Totally lost on the best path from/with current hardware for gaming

[nomdeplume]

System specs are current.

I decided to hold off on making any hardware changes until I had settled on a few games and had a few hundred hours actual experience. Near as I can tell the present state of affairs is forcing everything into always online where game servers make the game playable for end user hardware. My hardware is new(ish) and balanced enough to avoid major issues like always failing to load a given element or have any other shutdowns. It is not very far above the cutoff margin. Ha, if anything I'm more confused by the serpentine behaviors of the gaming industry's impact on my decisions and a widespread lack of trust in hardware makers doesn't impel funding them with upgrades.

A few concerning behaviors have come to light I'd like to attempt rectifying.

1. RAM - My pagefile has automatically set itself to above 16GB and the last time I was brave enough to look at HWiNFO it showed roughly 90% peak in-game usage. (My reply to message 850 Evo sent me at login today ) At the same time I'm averaging 6.9GB/8GB RAM usage. I could buy today 2x16GB (PC4-19200) but it feels like throwing away money towards something that is already too slow.

2. Mobo - H370 offered me everything I wanted that none of the Z370 had. It runs cool and seems to have been developed to handle a wide array of uses without complaint. Sadly it's locked to PC4-19200 speeds and for the life of me I cannot find a mATX Z3xx in good shape at a reasonable price. 3% over full retail for an at least 5 years old visibly scorched basement level board with broken components is laughable.

3. SSD - Held off on buying nvme thus far until mobo was settled (and now the infinitesimal and low concern issue related to hammering pagefile on SSD). Then the pandemic QC and line component swapping realities started becoming widespread and known good drives prices did this ↑↑↑. Honestly not sure how large a stability or speed improvement this would provide over the course of many hours gaming. I'm quite sure my SATA SSD is pissed off!!


Have I really worked myself into a corner with mATX that will require a clean slate upgrade in order to keep gaming today?

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Your 8400 while long in the tooth is fine for 60fps gaming

Definetly consider grabbing another identical stick of ram to give you 16GB total

A gpu upgrade would help a lot but anything above like a RX 6650 will be bottlenecked by your CPU most likely. Part of me says to target a 10-12GB gpu though as 8 it's getting a bit thin but as long as it is cheap enough that's fine. The 6GB on your gpu while fine is getting long in the tooth it's a shame Nvidia/AMD has mostly abandoned the sub 250 usd market.

Grabbing a 2tb+ Nvme drive for games wouldn't be a bad bet you can always take storage with you to a future build.

I wouldn't invest into a new Z370 motherboard or even a CPU upgrade in socket unless you can get them really really cheap anything modern will blow your system away like a 12400/13400/R57600

 

[Tatty_Two]

As mad as I may sound (it happens a lot) if you wanted to keep the spine of your current rig but make it a bit faster I would get another 8GB of ram as @oxrufiioxo mentioned but I would probably get a 9600K(f), not sure where you live but if the US then you should be able to get one for $120 new or less (checked Newegg), I know your board won't overclock it but the K gives you higher boost speeds, in this case 4600mhz which is 600mhz more than you are getting now, that to me is a fairly significant improvement over the 8400 ..... but as I said ...... I am mad

 

[oxrufiioxo]

As mad as I may sound (it happens a lot) if you wanted to keep the spine of your current rig but make it a bit faster I would get another 8GB of ram as @oxrufiioxo mentioned but I would probably get a 9600K(f), not sure where you live but if the US then you should be able to get one for $120 new or less (checked Newegg), I know your board won't overclock it but the K gives you higher boost speeds, in this case 4600mhz which is 600mhz more than you are getting now, that to me is a fairly significant improvement over the 8400 ..... but as I said ...... I am mad

OP can get a used 8700K for like 120 usd on ebay I would probably go that route if upgrading the CPU. While the 9600K might give him an ok boost it's still stuck at 6 core 6 threads. I would be targeting 12threads for longevity purposes.

Depending on regional cost of course.

