I'm currently gaming with the above combo of 4690K and GTX 970. It ticks over ok at 1080 (60Hz). I was originally thinking about upgrading my GPU (GTX 970) and monitor (24” 1080p) to move up to a 27” 1440p and keeping my current i5 4690K. However the more research I do it seems that there could be a bottleneck if the GPU is upgraded esp with 1440p. And obviously this will only get worse in the future. Seeing as this is the last money I’ll have to spend on my system for a good while I’m now wondering if I’d be better upgrading the GPU but sticking with my 1080 display and putting that money towards a CPU upgrade instead. I would still hope to move up to 1440 eventually but it wouldn't be for a while. My system use is 50/50 gaming and Photoshop. So in terms of both enjoyment, and future proofing what would you do? Budget for either option (GPU/monitor or CPU etc/GPU) would be £600 max. Any input appreciated guys.
Oooh that is tricky. I was in this position now long ago, my old 3570k@4.6GHz is more or less the same as your 4690k, and moving to a GTX1080 and a 2650x1440 screen it was a bottleneck. So I would suggest a Vega64 for just under £300 (or a GTX1080 for about the same price if you want to go second hand) and a 27" screen which would come to £490ish if you go for those two. So the remaining £110 you can do two things with; gtab a 4790k, a quick look at ebay costs about £100, which would give you a little bump or keep an eye out for second hand bundles, I got a 6800k, Rampage 5 Extreme and 16GB of RAM with a windows 10 key for £275 on the forums market place. Edit: something really went wrong with that hyperlink!
Usually the higher resolution the more dependent on GPU and less CPU you are, so if all you're doing is gaming then a GPU and monitor upgrade is best. If you do other stuff, then it gets complicated. Depending on what you do or want to do, everything may need an upgrade.
Thats not true with modern games at 1440, quad core CPU's don't seen to have quite enough oomph to push a GTX1080, that what I found with my testing.
Thanks for the replies so far everyone. If I was going down the 1440p route I’d need to spend about £220ish on a display as I need IPS for photo editing. This would leave me enough to get a used 1070Ti and possibly an i7 4790k as @Bloody_Pete suggested. The CPU / GPU route would probably be a 1070Ti and Ryzan 2600x, but I’m wondering how much of an upgrade to the 4690K this would be. It’s tough to know what to do, for Photoshop the system is fine, screen upgrades obviously impact this, but in terms of upgrades and performance it’s gaming that I’m really concerned about. And as I said, it’ll be a while before I can spend any more money on the system for a while so I want to get this right!
