Do I need to build a new PC?

Justin B

n00b
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Jul 29, 2018
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Hey all, first time posting in here and hopefully this the right place to ask since most in here know a lot more than I do...

Hoping for some advice on if I need to work on my current build or just start over with an upgraded system. I basically only play COD Warzone lately, but have been having a lot of freezing/crashing issues. Typically once per night, while transitioning between load screens, the game will completely lock up and won't recover. When I check, it's sucking up 14-14.5g of my 16g of ram. During about half of my games, textures and new picked up weapons will take about 30 seconds to load (literally running around with nothing in my hands). Occasionally, during those times, I hear no sounds and then about 30 seconds of missed sounds/comms all drops at once. It's pretty frustrating.

Here is my setup, built about 3 years ago:

Intel i7 4770 3.40Ghz // MSI H97M-E35 mobo // 16gb DDR3 ram (not compat w/ DDR4) // GeForce GTX 1080 Titan GPU (hand me down from a buddy) // Game is running on a 512gb SSD (same drive OS is on) //

I average about 45-55 fps with maxed out settings in 1440p. Not sure if a new GPU would solve my issues...or if my CPU and DDR3 will still give me problems down the road?

I know the CPU/MOBO are pretty old and I can't really upgrade one part without replacing it all (aside from GPU) at this point. I'm OK with starting a new build (fun but expensive :( ), but wanted to ask around before I waste money.

UserBenchmarks: Game 62%, Desk 85%, Work 52%

Model​
Bench​
CPU
80.5%​
GPU
74.9%​
SSD
72.5%​
SSD
78.3%​
HDD
61.2%​
RAM
58.7%​
MBD
 
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It really depends what you want or how you want to measure improvement. Personally, i always look at single thread performance before making a purchase. I would go to https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Intel-Core-i7-4770/Rating/1978 and
look at your max single thread, and then pick a higher number you want in a new cpu in order to justify paying for it.

So say you can get 116-119 score based on userbenchmark, compare it to 10900k at 165 single thread. Thats a medium performance increase of 37% on single thread.

If you're happy with that, get that, otherwise wait for Rocketlake to get another 10%, maybe up to 20% with extreme oc? [i am speculating.; but you get the idea]
 
Need? Probably not.

Simply getting more ram would likely solve your immediate problems. However, at a quick look , it says the RAM limit* for that motherboard is 16GB - and 32GB of RAM in 2 sticks for DDR3 is more expensive than 32GB of DDR4 at the moment (and much, much slower.)

Would I upgrade if I had those specs? Yes.

*Doesn't always matter, but is it worth a gamble?
 
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There is always a want, but not always a need. If you go the piece by piece route, you can go with a $150 Z490 board, 10600k for $300 and 32 gb of DDR4 3200 for about $100.

The response of the system between the 4770 system is noticeable. The Bench marks are also way better. You can Ebay your old system and recover some of your costs.

Caveat, I upgrade yearly because ah reasons. So, I always recommend upgrading.
 
There is always a want, but not always a need. If you go the piece by piece route, you can go with a $150 Z490 board, 10600k for $300 and 32 gb of DDR4 3200 for about $100.

The response of the system between the 4770 system is noticeable. The Bench marks are also way better. You can Ebay your old system and recover some of your costs.

Caveat, I upgrade yearly because ah reasons. So, I always recommend upgrading.
I'm the same way with other things, so I've literally avoided most PC info over the past 2 years so I didn't get tempted. That being said...I don't know much about the newer series CPU's. A lot of people are praising the Ryzen 5 3600 or 3600x as good bang for buck (I'm going for 1440p). But last night I read up a bit on the 10600k you mentioned and it seems to outrank in almost all categories. I'm open to Intel or AMD, but you recommend the 10600k over Ryzen 5 series?
 
I like Intel as it is certified with the software I use for work. AMD is awesome and generally faster for about the same price. I went all Intel as it is what I am most comforable with. The 10600k is the sweet spot for price point. search on YouTube about the 10600k- it had good reviews. I bought and returned a 3900X AMD as it ran hotter when I tried it. Intels ran cooler at stock speed vs AMD at stock speed with both stock coolers. AMD comes with one and Intel is like $10.
 
