Well... been running into CPU feeling not as fast as it should in some tasks - given that CPU usage seems to be pegged at a multiple of 25% or exactly 100% during such times of slowness, I kind of regret the choice of the i5-4590 in retrospect. CPU intensive games, be it in total or in single-threaded performance, seem to be causing GPU utilization issues in some cases - I'm not getting enough mileage out of my GTX 970 sometimes, especially when overclocked. Or it'd be decompression jobs taking longer than I'd like, or encodes taking longer than I'd like in practice. Sometimes I engage in rapid-fire opening of multiple browser tabs at once, and then CPU usage skyrockets, too, while I'm stuck waiting. It might be good enough, but apparently I've outgrown my needs.
I've been evaluating possible options for a CPU upgrade, and any motherboard and RAM upgrades, if required.
Right now, I'm thinking of these possibilities, stock-dependent (I'll get back to you on possible pricing information and availability, as I'm just someone living in Malaysia, which is pretty far away from the USA or pretty much almost every place TR gerbils are)
i5-4690K
i7-4790K
i5-6600K
i7-6700K
i5-7600K
i5-7700K
If I change into a *lake platform:
Z170 motherboard with DDR3 slots
Z170 motherboard with DDR4 slots
Z270 motherboard with DDR4 slots
I'll be keeping the H60 around, so I'll at least do the stock frequencies, and maybe squeeze in a bit of extra hertz.
And finally, probably 2x8 GB of DDR4 RAM should the upgrade specifies a DDR4 motherboard.
Thanks in advance! Everything else is basically the exact same as what I have, so it should be just a CPU swap, with possibly a tailing motherboard and RAM upgrade.