 

[Tatty_Two]

OP can get a used 8700K for like 120 usd on ebay I would probably go that route if upgrading the CPU. While the 9600K might give him an ok boost it's still stuck at 6 core 6 threads. I would be targeting 12threads for longevity purposes.

Depending on regional cost of course.

Yeah I must admit I did think of the 8700K but in my quick search I couldn't find much about his boards power delivery, if the board has the capability that may be the better way to go.

 

[nomdeplume]

Definetly consider grabbing another identical stick of ram to give you 16GB total

Wouldn't 32GB (or above) be the only way to remove memory shortcoming, ie over 16GB pagefile + 7GB RAM = <23GB.

If you answer anything please explain why only going to 16GB has been repeated a few times. FH4 has just been the latest offender. SoTR was obviously asking more than was on tap as well.

I wouldn't invest into a new Z370 motherboard or even a CPU upgrade in socket unless you can get them really really cheap anything modern will blow your system away like a 12400/13400/R57600

Condolences weighting down your reply make it clear I should sink $$ into RAM or $$$$ into either base hardware or gpu. Decisions were made that only took me so far.

As mad as I may sound (it happens a lot) if you wanted to keep the spine of your current rig but make it a bit faster I would get another 8GB of ram as @oxrufiioxo mentioned but I would probably get a 9600K(f)

I'm seeing maybe, and I do mean maybe, 30% average cpu usage during gameplay. If the cpu and gpu were both struggling this wouldn't be a discussion. VRM temps and stability over years and consecutive hours of hard use has been of no issue either.

I cannot say exactly what is going on with tapering of online game data delivered to make it usable. Even running modern games with no internet connection the cpu is hardly working. GPU is stressed at times but I can always trim display settings to bring down thermals or frame rates up at 1080. Across a few in game benchmarks they were all somewhere in the range of 90% weighted towards gpu being the limiting factor.

Not seeing any shutdowns or other issues. It works, and unfortunately my case and cooling work well enough I'm having a terrible time lumping on $$$ that is unnecessary and may not work so great.

Edit: I do understand what you are getting at. New at retail is by some margin the only sane processor upgrade currently. Especially when 13600K can be had for US $15 above 13400.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Wouldn't 32GB (or above) be the only way to remove memory shortcoming, ie over 16GB pagefile + 7GB RAM = <23GB.

If you answer anything please explain why only going to 16GB has been repeated a few times. FH4 has just been the latest offender. SoTR was obviously asking more than was on tap as well.



Condolences weighting down your reply make it clear I should sink $$ into RAM or $$$$ into either base hardware or gpu. Decisions were made that only took me so far.

The reason I wouldn't invest into the platform is budget options from the current generation outperform anything you can get in socket the best two options the 8700k/9900K are worse than a 13400 so unless you can get them really cheap it's not worth it.

A 9900k likely wouldn't work on your board anyways. The 8700k might be pushing it as well due to your board having a dinky 4 phase vrm but with good airflow and mostly gaming workloads it should be fine stock.

As far as ram goes I just mention 16GB because it's cheap and should be the minimum for any pc someone wants to game with. Going to 32GB is nice but likely unnecessary given the rest of your hardware. As far as pagefile goes in my usage scenarios the more ram I have the larger the pagefile is so getting 32GB won't eliminate your need of a pagefile and at least when I've tried to tell windows to limit the pagefile size I've ran into issues so I just let windows do it's thing to be fair I haven't messed around with that in ages. I've also never tried more than 32GB of ram.


Basically if I was you and I was dead set on keeping that platform I would grab a 8700k, 16GB of ram, and a gpu with 10-12GB of vram. That should get you by for the next 2-3 years possible longer depending on how you game.

Personally I would be saving up for a more modern platform.

At the end of the day it's your hard earned money hopefully more people chime in to give you a better picture of what might be best to do.