I like Intel as it is certified with the software I use for work. AMD is awesome and generally faster for about the same price. I went all Intel as it is what I am most comforable with. The 10600k is the sweet spot for price point. search on YouTube about the 10600k- it had good reviews. I bought and returned a 3900X AMD as it ran hotter when I tried it. Intels ran cooler at stock speed vs AMD at stock speed with both stock coolers. AMD comes with one and Intel is like $10.
Here is the problem with this:

One cannot fairly compare two different CPU architectures. The reason why Intel CPUs draw this low of a power at stock speeds because it simply does not offer a CPU with more than 10 cores and 20 threads in the mainstream platform. Worse, its 10-core part actually runs hotter than that 3900X at even underclocked speeds. And this is all because Intel's CPU architecture has not changed much since 2015. Back then, Intel's mainstream CPUs had no more than 4 cores and 8 threads. And most telling, Intel still offers CPUs with no more than 2 cores at the low end - those that should have been put out to pasture (as far as boxed CPUs are concerned) a few years ago (that is, these low-end dual-core parts should have been relegated to OEM-only).

So obviously, the more cores you pack into such a smaller space, the more heat the CPU will put out. There is absolutely no circumventing that at all.
 
I've seen people complaining of this issue on more modern systems then yours with 32GB of RAM, so I suppose it's just poor coding in the newer seasons. Have you tried turning off all overlays such as in Geforce Experience or possibly MSI Afterburner? Have a friend that plays this game and found disabling overlays helped quite a bit with the crashing he was having though he's using an AMD card!
 
I purchased this mobo in 2012. "Need" is a relative term, but even eight years later, this 2011 is nearly as fast as a 3800x with an OCd 1680v2. I've also modified the BIOS so that I can boot from NVMe, etc - it has actually been more fun to keep this thing going than building a new workstation. It's funny when people talk about the platform being CPU-bound for GFX - it hasn't even been close. Looks like your best bet would be a Xeon E3-1285 v4 and see how much OC you can get - ebay has them at $100. Looking at benchmarks though, you could also consider a cheap AMD system and likely do better.
 
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I have a box with a 3770k and a GTX 1060 6 GB with 32GB RAM and do not have those issues with Warzone. It’s definitely not your CPU or GPU. Perhaps RAM and/or a messed up windows install.
 
Perhaps a simple reinstall of the game and/or system?
I would agree with this. I would start be reinstalling the game to see if that helps. If not, you could try starting over with a fresh install of windows and go from there. Windows 10 is way better than its predecessors. But, you still build up crud over time. I recently did this on my system and am very happy with the improved performance. I have definitely noticed it in some games. As others have said you are on the cusp of whether or not you need a new system for what you want to do. I would eliminate the free option first!
 
Check gpu temps, I've had spikes that resulted in thermal shutdown.

I've also swapped enough gear back and forth that deleting players file and game cache didn't work, had to reinstall game bc editing ini wouldn't stick.

It's off my box now, waiting for the Cold War changes to hit before I reinstall.
 
Need? Probably not.

Simply getting more ram would likely solve your immediate problems. However, at a quick look , it says the RAM limit* for that motherboard is 16GB - and 32GB of RAM in 2 sticks for DDR3 is more expensive than 32GB of DDR4 at the moment (and much, much slower.)

Would I upgrade if I had those specs? Yes.

*Doesn't always matter, but is it worth a gamble?
His 16 GB is fine you dont know what the hell your talking about. New MB and CPU is what he needs. GPU is what I have with a 3900x and is fine for now but im going with a 3080 when I can. I say upgrade CPU MB first then later for cost reasons as he mentioned it. Get a newer Graphics card. The 1080 is still no slouch and can hold him over.
 
His 16 GB is fine you dont know what the hell your talking about. New MB and CPU is what he needs. GPU is what I have with a 3900x and is fine for now but im going with a 3080 when I can. I say upgrade CPU MB first then later for cost reasons as he mentioned it. Get a newer Graphics card. The 1080 is still no slouch and can hold him over.

Yes it sounds more like he needs to check his temperatures and make sure nothing is overheating. It sounds more like a piece of hardware is failing than anything else. Just do some testing on different benches/games and see if things are not working right before buying new stuff.
 
When I check, it's sucking up 14-14.5g of my 16g of ram.
I know CoD will max out all available VRAM even if its not using it. Using that much system RAM seems a bit excessive, I would try reinstalling.
 
I've had multiple games and scenarios that use up well over 16GB of RAM. Hell, I've maxed out my 32GB that's usable.

I don't know why this seems unusual to anyone here. A modern game using over 16GB of RAM with windows running seems perfectly normal. Especially if you have a few chrome tabs open in the background.
 
I just upgraded one of my rigs from a 4790k to 9700k: (almost double the performance):

9700k_bench.png


For gaming, you are somewhat CPU limited..

