice to upgrade your cpu cooler. the dark rock 4 is decent enough...and more than sufficient for a 2600.
you're not running the stock ryzen cooler (which is decent enough to begin with anyhow)

Relentless81 said:
I might see what kind of prices the 5700XT Nitro are in November

5700xt is only a 30-35% step up from a vega56 (less if you tweaked your vega56 - probably more in the range of 15-25%)
not worth the outlay imo

same with the 2600 to 3600 upgrade path...

skip to 30mins for the tl;dr bit.
(i know it's the -x versions, but the performance compared to the non-x versions are close enough to make the comparisons valid)
basically it's a 14% jump from 2600 to 3600, again not worth the outlay imo

sensible advice would be to keep your current config as is, until there is something of value to upgrade to.
the best gains without spending a penny, would be to tweak the ram timings and try to get it down to 3200c14 with tight secondaries (hopefully shouldn't be too difficult seeing as you bought 3200c16 ram)

orbitalwalsh · 11 Oct 2019 at 07:12

As above Rock 4 is a best, slap on another fan when you upgrade core count in the future

orbitalwalsh · 11 Oct 2019 at 07:12

As above Rock 4 is a best, slap on another fan when you upgrade core count in the future

Relentless81 · 11 Oct 2019 at 12:21

Cheers for talking some sense into me, I might just add another fan now for the crack and add matching case fans maybe to scratch the itch and see what 2020 brings regards CPU's and GPU's

I'll have a read into getting C16 down to C14 too and give that video a watch later

tamzzy · 11 Oct 2019 at 13:05

Relentless81 said:
I might just add another fan now for the crack and add matching case fans maybe to scratch the itch

depending on what case and what fans you already have, that might be a waste of money as well

Relentless81 · 11 Oct 2019 at 15:04

tamzzy said:
depending on what case and what fans you already have, that might be a waste of money as well

Its a Meshify C with with Arctic P Series fans which I'm not particularly fond of, they look cheap (They were) and although they are very quiet up to a certain RPM they get very loud after it

What fans do you have?