Most CPU Intensive Games in 2026 and What CPU You Need

CPU-intensive games are titles that place unusually high demands on your processor to handle AI logic, physics simulations, world-state management, draw calls, and multiplayer synchronization.

Last updated: May 2026

You upgraded your GPU and still get stutters. Frametime spikes in crowds. Hitches when loading new zones. Your shiny RTX 4090 sits at 60% utilization while your CPU screams at 100% on a single core. That’s a CPU bottleneck, and it’s more common in 2026 than most people expect.

Modern games are bigger, denser, and more simulated than ever. Larger open worlds, smarter NPC AI, persistent online universes, and the push to 144Hz and 240Hz gaming have all shifted more pressure onto your processor. This guide covers the most CPU-intensive games available right now, explains exactly why they punish weak CPUs, and gives you specific processor recommendations matched to each type of game, with price tiers so you can make an informed upgrade decision.

What Makes a Game CPU Intensive? (And Why It Still Matters in 2026)

Your GPU and CPU handle completely different parts of a game. Understanding that split is the key to diagnosing performance problems.

The GPU handles the visual side: rendering geometry, applying textures, running shaders, calculating ray-traced lighting, and pushing pixels to your monitor. Resolution, anti-aliasing, shadow quality, and ray tracing are almost entirely GPU-bound tasks. Crank those settings up and your GPU works harder. Your CPU barely notices.

The CPU handles everything that makes the game world function. That includes:

• NPC AI decision trees and pathfinding
• Physics simulations (cloth, destruction, vehicle dynamics)
• Open-world chunk streaming and asset loading
• Draw call submission to the GPU
• Game logic loops and scripting systems
• Server tick-rate processing in multiplayer games
• Player input processing at high refresh rates

Certain genres are inherently CPU-bound by design. Open-world games have to stream terrain, simulate dozens of NPC schedules, and manage dynamic systems simultaneously. Strategy and simulation games run AI calculations on thousands of individual entities every single tick. Competitive multiplayer games at 240Hz need the CPU to process game state and submit frames faster than most processors can manage. VR adds a low-latency render loop that taxes CPU thread scheduling in ways standard gaming doesn’t.

There’s one more factor that surprises a lot of people: resolution. At 4K, your GPU is almost always the bottleneck because it has to push four times the pixels of 1080p. Drop to 1080p on that same RTX 4090 and the GPU finishes frames faster than your CPU can feed it work. The result is a CPU bottleneck that 4K gaming would have hidden. If you’re gaming at 1080p or 1440p at high refresh rates, CPU choice matters a lot.

According to community discussions aggregated at the TechPowerUp forums, Total War titles rank among the most reliable CPU stress tests in gaming, though no game will ever approach the load of a dedicated tool like Prime95. The consensus is that CPU-intensive gaming workloads require both high IPC (instructions per cycle) and high single-core clock speed, with at least 6 cores for modern titles.

The Most CPU Intensive Games in 2026, Full List

1. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Nothing on this list stresses a CPU quite like Flight Simulator 2024. The game streams real-time global terrain from Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers, simulates live air traffic pulled from actual flight data, and runs a full weather system with dynamic atmospheric physics. All of that hits a single thread hard.

The primary CPU bottleneck is world streaming: the engine has to continuously decode and place terrain tiles as you fly, and that work is largely single-threaded. Even with a fast GPU, you’ll see stutters over dense cities if your processor can’t keep up. AMD’s 3D V-Cache chips measurably reduce these stutters because the larger L3 cache means less time waiting on memory for streaming data.

• Minimum: Intel Core i5-12600K / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• Recommended: Intel Core i7-13700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D or higher
• Bottleneck warning: Even an RTX 4090 will stutter over London or Tokyo if paired with a pre-Zen 3 AMD chip or a pre-10th Gen Intel CPU.

2. Cities: Skylines II

Cities: Skylines II is the gold standard for CPU punishment. The traffic simulation runs on a single thread and tracks tens of thousands of individual citizen AI agents simultaneously. Late-game cities regularly push one CPU core to 90-100% utilization while other cores sit relatively idle. Nothing exposes a weak single-core performer faster.

The original Cities: Skylines was already a legendary CPU stress test. The sequel raised the bar considerably. Framerates in large cities can collapse to single digits on mid-range CPUs regardless of GPU tier.

