Boost your gaming experience with a CPU upgrade for CS2 to achieve higher frame rates.
Boost your gaming experience with a CPU upgrade for CS2 to achieve higher frame rates.
Hi, your current configuration includes an i9 9900k with all five cores, 5GHz, 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, an RTX 2080 Super. You're aiming for over 300 FPS in CS2 with medium to low settings, but you're seeing around 200 FPS, especially at 1920×1200. Since resolution changes don’t seem to help much, it looks like a CPU limitation might be the issue. If you want to keep using the RTX2080 for now, upgrading to something like the i7-13700K or an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D could improve performance. Most benchmarks focus on higher resolutions or newer GPUs, so checking if a CPU upgrade alone makes a difference would be wise. Let me know what you think!
Currently the 7800X3D stands out as the top CPU for CS:GO while the 13900K lags due to a bug that forces the game to use E-cores instead of P-cores (fixing this by disabling E-cores in BIOS). The 13700K appears less impacted but still trails behind the 5800X3D significantly at low performance levels. Running the 13900K with E-cores disabled causes noticeable stutters when it’s active, whereas turning them on doesn’t drastically change its behavior. Performance remains solid compared to the RTX 2080, but scaling depends heavily on your settings. At medium to high settings, you’ll often find yourself more reliant on the GPU than the CPU. Regardless, choosing the right CPU still matters most for achieving the highest minimum FPS, which is generally more crucial than peak average performance.
Thanks for linking those graphs, I was not aware on the issue with the E-cores. Although I would probably also wait with the upgrade to see how the upcoming intel 14th gen compares to the 7800x3d both in price and performance. Maybe I was not really clear with my question. My main concern is, if upgrading the CPU and keeping the RTX2080 would have any positive affect at all or if I would just get 10 more frames and run into the next bottleneck.