system upgrade recommendations (CPU vs GPU)

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yamahammer342

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I need some help from people that are in the know here lol. First off here is my current set up:

3570k @ 4.2
GTX 970

My usage will be fallout 76 for the next few months and then hopefully Red Dead 2 when it releases on PC. I want to upgrade one or the other. I was originally set on upgrading the CPU but now I'm unsure after doing research. The CPU is old but apparently still used a lot for gaming. I recently played the fallout 76 BETA and performance was pretty bad. I know its beta but bethesda has released a minimum of a I7 for the specs and 76 is suppose to be a pretty CPU intensive game. Also played Kingdom Come Deliverance recently and performance was bad to the point I quit. I play at 1080p.

Looking for some recommendations in the 300-400 range. I know CPU upgrade will probable need a mobo as well. If I'm missing any info please let me know and thanks for any help. This forum has always been great.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Yep, a decently high end system of 3-4 years ago. GTX970 is probably okay for now, but it's famous 3.5GB memory problem could be causing some of your issues. Might have to lower texture settings to keep it under 3.5GB of memory usage.

You could go out and find a cheap i7-3770k and overclock the crap out of it. That might get you a decent frame rate increase in those newer titles, more threads.

But yes, a new motherboard, ram, and CPU is about it otherwise. i5-8600k/i5-9600k will set you back a bit. Cheaper alternative would be the Ryzen 2600.

The i7-8700k as the current gaming CPU of choice, but it is getting up there in price. I don't recommend trying for the i7-9700k or i9-9900k the cost is just too high for what you get.
 
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yamahammer342

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The 8600k is probably within budget if that would be a decent upgrade over the Ryzen 2600. The price on the Ryzen is definitely appealing though. I'm looking at the Ryzen 2700 too, which is about 300.

Am I going to have to change my RAM as well? I currently have 16g of DDR 3
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Those processors only support DDR4, so yes, new RAM.

I wouldn't call the i5-8600k an upgrade over the R5-2600, just different. The i5 has much higher clock speed, the Ryzen has SMT (AMD Hyperthreading) so offers 6 cores and 12 threads, but at a lower clock speed. You might get 4.1Ghz out of it, the i5 should be able to easily do 5Ghz or more with decent cooling.

Kind of why I threw the i7-3770k out there, keeping 16GB of memory around is almost worth it. Only other option there would be to find a used Z97 board and an i7-4790k to keep the DDR3. It was worth it a few months ago when memory prices got ludicrous, they are merely high now.
 
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yamahammer342

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Your first paragraph is mostly above my head lol, but here is what I've found.
Ryzen 2600 160
Asus STRIX B350-F mobo 110
16g ddr4 130
total: $400, which is doable.

I5-8600k 260
Asrock z370 Extreme4 170 (the intel mobos seem to be much more expensive)
16g ddr4 130
total: $560 doable but as long as the upgrade is worth it.

The prices for the 3770k are kind of wild from what I'm seeing. from 200 used up to 450 new. If i'm going to spend this money might as well get a newer socket mobo thats more future ready?

 
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dorsai

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Be aware when picking components...the Ryzen chips all perform much better with DDR4 3200 or faster memory. If your primary concern is gaming I'd stay with the 3570k @ 4.2 and up grade the GPU to a 1070ti or 1080...most games won't gain much today with more cpu than a quad core...that will change in the next couple of years but for now that quad core 3570k is plenty of cpu to game on.

Today B&Hphoto.com has a special on a 1070ti with a 150 off coupon so the card only costs 350.
 
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yamahammer342

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Thank for the reply I just installed MSI afterburner and rivatuner to monitor my usage in game. I fired up fallout 4 and saw that GPU usage was 99% during some battles and what not, dropping fps to around 50, CPU cores stayed less than 90 usually around 80ish. Makes me also lean more towards GPU now. Ill try this again on the next fallout 76 beta hours and see what it looks like but I'm thinking GPU now.
 
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