• Minimum: Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K
• Recommended: Ryzen 9 7900X / i9-13900K or better
• Bottleneck warning: Core count won’t save you here. Single-core speed and IPC are everything.

3. Cyberpunk 2077 (with Phantom Liberty / 2.0 Patch)

The 2.0 patch rewrote Cyberpunk’s police and NPC systems from scratch. Night City now runs denser crowd simulation, more reactive traffic AI, and more complex cloth physics than at launch. At 1080p on an RTX 4090, the game is still CPU-limited in many scenarios.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is among the top performers in this title in benchmark data, though newer 3D V-Cache chips like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D edge ahead by around 10%. The 3D V-Cache reduces cache misses in the open-world streaming pipeline, which translates to smoother frame times in dense city areas. Not GPU-limited at all in those scenarios. The CPU is the story.

• Minimum: i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X
• Recommended: Ryzen 7 7800X3D (best-in-class value for this title)
• Bottleneck warning: Older Zen 2 and 10th Gen Intel chips show severe frame time variance in the city center even with ray tracing disabled.

4. Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3 runs real-time dice logic, simultaneous AI turn calculations across dozens of characters, and complex companion behavior trees. In normal gameplay, it’s manageable. In Act 3’s Baldur’s Gate city and during large combat encounters with many AI participants, CPU usage spikes hard.

Scene transitions are the other pain point. Loading new areas requires the CPU to deserialize large amounts of world state, and slower processors create visible stutter during those transitions.

• Minimum: i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X
• Recommended: i7-13700K / Ryzen 7 7700X for stable 60fps through Act 3
• Bottleneck warning: Act 3 is notoriously harder on hardware than Act 1. Budget your CPU headroom accordingly.

5. Total War: Warhammer III and Total War: Pharaoh

Yes. Strategy games are CPU intensive. Very much so. Total War battle scenes run individual AI calculations on thousands of units per tick. Each soldier has its own state, morale system, and formation logic that the CPU evaluates constantly.

Total War games are almost entirely single-core dependent during battle. Pre-Zen 3 AMD chips and pre-12th Gen Intel CPUs show significant framerate drops in large-scale battles that a newer CPU with better IPC eliminates. A 12-core older CPU will lose to a fast 6-core modern chip in these scenarios every time.

• Minimum: Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K
• Recommended: Ryzen 7 7700X / i7-13700K
• Bottleneck warning: Campaign map AI can also stall on slow CPUs during late-game turns with many AI factions.

6. Escape from Tarkov

Tarkov runs server-side hit detection while simultaneously simulating local physics and AI raid bot behavior. The combination is brutal. Known CPU stutters affect even high-end rigs, and the game is particularly sensitive to CPU latency rather than raw throughput. Fast IPC and low-latency memory matter here more than core count.

Not fun to debug. Very satisfying to fix with a CPU upgrade.

• Minimum: Ryzen 5 7600X / i5-13600K
• Recommended: Ryzen 7 7800X3D for minimized stutter
• Bottleneck warning: Frame time spikes (not just average FPS) are the symptom here. Monitor frametimes, not just averages.

7. Minecraft (Modded / Large Servers)

Vanilla Minecraft running solo is fine on almost any modern CPU. Add a 200-mod modpack, connect to a large multiplayer server, or push render distance past 16 chunks with shaders, and you’ve created one of the most CPU-bound applications in gaming. Java’s single-threaded chunk generation is the core problem.

Modded Minecraft servers can peg a single CPU core at 100% continuously. It’s a legitimate CPU benchmark that many enthusiasts use for processor testing, and it exposes single-core weaknesses immediately.

• Minimum: Any modern 6-core CPU at 3.5GHz+
• Recommended: Ryzen 5 7600X or i5-13600K for heavy modpacks
• Bottleneck warning: Allocating more RAM to the Java instance helps, but CPU single-core speed is the real ceiling.

8. Star Citizen

Star Citizen runs a persistent universe simulation with real-time physics at a scale no other commercial game attempts. Server meshing, ship physics, planetary atmospheres, and large-scale multiplayer events all pile onto CPU workloads simultaneously. RAM bandwidth is also critical here because the game constantly streams enormous amounts of data.

It’s one of the most CPU-intensive PC games ever created. Full stop.