 

[nomdeplume]

As far as ram goes I just mention 16GB because it's cheap and should be the minimum for any pc someone wants to game with. Going to 32GB is nice but likely unnecessary given the rest of your hardware. As far as pagefile goes in my usage scenarios the more ram I have the larger the pagefile is so getting 32GB won't eliminate your need of a pagefile and at least when I've tried to tell windows to limit the pagefile size I've ran into issues so I just let windows do it's thing to be fair I haven't messed around with that in ages. I've also never tried more than 32GB of ram.

16GB barely costs more than 32GB and this is only very scarcely related to cost despite how many times I griped to that end.
Knowing the value of money and not giving it away freely to dubious means should fit within the TOS.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Honestly, AM4 is going for quite little right now.

I would suggest that any Zen 3 (preferably chiplet based, for more L3) like the 5600(X) and a B550, paired with a 2X8 kit at 3200 or 3600 (CL18 or lower) would allow you to get the most gains for the least money. The GPU, while it would be a considerable bottleneck for such a platform, allows you to upgrade it individually, more easily than the other components.

This would allow you to eventually swap to a 5800X3D when the 5600(X) becomes insufficient.

 

[tussinman]

The reason I wouldn't invest into the platform is budget options from the current generation outperform anything you can get in socket the best two options the 8700k/9900K are worse than a 13400 so unless you can get them really cheap it's not worth it.

A 9900k likely wouldn't work on your board anyways. The 8700k might be pushing it as well due to your board having a dinky 4 phase vrm but with good airflow and mostly gaming workloads it should be fine stock.

As far as ram goes I just mention 16GB because it's cheap and should be the minimum for any pc someone wants to game with. Going to 32GB is nice but likely unnecessary given the rest of your hardware. As far as pagefile goes in my usage scenarios the more ram I have the larger the pagefile is so getting 32GB won't eliminate your need of a pagefile and at least when I've tried to tell windows to limit the pagefile size I've ran into issues so I just let windows do it's thing to be fair I haven't messed around with that in ages. I've also never tried more than 32GB of ram.


Basically if I was you and I was dead set on keeping that platform I would grab a 8700k, 16GB of ram, and a gpu with 10-12GB of vram. That should get you by for the next 2-3 years possible longer depending on how you game.

Personally I would be saving up for a more modern platform.

At the end of the day it's your hard earned money hopefully more people chime in to give you a better picture of what might be best to do.

Agreed 100%. Either go budget options into the current system or do a clean swap.

Like you said even modern low end hardware is equal if not outperforming high-end stuff from that socket so it doesn't make sense to drop a lot of money. For example brand new 12100/13100 with 16gb ddr4 3200 and b660 would only cost like $260 and would arguably outperform gaming wise any of the 8th/9th gen cpus while using way less power, having a true upgrade path, and would be new not 5 years old

In that scenario dropping low $200s on a used 9700k and some old gen ddr4 wouldn't be worth the minimal cost savings of just grabbing a new system

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Agreed 100%. Either go budget options into the current system or do a clean swap.

Like you said even modern low end hardware is equal if not outperforming high-end stuff from that socket so it doesn't make sense to drop a lot of money. For example brand new 12100/13100 with 16gb ddr4 3200 and b660 would only cost like $260 and would arguably outperform gaming wise any of the 8th/9th gen cpus while using way less power, having a true upgrade path, and would be new not 5 years old

In that scenario dropping low $200s on a used 9700k and some old gen ddr4 wouldn't be worth the minimal cost savings of just grabbing a new system

For me the OP would need to be spending substantially less than this I still don't know what region he's in but these are miles better than anything he can do in socket while being on much better platforms.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cDL6C6

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9Bhz3y

Spending around 300 on his current setup with a new cpu/motherboard just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If he can get meaningful upgrades like I have listed above for around 200 usd sure. Minus the GPU of course he could bring that forward with any platform upgrade.

