Time for a GPU upgrade?

razordazor

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Jun 1, 2012
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Recently I have been thinking of upgrading my computer so that I could get better FPS in games such as GTA5 and Battlefield 4. However I always thought that there was no sense in getting a better GPU because I thought my CPU was bad and if I wanted to see a big difference in games I would have to replace most of the parts in my PC.

So I did a little test, I ran Heaven Benchmark 4.0 and while the test was running I had GPU-Z and the windows task manager open. The part I found interesting was that while the load on the GPU was 100% almost all the time according to GPU-Z with around 30-45 FPS on average according to Heaven, the load in the task manager for CPU usage never went over 45% and was mostly around 20-30%.

Now Im a tottal beginner when it comes to benchmarking and performance optimisation, so I wanted to know what some of the more experienced people thought about this. Should I buy a better GPU and if yes how good of a GPU does it make sense to buy for the CPU I have.

I was thinking of buying an AMD RX480 or a GeForce GTX 1060. Also how much of a performance difference while playing games would there be between a RX480 4Gb compared to the 8Gb or a GTX 1060 3Gb compared to the 6Gb version.

My CPU, GPU, RAM and motherboard:
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti 2Gb, 128Bit Bus, 1033MHz GPU clock, 1350Mhz Memory clock
CPU: AMD FX-6100 (6-core; 3.3GHz)
RAM: GoodRam 2x4Gb
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-D3, socket AM3+ (rev. 1.4)
 
Solution
Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can usefully use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to...
Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can usefully use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

Try this test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

FX cores are weak, and the cores on a FX-8350 ore equally weak, you get two more which is not likely to help much.

If you decide on a cpu upgrade, look at Intel.
The ryzen chips get much hype, good for multithreaded production, but they are still not as good as Intel for the gamer.

Any graphics upgrade will be limited by the psu.
A RX480 will want a 500w psu. GTX1060 will run on 430w.
Both are comparable performers and a significant jump over your GTX650ti.
Most games, the edge goes to the GTX1060.

There is a bit more to the difference between 3gb or 6gb of vram. My take is to buy the strongest graphics card you feel comfortable paying for.

Your cpu is a dead end. You likely need both a cpu change and a gpu change to do better.
If the test above shows that a graphics card update is reasonable, that is the easiest thing to do first.
A new card can be easily moved to an updated cpu.

If you need cpu power first, you are looking at not only a cpu change, but a motherboard and ram change also.
 
Solution