Upgrading GFX on a 4690k build

Tij da feen

I have a build from late 2014 that I haven't touched barring adding SSDs and was looking at an upgrade.

I mostly play CS, Halo and Tarkov at the moment but do occasionally play some more taxing games (BF / Metro etc...).

I'm playing at 1080p 144hz atm but may look at upgrading to 1440p 144hz.

For reference, my current build:
i5-4690k
212 EVO
MSI Z97-G43 Gaming
GTX 970 Windforce
16GB RAM
Corsair RM550 80 plus Gold
120GB SSD
512 SSD
2TB HDD
Nanoxia Deep Silence Two

Is it worth just upgrading GFX at this point or should I bite the bullet and upgrade CPU/RAM/MB as well?

K.O.Kiki

Yes to upgrading GPU - the 970 would be considered around "entry-level" (RX 570) now.

You might still get away with the i5 but a CPU/platform upgrade is inevitable - the lack of multi-threading will cause noticeable stuttering eventually, particularly in taxing games (e.g. Battlefield).

Tij da feen

Would a 1660 super be a decent card to throw into this system? Not sure what is best in terms of bottlenecks.
I could throw a secondhand i7 in there but probably not worth investing in this platform at this stage.

If I was to throw 650-700 euro at this what would be recommended in terms of CPU/MB/RAM/GFX upgrade?

BloodBath

I upgraded from something similar very recently. Went with these parts.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£163.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£74.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 5700 8 GB DD Ultra Video Card (£312.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £650.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-10 18:54 BST+0100

Homelander

If you're not bothered with a new build, I do see 4770's sometimes are selling for reasonable money second hand. Not on Ebay, but on adverts I have seen some go for less than €100, CEX sell the 4770 for €90 but they are closed at the moment.

Obviously, a Ryzen 1600AF at a similar price point is way better, but sometimes we just want the easy, hassle free option. They still do well enough in games like BFV where the 4690K would have a very tough time.

New build wise, a Ryzen 3600, B450M Max, 16GB 3200mhz with a Radeon 5600XT would be solid and fit into your budget.

There's also the 5700 if you want to stretch a little, not sure if AMD have fixed the notorious and long-running issues with some of those cards.

BloodBath

The very latest beta driver seems stable.

Tij da feen

Thanks for this guys. On the motherboard the tomahawk max is out of stock currently on Amazon. Would the X470 be a decent substitute @£;104?

MSI X470

Tij da feen

Cheers for the help on this. Here's what I went for in the end:
Ryzen 5 3600
MSI X470 Gaming Plus (from CCL since amazon were out of stock on most motherboards)
16GB Crucial Ballistix 3200Mhz
XFX 5600 XT THICC III Ultra

Was waiting a while for the processor from amazon and the mobo from CCL but luckily they both arrived today.

Gave the case a good thorough cleaning, upgraded all the bits and got Windows re-installed so looking forward to putting the system through it's paces.