Budget upgrade for CS2

[viceverca]

Hi everyone, first post on here on well over a decade! I've started using my PC again for Counter Strike after about 5 or so years. I've got an Xbox Series S for everyday gaming so this is only for CS2. I'm getting constant stuttering, freezing and general game crashes every hour or so whilst playing. Temps on CPU and GPU are all seem reasonable, so I'm not sure if its a driver issue as the 280x is on legacy drivers from 2022. I'm looking for opinions /options on potential cheap upgrades that would allow me to keep playing without having to get a whole new system. My thoughts where newer GPU that has supported drivers, upgrade RAM or CPU? I only play for maybe 8 hours a week don't want to have to get a full system if I can help it.

Current PC was bought from OC in 2013, "Cobolt Prodigy":
BitFenix Prodigy 'Tempest' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Blue/Black
Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s
HD-257-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
VTX3D Radeon R9 280X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor -
MSI Z87I Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU)
HS-014-CS Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Corsair CS650M PSU

Any help or opinions would be great! Thanks!

 

[Tetras]

There are benchmarks on YouTube (GamersNexus) for CPU and for GPU and pretty much everything in their benchmarks ran it above 60 fps average @ 1080p.

If I look at what your card is equivalent to, then CS2 should be playable, though as you say, it could be degraded performance due to using such an old card.

I can't find any videos using the 4670, but I can find videos with a 4770 and that appeared to be fine. What is memory usage like while you're playing?

Brand new: I wouldn't bother buying better than a RX 6600 for this game and I wouldn't want to buy a lower card like the 6500, because they're more limited on older PCI-E boards and don't do very well with more demanding AAA games.

 

[viceverca]

Thanks for the reply. Haven't looked at memory usage when playing but I did notice that its sitting at ~4gb just idling with windows 10 running. I'll see if I can get some used 16gb DDR3 from somewhere and see if that helps.

GPU wise the RX6600 new probably out of budget but will see if I can find something similar for a bit cheaper. Again thanks for the response.

 

[Defy Belief]

4770ks can be had for £35, can't imagine DDR3 16gb being much more than £10-£15 nowadays? RX 580 about £60? Loads of good cheap budget options which will get you what you need once you find where the limit is coming from.

But i'd definitely look at ram first, cheapest option and 8gb really doesn't cut it in a lot of scenarios now.