• Minimum: i7-12700K / Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 32GB RAM
• Recommended: i9-13900K / Ryzen 9 7950X with 32GB+ DDR5
• Bottleneck warning: DDR5 memory bandwidth makes a measurable difference in this title specifically (and you’ll want to confirm DOCP or EXPO is actually enabled so the RAM runs at its rated speed). DDR4 systems will hit a ceiling faster.

9. Valorant and CS2 at High Refresh Rates

Both games deliberately run low GPU load to maximize framerate. At 240Hz and above, the CPU has to process game state and submit frames fast enough to actually hit that target. GPU utilization sits at 40-60% in these titles while the CPU does the heavy lifting.

High single-core clock speed is the dominant factor. Core count matters much less. A Ryzen 5 7600X with its 5.3GHz boost outperforms many higher-core-count chips in this scenario.

• Minimum: i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X for 144Hz play
• Recommended: Ryzen 5 7600X / i5-13600K for consistent 240Hz
• Bottleneck warning: At 360Hz, even fast CPUs start to show limits. Single-core boost clock is everything.

10. Elden Ring

Elden Ring has poor multi-core scaling. The engine is heavily single-threaded, and framerate is directly tied to single-core clock speed. As noted in Reddit discussions from the PC gaming community, the game doesn’t take advantage of modern high-core-count CPUs the way other titles do.

The recommended CPU spec is a Ryzen 5 3600, which is telling. It runs fine on modest hardware, but if you want 60fps locked in demanding areas, single-core IPC is your limiting factor.

• Minimum: i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X for stable 60fps
• Recommended: Any modern 6-core+ CPU at 4.5GHz+ boost
• Bottleneck warning: Dense outdoor areas with many enemies can cause dips that no GPU upgrade will fix.

11. Starfield

Bethesda’s Creation Engine 2 carries forward some legacy single-thread dependencies from its predecessors. NPC daily routines, procedural planet generation on landing, and interior streaming all hit the CPU hard. AMD Zen 2 chips and older Intel 8th/9th Gen processors show significant performance deficits compared to modern CPUs in this title.

• Minimum: Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K
• Recommended: Ryzen 7 7700X / i7-13700K
• Bottleneck warning: Populated cities like New Atlantis are the worst-case scenario for CPU load in this game.

12. Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld

These aren’t graphically demanding. At all. But they’re ferocious CPU burners in the simulation sense. Dwarf Fortress runs complex individual AI for every colonist, creature, and liquid physics interaction. Large colonies can completely saturate a single CPU core and cause the game to slow to a crawl.

RimWorld behaves similarly at large colony sizes. Both games are excellent for understanding how single-threaded simulation workloads scale, and both expose weak single-core performers despite looking like they were made in 1995.

• Minimum: Any modern dual-core
• Recommended: High single-core clock speed above all else; core count is irrelevant
• Bottleneck warning: These games will run slow on a fast 16-core CPU if the single-core speed isn’t high enough.

CPU Intensive Games, Quick Reference Table

Here’s the full breakdown in one place so you can quickly find where your games fall and what CPU tier they actually need.

Game	Genre	Primary CPU Load Type	Minimum CPU	Recommended CPU	Primary Bottleneck
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024	Simulation / Flight	World streaming, single-thread	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	Ryzen 7 7800X3D / i7-13700K	CPU (heavy)
Cities: Skylines II	City Builder	Traffic / citizen AI, single-thread	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	i9-13900K / Ryzen 9 7900X	CPU (extreme)
Cyberpunk 2077	Open-World RPG	NPC simulation, physics	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	Ryzen 7 7800X3D	CPU at 1080p / GPU at 4K
Baldur’s Gate 3	RPG / Strategy	AI turn logic, behavior trees	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	i7-13700K / Ryzen 7 7700X	CPU (Act 3 especially)
Total War: Warhammer III	RTS / Strategy	Unit AI, single-thread battle	Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K	Ryzen 7 7700X / i7-13700K	CPU (single-core)
Escape from Tarkov	FPS / Survival	Server sync, AI bots, physics	Ryzen 5 7600X / i5-13600K	Ryzen 7 7800X3D	CPU (latency-sensitive)
Minecraft (Modded)	Sandbox	Java chunk gen, single-thread	Any 6-core at 3.5GHz+	Ryzen 5 7600X / i5-13600K	CPU (single-core)
Star Citizen	Space Sim / MMO	Universe sim, physics, streaming	i7-12700K / 32GB RAM	i9-13900K / Ryzen 9 7950X + DDR5	CPU + RAM bandwidth
Valorant / CS2	Competitive FPS	High FPS game state, input	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	Ryzen 5 7600X / i5-13600K	CPU (at 240Hz+)
Elden Ring	Action RPG	Single-thread engine loop	i5-12600K / Ryzen 5 5600X	Any modern 6-core at 4.5GHz+	CPU (single-core)
Starfield	Open-World RPG	NPC routines, streaming	Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K	Ryzen 7 7700X / i7-13700K	CPU in cities
Dwarf Fortress / RimWorld	Simulation	Entity AI, single-thread	Any modern dual-core	High single-core clock above all	CPU (extreme single-core)

