My setup is a combination of old parts which are pushing at least 7 years now and new parts pushing nearly 2 years.
I do not know what I need to upgrade to get better experience in gaming or things I’ve been missing out that I should get. Or if I even need to upgrade at all.
I play games such as CSGO, Stellaris and I intend to play upcoming titles too.
Ryzen 5 2400G (nearly 2 years)
Gigabyte AB350N WIFI (ITX) (nearly 2 years)
Corsair LPX 2x8GB DDR4 RAM (nearly 2 years)
AMD Wraith Stealth Cooler (nearly 2 years)
Sapphire Nitro AMD RX570 4GB (nearly 2 years)
Seasonic G series 550W PSU (pushing 7 years)
Samsung 850 Pro 512GB (3 years) (Linux)
Crucial MX500 500GB (5 years) (Windows)
WD RE4 2TB (pushing 7 years)
Fractal Design Design Nano S (I intend to salvage unless I can somehow find an even more compact case that is of the same quality and same sound dampening ability)
Good thing about the AM4 platform is you are able to upgrade…
If you update your bios you may be able to add something like 3600 on that board no problems.
I would probably look at newer PSU, like the Focus + series, just because that G is really old now…
GPU is always something you can upgrade and improve your frame rates and gameplay experience.
Is there anything about your current gaming performance you are unhappy with? if you leave it completely open ended I’m sure people could nitpick everything in that list.
Are you unhappy with the noise of the cooler? Upgrade that. Unhappy with the monitor resolution? Upgrade that. Do any of your games max out your CPU, GPU, or RAM? Upgrade that. Upgrade for your own reasons and not what internet randos tell you to do.
Given the similar single thread performance I wouldn’t bother upgrading the CPU unless you need more cores. If you need better single core performance you would probably want something noticeably faster and overclockable. I would wait to see what the next generation brings. There will always be people upgrading with each generation that you can benefit from by buying their lightly used hardware.
What is your desk situation like? Desk, chair, mouse, speakers/headphones, and environment in general can change your experience if you spend a lot of time there. I’m always appalled at how most desks are these rectangular monstrosities built around the hardware and not the human spending thousands of hours of their life hunched over it like a T-rex. Building or commissioning a desk to fit you might be worthwhile if you spend a lot of time sitting at the computer. If not, then maybe a nice keyboard, mouse, or comfortable pair of headphones will make your experience better without draining your wallet.
I have basically the same system on an Asrock board instead.
The biggest quality of life improvement would probably be a bump up to a 1440p monitor.
I also agree with KleerKut, improving your overall setup might be worth it unless you have a problem doing something specific.
Those games aren’t terribly demanding, and while upgrading is fun, 2 years isn’t very old. Major console generations usually last twice that. Your system seems sized right for what you do with it.
If it was my machine, the next part I would want for it would be a GPU. The 570 isnt really holding you back in what you play now but it might for other things.
I am rather unhappy with load times on Stellaris (which is stored on SSD) and sometimes very bad stuttering in games like Dota 2 or CSGO. I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly is the problem.
As for overclock, I don’t have much time to keep sitting there and monitor the benchmarks. I might just let the motherboard to do its magic? I remember it can overclock a bit on its own. But I do not know if the Wraith Stealth cooler is capable of handling that.
I do think I can try a higher resolution monitor, maybe at 1440p. However I do not know if I should commit to either G Sync or Free Sync, going either will determine that I have to stick to either green or red. If I go for 1440p, I doubt the RX570 is capable of running games at that range.
I’m also thinking to go for full nvme storage, ideally a 2TB. I am concerned about the age of PSU as it is running longer than its warranty.
I am already planning to get a new table and a chair with adjustable arm rests like DXRacers. My current table is very uncomfortable to play on for long.
Let me preface this by saying that this is only if you really WANT to upgrade. As others said, there might be no need for that.
I’d say CPU. The 2400G makes no sense if you are using a dedicated GPU. Use it in a different system, if you can (HTPC for example). And you can get more cores for cheap.
Also the HDD. 7 years… if you don’t have backups (you really should), this might bite you in the… nose. Maybe I’m too cautious, but I’d never run production storage more than 4-5 years, even at home.
Is this on Linux or Windows? Have you tried them on both to see if there is perhaps a software/driver issue?
Does anyone know if those games in particular would need more than 4 cores/8 threads to play smoothly at 1080p? I just can’t see the expense of the 3600 being justified if those extra cores won’t help.
Is your RAM actually running at it’s rated speed? I realize watching hours of benchmarks is boring, but it might be worthwhile to double check that the XMP profile for the RAM is working/didn’t reset from a failed boot. Having it default to 2133 vs 3200 would likely harm performance substantially.
Getting things that can be used on any platform, such as a PSU, would be wise. Spending more money on an aging platform would only make sense to me if you can get a deal, certainly not full price. I would monitor the CPU while playing problematic games to see if you need more single core or multi core performance before throwing down cash. It would be downright silly to add more cores when you really needed more single core performance, or vice versa.
I follow a few ‘post your desk’ threads as sort of a sick fascination with what people will put themselves through. I see maybe 1 in 10,000 desks that I would spend more than an hour sitting at. If you spend that much of your life at the desk over the years then it’s probably worth putting in a few hours finding one that is genuinely comfortable and not just randomly buying without testing it out. Nerve damage is terrible to live with.
CS GO loves cores dota 2 doesn’t hate them.
stellaris wants fast single core performances.
so a zen 2 processor will improve things for stellaris but even an 5 ghz intel CPU will not make this game happy is just bad code. expect 5-30 % more perofmrance
with cs go it depends on your settings with dota 2 i can say you it really doesn’t like AMD cards i get massively less frames since i’m running a 5700 xt instead of 1060. but again the CPU should make things better more then 0-100 % more performance is possible zen 2 is insane.
I got the 2400G during the bitcoin mining price hike period. I couldn’t afford any graphics card back then, the RX570 was later added during Black Friday sales of 2018.
Luckily, most of my stuffs in the drive are games.
I don’t game on Linux as I’ve installed it as a backup OS.
That I will need to check, it should be running at 2400MHz default.
This! I hate the service counter of my work place. I’m intending to get this table, find a cheaper chair that is non leather and not a DXRacer lookalike, with a good adjustable arm rests.
I would check the mobo QVL for 3200 C16 speed memory and make a list of those and then buy the cheapest kit of those. I also would look into storage. … I know I know, won’t get you one bit of performance. BUT When the new console generation, the next iphone and all the usual stuff go into full production later this year…
AM4 CPUs will only get cheaper. GPUs will only get cheaper. (fuck off, miners! )
So investing into stuff that will last and is currently relatively affordable is the smart move.
Agreed. If it is really 2400 RAM then now is the time to buy it cheap. I bought mine maybe 18 months ago when $125 was by far the cheapest I had seen after months of searching. Now you can get the same 3200 RAM for $55 - $65 on sale.
not sure if stellaris cares about the ram speed. latency is mostly not the issue.
but just that you know stellaris is supposed to get a huge performance update but what ever they do single core performance is still key that’s just how the engine works.
BTW. just OC your ram as a try if you get it to 3000 mhz and let’S say cl 17 a ram update shouldn’t be worth the money
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