Total cost after scoring deals at Microcenter and offloading my old CPU, Mobo, Ram : $193..

https://hardforum.com/threads/9700k-199-micro-center-plus-20-off-mb.2002482/page-2#post-1044777232
 
You don't need 32GB of RAM. Not even 16 really in most cases. You can probably get by with 8 - 16 for a power user multitasking in win10. (generally) The cal lfor RAM is off the mark. I run a game, kodi, 10 web browser tabs and a VM all at the same time and don't need more than 16GB. Not even close.
 
You don't need 32GB of RAM. Not even 16 really in most cases. You can probably get by with 8 - 16 for a power user multitasking in win10. (generally) The cal lfor RAM is off the mark. I run a game, kodi, 10 web browser tabs and a VM all at the same time and don't need more than 16GB. Not even close.
everyone's needs are different. I am very heavy multi tasker, and have some very large VMs with full installs of Enterprise ERP full stack software... so when I spin that up, 32GB is hardly enough on it's own.. Ram is cheap and more is better to avoid any disk caching / virtual memory use IMO
 
everyone's needs are different. I am very heavy multi tasker, and have some very large VMs with full installs of Enterprise ERP full stack software... so when I spin that up, 32GB is hardly enough on it's own.. Ram is cheap and more is better to avoid any disk caching / virtual memory use IMO
I understand that but understand this - if he is running VMs it would have been mentioned and he would have been smart enough to figure out the RAM bottleneck himself. its not the RAM, OBVIOUSLY!

Not everyone has a couple hundred spare dollars to load up their box with unneded RAM. Perhaps you and I are but the OP isn't?

I used VMs as an example. It's not relevant in this case other than to show anincrease in memory load. If you can't read the performance manager and read rescources to identify bottlenecks - guess what?

You're NOT a "Power User".
 
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OP - whatever you are running in the background is killing your performance. Disable all startup progs and clean boot. People are running COD warzone with 8GB of ram. Open the Resource Monitor and find out what is eating your disk IO. Windows defender scan? Who knows. You have to look. Run the DPC LATENCY CHECKER while running the game to see what is causing the latency.

If all fails - you are in OS - REINSTALL/REBUILD territory. Another thing i'd mention is OVERCLOCKING, which will aleviate a CPU Bottleneck. 4GHz is easy.

The last would be more game specific OPTIMIZATION.

Throwing more hardware at an issue should be of last resort - Unless you have deep pockets and don't give a crap. Since you are postiong here for help, I'd assume you don't have the resources for a new box, cpu or ram just for the hell of it. You may do all the above, including rebuild and you still have issues. At that point, a new box may be in order but some trouleshooting steps above could save you a ton of cash if they work.

I hate to paste a simple COD WARZONE RAM how to but here it is anyways.

 
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Do you "need" to game? Will you die or suffer other life consequence if you don't game? Likely the answer is no. And therefore any "necessity" to upgrade is also no.

If you have cash and you want to upgrade to something newer, then you're welcome to do so. Your machine however is still more than adequate for most titles and things. Although as others have mentioned - starting with a clean install and/or a clean slate would probably do a lot to get much of your performance back as well as making sure you limit what is running in the background while you're gaming.
I think it also helps to have reasonable expectations. Thankfully in the last 3 years or so, having more than 4 cores has become more common, but that has also put a steep cliff on 4 core systems. Having 6-8 cores is now much more optimal and having above 8 cores is nice. As necessary for gaming? Not necessarily yet, but it's going to become a bigger and bigger issue as more titles are optimized for Xbox Series X and PS5, both of which have more cores than you have. There have also been tons of other optimizations in silicon since the Intel 4000 series came out and those will all also give incremental improvements as well.

To give some type of conclusion here at the bottom though: is upgrading necessary? No. Can you get an improvement on upgrades? Absolutely yes. But upgrades cost a lot. You can probably continue to game with what you have if you have reasonable expectations on how your system will perform and by optimizing your software as much as possible in the interim. Which I would recommend until AMD 5000 CPU's and AMD 6000 GPU's have decent availability. Even if you choose to not buy those parts, they will cause previous generations of parts to go down in price - like if you choose to stay on Intel only.
 
I'd run a bunch of stress tests/benchmarks on it. It sounds like you could have some bad hardware... or it could just be a game bug or damaged Windows install. Just dig around and find tests that try to hit all the different parts individually. CPU, ram, SSD, vid card, etc. Most of the usual OC stability tests will do.
 
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