CPU vs. GPU Intensive Games, What’s the Difference?

Knowing a game is CPU-intensive is useful. Knowing how to confirm it on your specific system is more useful. The symptoms of a CPU bottleneck and a GPU bottleneck look similar on the surface (bad performance) but have completely different fixes.

CPU bottleneck symptoms:

• GPU usage sitting below 85-90% while you’re not getting target framerates
• Frame time spikes that produce stutter, especially in crowd-heavy areas
• Performance that doesn’t improve when you lower graphical settings
• One CPU core pegged at 95-100% while others are relaxed

GPU bottleneck symptoms:

• GPU usage consistently at 95-100%
• CPU usage spread evenly across cores, none maxed out
• Performance improves meaningfully when you lower resolution or shadow quality
• Smooth, consistent frame delivery without spikes

To test your system, install MSI Afterburner with the RivaTuner Statistics Server overlay and display both CPU core usage and GPU core usage simultaneously while gaming. If your GPU is under 85% and you’re not hitting your target framerate, your CPU is the problem. If you’re wondering whether high GPU utilization is normal or a concern, understanding when 100% GPU usage is actually fine helps clarify what you should actually be worried about.

Some games are genuinely both. Cyberpunk 2077 at ultra settings with ray tracing in dense city areas can push your GPU near its ceiling while your CPU simultaneously manages hundreds of NPCs. That’s a dual bottleneck scenario, and it’s why mid-range systems often struggle disproportionately with that title.

Category	Example Games	Upgrade Priority
CPU-Intensive	Cities: Skylines II, Flight Simulator 2024, Tarkov, Total War	Faster CPU first
GPU-Intensive	Hogwarts Legacy, Alan Wake 2 (4K), Cyberpunk at 4K/RT	Better GPU first
Both	Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p high RT), Star Citizen	Balanced system upgrade
Neither (well-optimized)	Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite	No urgent bottleneck

Keeping an eye on normal GPU temperature ranges while running these tests also helps confirm whether your GPU is actually being pushed hard or just sitting underutilized.

Are VR Games CPU or GPU Intensive?

VR is uniquely demanding on both sides of the equation, but in different ways than standard gaming.

The GPU carries an especially heavy load in VR because it has to render two separate eye views per frame at high resolution and high framerates to avoid motion sickness. At 90Hz with full resolution, you’re effectively asking your GPU to work harder than most flat-screen 4K gaming scenarios.

The CPU’s role in VR is different but equally important. Low-latency tracking requires constant, fast input processing that can’t tolerate thread scheduling delays. Physics systems in VR titles need to stay in sync with head movement or motion sickness becomes a serious problem. Async Spacewarp and Reprojection, the technologies that generate synthetic frames when your PC can’t hit target framerate, are CPU-managed features that require consistent, predictable processing.

Titles like Half-Life: Alyx, Asgard’s Wrath 2, and Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR mode push both CPU and GPU hard simultaneously. There’s no hiding behind GPU power alone.

• Minimum for smooth VR: Ryzen 5 5600X / i5-12600K
• Recommended: Ryzen 7 7800X3D / i7-13700K
• Why X3D wins here: The larger cache reduces the latency spikes that VR tracking systems are particularly sensitive to.

What CPU Do You Need for CPU Intensive Games in 2026?

Here’s where competitors get vague. We’re not going to do that. Here are specific processors, matched to specific game types, with real price context.

For a complete platform view including chipset options, the AMD X870 vs X870E chipset comparison covers what motherboard features matter most for Ryzen 7000 and 9000 series builds. And before assuming a CPU upgrade is the answer, verify the chip you have isn’t simply throttling under load — the signs of CPU overheating can mimic a bottleneck on capable hardware.

Budget Tier (Under $200), Solid Performer

Good value. Not a compromise for most games.