 

[crlogic]

For me the OP would need to be spending substantially less than this I still don't know what region he's in but these are miles better than anything he can do in socket while being on much better platforms.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cDL6C6

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9Bhz3y

Spending around 300 on his current setup with a new cpu/motherboard just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If he can get meaningful upgrades like I have listed above for around 200 usd sure. Minus the GPU of course he could bring that forward with any platform upgrade.

i5-12400 is amazing but spending a smidge more on the 13400 gets you 8 e-cores on top of the 6 p-cores

 

[nomdeplume]

For me the OP would need to be spending substantially less than this I still don't know what region he's in but these are miles better than anything he can do in socket while being on much better platforms.

This is the crux of it. If trade of used parts was less deadlocked the happy experimenting and mistake making would've been underway. Nobody is buying so reselling is unassured.

If he can get meaningful upgrades like I have listed above for around 200 usd sure. Minus the GPU of course he could bring that forward with any platform upgrade.

Second crux - Both systems you compiled are ATX instead of mATX.
Third crux - Not willing to repeat same mistake with DDR5 4800 (oddly enough that is on the bottom end speedwise and exactly 2 x 2400) mobo. DDR5/PCIe 5.x is still immature and holding off another product cycle or two will let things settle down. I can't imagine buying a D4 board anymore than I could a 7th gen Intel processor.

 

[Selaya]

Your 8400 while long in the tooth is fine for 60fps gaming [ ... ]

would've/might've been fine w/ z370-3600-c14 memory or something
but h370 stuck at 2400 or 2666

NJET

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Second crux - Both systems you compiled are ATX instead of mATX.
Third crux - Not willing to repeat same mistake with DDR5 4800 (oddly enough that is on the bottom end speedwise and exactly 2 x 2400) mobo. DDR5/PCIe 5.x is still immature and holding off another product cycle or two will let things settle down. I can't imagine buying a D4 board anymore than I could a 7th gen Intel processor.

They were more of a target than anything just to give you a generally idea of price and even though that is a bottom basement am5 board it's night and day better than what you have. Handles a 7950X easily.

On the lga 1700 side I agree with you though low end asus is trash.

On the Am5 side the board is matx on the intel side they have that board in matx just clicked the wrong one.

would've/might've been fine w/ z370-3600-c14 memory or something
but h370 stuck at 2400 or 2666

NJET

I think some games like more than 6 threads so while ST is king the limited cpu resources probably would still be a bottleneck in some scenarios.. Again probably fine in most games for 60fps gaming

 

[tabascosauz]

Second crux - Both systems you compiled are ATX instead of mATX.
Third crux - Not willing to repeat same mistake with DDR5 4800 (oddly enough that is on the bottom end speedwise and exactly 2 x 2400) mobo. DDR5/PCIe 5.x is still immature and holding off another product cycle or two will let things settle down. I can't imagine buying a D4 board anymore than I could a 7th gen Intel processor.

Is that 8GB kit literally a single stick? Don't run single channel please - I harp on a lot about how dual rank offers free performance over single rank (DDR4) but single channel just cripples any hardware.

Slow DDR4 isn't really the end of the world (especially if you can get a dual rank 32GB kit), but running out of threads in games is. 6C/6T i5s and 8C/8T 9700K have not aged terribly well.

If you have your sights set exclusively on mATX you will always be in this second-class citizen hole. Outside of one-offs like the Gene, the best you can get is probably Aorus Pro, Mortar and TUF mATX. If you believe (rightly so) that these mATX boards aren't worth the price they command, then just grab a better memory kit and maybe a 8700 and wait it out.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Is that 8GB kit literally a single stick? Don't run single channel please - I harp on a lot about how dual rank offers free performance over single rank (DDR4) but single channel just cripples any hardware.

Slow DDR4 isn't really the end of the world (especially if you can get a dual rank 32GB kit), but running out of threads in games is. 6C/6T i5s and 8C/8T 9700K have not aged terribly well.

If you have your sights set exclusively on mATX you will always be in this second-class citizen hole. Outside of one-offs like the Gene, the best you can get is probably Aorus Pro, Mortar and TUF mATX. If you believe (rightly so) that these mATX boards aren't worth the price they command, then just grab a better memory kit and maybe a 8700 and wait it out.

