Upgrade CPU, GPU, or box?

[zll]

I currently have a Ryzen 3600, 16 gigs of ram, and an Rx 5700. My pc still handles everything I do well enough except for Hell Divers 2, which drops to 30 FPS on the harder difficulties when the **** hits the fan.

Now I'm wondering do I:

1) Get an 5700x3d (Currently 5400 on wootware)
2) Get a rx 6800 (Currently 9k, which is only about a grand more than Amazon.com)
3) Spend some more cash and upgrade to an AM5 box with an 7600 and 16 gigs of ram and chuck my rx 5700 into that?

 

[UrBaN963]

Your bottleneck is most likely your GPU, assuming this is at 1080p.

I would grab the RX6800 ( I saw some 3080s on Carb going for like R5800 which would probably be a better bet overall).

 

[WAslayer]

Gonna guess that GPU is holding you back..

Have you run something like hwmonitor while the game is running to see where your bottleneck is coming from..? Good to get confirmation on that..

 

[rambo919]

You wont know if you don't try but if not running it on an SSD do that. Interestingly they added that to the recommended specs.

 

[Quicks]

Upgrade GPU, then you can later upgrade everthing else and still use the new GPU.

 

[TrueSeeker]

Well you're well within minimum specs across the board (for 30fps at lowest graphical settings). But, below recommended GPU (for 60fps at medium graphical settings).

Helldivers 2 PC Specs and Major Multiplayer Feature Confirmed

Developer Arrowhead reveals the full spread of PC requirements for Helldivers 2, and confirms a major multiplayer function.

gamerant.com

You can try going through a guide like this first(no idea how much you've already tinkered):

Helldivers 2: Best PC Settings to Improve FPS & Gameplay

Marvel at the impressive lighting and environmental effects with the help of our custom PC settings for Helldivers 2.

gamerant.com

 

[zll]

Well you're well within minimum specs across the board (for 30fps at lowest graphical settings). But, below recommended GPU (for 60fps at medium graphical settings).

Helldivers 2 PC Specs and Major Multiplayer Feature Confirmed

Developer Arrowhead reveals the full spread of PC requirements for Helldivers 2, and confirms a major multiplayer function.

gamerant.com

You can try going through a guide like this first(no idea how much you've already tinkered):

Helldivers 2: Best PC Settings to Improve FPS & Gameplay

Marvel at the impressive lighting and environmental effects with the help of our custom PC settings for Helldivers 2.

gamerant.com

Haven't tweaked much. Mostly just on medium. I'll try this guide out.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Your bottleneck is most likely your GPU, assuming this is at 1080p.

I would grab the RX6800 ( I saw some 3080s on Carb going for like R5800 which would probably be a better bet overall).

This. I would buy a used 3080 over a new RX 6800.

 

[rambo919]

This. I would buy a used 3080 over a new RX 6800.

Do people ever actually need to replace heat transfer paste on GPU's they bought second hand?

 

[Fulcrum29]

Do people ever actually need to replace heat transfer paste on GPU's they bought second hand?

It is very hard to say. Paste does dry out, but some GPUs were better pasted than others. You would get people repasting 3-5 year old GPUs without seeing any improvements. Kryosheets work a charm I heard, but I don't see it available at the moment, and they are conductive. I have opened some old, but hard-used GPUs, and their thermal pads vary in longevity. The error some make when repasting GPUs is not applying the heat sink pressure correctly when reassembling, and that can kill a GPU.

For "gaming" laptops, those need repasting. This I know all too well. I have a moerse thermal paste collection, lol.

 

[ponder]

Haven't tweaked much. Mostly just on medium. I'll try this guide out.

Use fsr3 framegeneration.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Use fsr3 framegeneration.

Lossless Scaling also received an update:

X3 Frame Generation

- Introducing the X3 frame generation mode. LSFG 2.1 can now generate two intermediate frames, effectively tripling the framerate.

X3 has increased GPU load by approximately 1.7 times compared to X2 mode. At the same time, LSFG 2.1 Performance and LSFG 1.1 have been optimized to be 20% faster in X2 mode compared to the previous version.

It has been tested that X3 mode does not cause any additional latency compared to X2. Latency is affected by the base framerate and when the GPU is fully utilized. For the best experience in both image smoothness and latency, it is recommended to lock the game framerate at 1/3 of the monitor's refresh rate in X3 mode.

The minimum recommended base frame rate remains the same as for X2 mode at 30 FPS for 1080p and 40 FPS for 1440p, respectively.

- New behavior when the final framerate should exceed the monitor refresh rate:

Previously, LS rendered all necessary frames, some of which were later discarded when displayed on the monitor. LS will now skip rendering extra frames while accounting for correct frame pacing, so the result should be very similar to the old behavior but much more resource efficient.

While a higher base framerate is better for latency purposes, forcing LS to skip frames may not result in the best smoothness.

Given that the LS framerate will never exceed the refresh rate now, for convenience and also for identifying issues, the 'Draw FPS' option also outputs captured frames when using DXGI capture.

For someone who has owned the app since whenever I mainly used it to upscale old media, I haven't used their X2/3 Frame Generation, but some say it works.

I won't use it in online multiplayer games, which could trigger a ban.

For those who don't want to pay the odd Rand. I think it is like R 70. There is Magpie, but its dev won't implement the above or similar due to it being strictly an upscaler though they do have FSR 1 implemented.

 

[Forum Reader]

From my experience with desktops, I've had issues with case fans dying and me not noticing. Notably, the front case fan which sucks in air. PC would reset/crash at times because of motherboard overheating and I thought for months it was the paste on the CPU/GPU which I repasted and still had issues. When all I had to do was replace the case fan.