My PC is getting on a little, it’s running on an i7-4790k, 16gb ddr4, and a GTX 970. right now, it’s struggling some in most games even though I don’t play any triple A titles. What would be a sensible upgrade that wouldn’t get totally bottlenecked by the CPU?

In most games I’m playing the CPU is pinned at around 25% while my card is maxed at 100% 3d and vmem usage so I’m fairly sure it’s just my card that’s the main limiting factor.

  • NaClKnight@kbin.run
    1·
    6 months ago

    Do you have an upgrade budget?
    With a 4790k You’re looking at PCIe 3.0,

    a Radeon RX 6600, 6650 XT, or 7600 are all good 8GB VRAM cards for under $250 that will last for a long time at 1080p.

    VRAM concerns really only occur at higher resolutions, so for you any modern card (2022 or newer) will be a massive upgrade. The 6600 can be had for $180 these days

    But even you’re not planning to upgrade CPU right now, i would just buy the best GPU you can fit in your budget, and do worry about bottlenecks. One day you’ll upgrade CPU/MB/RAM and the GPU will fit right in.