I get the sense that the OP is afraid of wasting money that he feels his current system should have lasted longer and that anything he does he wants to make the most of his money.
I could be wrong but that is the way I'm reading it.

The OP location and budget would help if not we are all just throwing rocks in the dark. The two builds I listed weren't a recommendation they where to set a bar of what not to spend on his current platform.

 

[nomdeplume]

I think a layer of enamel just wore off my teeth going from thinking about RAM to RAM paired with AMD.

Is that 8GB kit literally a single stick? Don't run single channel please - I harp on a lot about how dual rank offers free performance over single rank (DDR4) but single channel just cripples any hardware.

No, 2x4GB. I'm only dumb not completely stupid.

Slow DDR4 isn't really the end of the world (especially if you can get a dual rank 32GB kit), but running out of threads in games is. 6C/6T i5s and 8C/8T 9700K have not aged terribly well.

I rather expected some improvement to ST anywhere along the upgrade path as being very helpful when it comes at higher frequencies as well.

What exactly would running out of threads look like if your processor sits between 10 and 25 percent usage the vast majority of time inside a game?

If you have your sights set exclusively on mATX you will always be in this second-class citizen hole. Outside of one-offs like the Gene, the best you can get is probably Aorus Pro, Mortar and TUF mATX. If you believe (rightly so) that these mATX boards aren't worth the price they command, then just grab a better memory kit and maybe a 8700 and wait it out.

This was probably the last straw with a case I really liked the cooling and layout/features of. ATX has a lot more options that are easier to find if a similar hangup occurs. At least I kept the box so it technically won't consume any more space in a closet. Resistance towards starting all over is waning by the second in spite of...

Idea that suddenly adding crappy RGB and HYPE marketing instantly equates with amazingly high markups on historically low cost mass produced products with sparse innovation is (to answer oxrufiioxo) a bit sickening and certainly limiting my willingness to purchase even related items taxed in this manner. Very small value for money.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I rather expected some improvement to ST anywhere along the upgrade path as being very helpful when it comes at higher frequencies as well.

What exactly would running out of threads look like if your processor sits between 10 and 25 percent usage the vast majority of time inside a game?

With your current gpu you are fine it's too slow for you to have issues in most games unless you are running low settings at like 720p. If you do upgrade to anything semi modern that is where you would run into issues with an 8400 you'd probably be ok in most games up to like a 6650XT which is likely over double your gpu performance at this point.

The caveat being if you are trying to game at 4k or 1440p to a lesser extent.

But as far as limiting factors with your current cpu it would be in order ST performance, cache. frequency, cores/threads.

A game doesn't need to max out the cpu to 100% to be limited by it it could max out a single core, it could max out the cache, it could be limited by latency to your system memory, or thread limited while still not hitting 100% usage.

Partly why I recommended the 8700K it has more cache, higher requency, and more threads assuming you can get it for cheap.

 

[tabascosauz]

No, 2x4GB. I'm only dumb not completely stupid.

I rather expected some improvement to ST anywhere along the upgrade path as being very helpful when it comes at higher frequencies as well.

What exactly would running out of threads look like if your processor sits between 10 and 25 percent usage the vast majority of time inside a game?

This was probably the last straw with a case I really liked the cooling and layout/features of. ATX has a lot more options that are easier to find if a similar hangup occurs. At least I kept the box so it technically won't consume any more space in a closet. Resistance towards starting all over is waning by the second in spite of...

Idea that suddenly adding crappy RGB and HYPE marketing instantly equates with amazingly high markups on historically low cost mass produced products with sparse innovation is (to answer oxrufiioxo) a bit sickening and certainly limiting my willingness to purchase even related items taxed in this manner. Very small value for money.

