5 yr PC upgrade advice please!

[gbjsss]

Hello! Recently backside itchy want to do some upgrades. I'm trying to solve two of my first-world problems:

1. Games not hitting a solid 1440p 144 fps even with lowered settings Eg. Grim Dawn. I don't need full ultra graphics options, just want the fps.

2. Sluggish and stuttering performance in processing and moving photos in Adobe Lightroom.

These are the current specs of my PC. I've made upgrades here and there over the last 5 years which is why some parts don't make sense �

CPU: Skylake i5 6500 3.4ghz
Mobo: Gigabyte h170m ddr3
Ram: 8gb 1833 CL9 ddr3
GPU: R9 Nano
Monitor: 1440p 144hz freesync
SSD: 128gb
HDD: 1.5tb
PSU: 550W

Any ideas what I can do to resolve the 2 issues? Thanks thanks!

 

[Rashkae]

GPU upgrade to at least 1070, RAM to 16GB

 

[gbjsss]

I would like to keep my freesync leh :/

 

[Psycovirus]

1. Games not hitting a solid 1440p 144 fps even with lowered settings Eg. Grim Dawn. I don't need full ultra graphics options, just want the fps.

Wait for Aftermarket RX Vega 64. RX Vega 64 is about 65% faster than Nano. If Nano can hit 80~90 fps, RX Vega should hit 144fps. They are about a month away. That performance is about GTX 1080+/-.

2. Sluggish and stuttering performance in processing and moving photos in Adobe Lightroom.

Get a bigger SSD for using as a scratch disk. Dump all RAWs into SSD, Process and export to SSD. Back up to HDD after processing. Samsung 850 Evo are great choices. If budget isn't a concern, Samsung 950 Pro.

Get more memory. If you already have 2 sticks of 4 GB DDR3, get another 2 sticks. If you have 1x 8gb stick, that is a problem because you are not running Dual channel mode. Need 2 sticks to run dual channel, get another 8gb stick similar to yours.

 

[gbjsss]

Thanks for the detailed advice! That Vega looks niceeeeeee. Will look into the SSD.

Actually my games the FPS drops happen even when my GPU isn't maxed out leh. Not sure where is the bottleneck. If I upgrade ram with another 2 sticks, I keep thinking then might as well go ddr4.. but go ddr4 need new mobo.. need new mobo might as well all in new gen CPU... yikes!

 

[watzup_ken]

To be honest, nothing much in your specs looks like 5 year old. Not sure if you mean the hard drive or PSU that is that old. Also, I feel the sluggishness could be a result of the hard drive since your rig does look quite up the task for things like Adobe Lightroom. Perhaps adding 8GB of ram will alleviate the slowness.

 

[undead102]

Make sure there is no background process hogging up the cpu as this can affect gaming fps performance and applications work load. A clean windows installation could help to ensure no hidden or unknown programs are hogging the cpu. Other then that I don't see how why your specs cannot hit 144fps.

 

[gbjsss]

Yeah the ram, SSD, HDD, PSU are all 5 years ago one. The rest things died I replaced but those I never touch... yet!

Think I will look into the SSD first. thank you very much everyone!

 

[Psycovirus]

Thanks for the detailed advice! That Vega looks niceeeeeee. Will look into the SSD.

Actually my games the FPS drops happen even when my GPU isn't maxed out leh. Not sure where is the bottleneck. If I upgrade ram with another 2 sticks, I keep thinking then might as well go ddr4.. but go ddr4 need new mobo.. need new mobo might as well all in new gen CPU... yikes!

Where did you install games? If you have them in HDD, change them to SSD. If data transfer isn't fast enough during gameplay, system will have to wait for HDD to transfer data thus causing sturttering.

Can't be CPU unless it's latest titles that uses lots of cores.

Try to increase power target in AMD Relive... If GPU hit power target, it might have to throttle and causes Fps drops.

I run MSI Afterburner and watch my statistics to identify where bottleneck occurs...

Sent from OnePlus ONEPLUS A3000 using GAGT

 

[gbjsss]

Paiseh to bump my old thread, but thought it's easier to continue here because I never got around to upgrading anything because of the ram and GPU prices.

I took the advice to monitor stats more closely in my games (specifically Grim Dawn), and finally I realised that a single CPU thread is constantly at 100% load. Used to monitor overall CPU usage so this 100% was hidden in the overall average.

Is it safe to assume that the CPU single thread performance is the problem why I have problem hitting the 144fps? May really consider the upcoming ryzen if so. Thanks!