Don't need to dump your GPU if it meets your needs of course, but LGA1151 doesn't have much left in the tank. Intel only opened up RAM OC on non-Z series chipsets in 12th gen, so 2666 is as good as it gets. All the CPUs in that socket have the same IPC, so you need more clock (ie. 5GHz all-core), which in turn needs more VRM. 9900K requires a robust VRM to support properly (your board ain't it, sorry), and Intel boards' big VRM upgrade only came later in 10th/11th gen. 8700K makes the most sense if you can pick one up for the right price.

Generally the 6C/6T and 8C/8T thread issue will let you know when it becomes a problem. Unexpectedly low fps for the hardware, issues with frametime and stuttering - not subtle.

As a whole, seeing as you are happy with your GPU, 2x4GB is honestly the only glaring problem. Kinda surprised you made it this far on 8GB, but I guess you're just exceedingly disciplined about your RAM usage. I would just get the cheapest possible 2x16GB kit you can find - RAM prices have come down significantly as of late. $50 isn't bad at all.

NVMe basically doesn't matter for gaming outside of the most fringe cases. SATA SSD is still fine. Storage prices are also falling so you could certainly make the switch to something cheap, though. Not like you'll be throwing it away when you upgrade.

 

[nomdeplume]

A game doesn't need to max out the cpu to 100% to be limited by it it could max out a single core, it could max out the cache, it could be limited by latency to your system memory, or thread limited while still not hitting 100% usage.

That I do appreciate.

Quite glad I didn't go buy a 13400 and D4 board to avoid the extra heat output or any other downsides. AMD seems to be answering a lot of these complaints on the processor side. If that trend continues and makes its way to graphics as well without incurring a high RMA rate. There won't be too much issue going that direction for myself and I suspect many others.

As a whole, seeing as you are happy with your GPU, 2x4GB is honestly the only glaring problem. Kinda surprised you made it this far on 8GB, but I guess you're just exceedingly disciplined about your RAM usage. I would just get the cheapest possible 2x16GB kit you can find - RAM prices have come down significantly as of late. $50 isn't bad at all.

GPU was an entry point and nothing more. Absolved of scarcity and everything else that was going on I would've bought a 1080 while they were still on shelves. When I see a point that looks good arrive the 1060 will be replaced.

I had two options in Micro Center this mobo would support. 8GB I bought and 32GB of the high quality one out of 100(00)K customers buy. That entire memory aisle of locked cases could've fit in two rows of a single case with room to spare.

Going to just double or quadruple RAM and shut up until I have something good to shout about.

 

[Selaya]

huh?
i've always been under the impression that skylake's dependent on at least uh semi-decent memory; preferrably 3200 or 3600 (w/ useful cas latencies like, 16 or 18 at most) (2933 on the 10700 is fine-ish but that's about it); it simply does not have the cache to be able to do well w/o that good, fast memory

which in turn made non-z boards until the b560 age like milk, basically since you're locked to piss-poor 2666 pre 10700/10900

(then again, you don't need all that much to hit 60fps stable so there's that)

 

[Dr. Dro]

IMO - current system is serviceable. Single biggest issue with it right now is 8 GB RAM, that's costing you a TON of performance before you even upgrade anything else.

Fortunately 32 GB DDR4 kits are affordable, $60 or thereabouts gets you a DDR4-3200 2x16 kit. No point in just 16 GB RAM, you will still have RAM capacity related grief, so buy that first and foremost.

If the CPU still gives you grief afterwards, buy a replacement CPU, models to look for i7-8700, i7-9700/9700F, i9-9900 (non K variants), i5-9600KF, i7-9700K, best one you can afford up to $200.

Good luck man.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

$60 or thereabouts gets you a DDR4-3200 2x16 ki

No point in 3200, chipset locks the speed to 2666 maximum, 2400 more likely as a JEDEC profile.

 

[Dr. Dro]

No point in 3200, chipset locks the speed to 2666 maximum, 2400 more likely as a JEDEC profile.

I didn't mean 3200 because of that, but it's because it's the cheapest kit on pcpartpicker lol

32 GB RAM for $50! And it isn't an isolated instance either. There's just no point in 16 GB configurations anymore.