• AMD Ryzen 5 7600X: 6 cores / 12 threads, up to 5.3GHz boost, around $190. Excellent single-core speed, runs most competitive and action games without issue.
• Intel Core i5-13600K: 14 cores (6P + 8E), around $195. Better multi-threaded headroom than the 7600X, similar single-core performance.

Best for: Valorant, CS2, Elden Ring, Escape from Tarkov, Starfield, most action RPGs.

Not ideal for: Cities: Skylines II late-game, Microsoft Flight Simulator over dense cities, Star Citizen.

Mid-Range Tier ($200-$350), The Recommended Sweet Spot

This is where most gamers should land in 2026.

• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (~$310): 8 cores, 96MB L3 cache with 3D V-Cache, 5.0GHz boost. The best value gaming CPU for CPU-intensive titles at this price point. The cache advantage shows up most in open-world games, Flight Simulator, and Cyberpunk 2077. Worth every dollar over the 7700X for gaming specifically.
• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (~$280): 8 cores, 5.4GHz boost, no V-Cache. Good all-rounder if you also do content creation where raw clock speed matters.
• Intel Core i7-13700K (~$330): 16 cores (8P + 8E), 5.4GHz boost. Better than the 7800X3D in multi-threaded workloads, trails it in gaming-specific tasks.

Best for: Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cities: Skylines II (medium cities), Total War, Flight Simulator.

High-End and Enthusiast Tier ($350+), No Compromise

You’re here if you play Cities: Skylines II at population cap, run Star Citizen, or host modded Minecraft servers.

• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D (~$600): 16 cores + 3D V-Cache. The ultimate combination of gaming cache performance and multi-threaded simulation workload capacity. Cities: Skylines II at scale, Flight Simulator, Star Citizen, and streaming simultaneously.
• Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (~$500-$550): 24 cores (8P + 16E) on the Arrow Lake platform. Excellent for simulation and strategy games that scale across many threads.
• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (~$650-$700): AMD’s latest flagship. Best single-core IPC available with full cache depth. Future-proof for anything coming in the next few years.

Best for: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Star Citizen, Cities: Skylines II late-game, heavily modded Minecraft, content creation alongside gaming.

Key Specs to Prioritize for CPU-Intensive Games

• Single-core IPC and clock speed: The most important factor for most game engines, especially older or single-threaded titles like Elden Ring, Minecraft, and Total War.
• Core count: Matters for simulation and strategy games with proper multi-threading (Star Citizen, Cities: Skylines II to a limited extent, Battlefield titles).
• L3 Cache size: AMD’s 3D V-Cache chips show 10-30% improvement in CPU-bound gaming scenarios over their non-V-Cache equivalents. The effect is largest in open-world streaming and competitive titles.
• Memory bandwidth (DDR5 vs DDR4): Meaningful for Star Citizen and Flight Simulator specifically. Most other titles don’t show a large real-world difference between DDR4 and DDR5 at comparable speeds.

How to Tell If Your Game Is CPU Bottlenecked (Step-by-Step)

Don’t guess. Here’s how to confirm it in five minutes.

Step 1: Download and install MSI Afterburner along with the RivaTuner Statistics Server that comes bundled with it. Both are free.

Step 2: In Afterburner’s monitoring settings, enable GPU Core Clock %, GPU Usage %, and CPU Usage % for your overlay display. Set the overlay to show in-game.

Step 3: Launch your game at your usual resolution and settings. Navigate to the most demanding area you know (a dense city, a large battle, a busy server).

Step 4: Read the numbers:

• GPU below 85% and you’re not hitting target FPS: CPU bottleneck confirmed
• GPU consistently at 95-100%: GPU bottleneck
• Both at 80-90%: well-balanced system

Step 5: If you’re unsure, temporarily drop your in-game resolution by one step (say, from 1440p to 1080p). If your FPS doesn’t improve meaningfully, it’s a CPU bottleneck because the GPU wasn’t the constraint to begin with.

For per-core diagnosis, HWiNFO64 is more granular than Afterburner. It shows you which specific CPU cores are saturated. In Cities: Skylines II, you’ll often see one core at 100% and the rest at 30-40%. That tells you immediately that more cores won’t help. You need faster cores.

Reference Intel’s ARK database to verify your current CPU’s boost clocks and cache specs before deciding whether an upgrade is warranted.

FAQ, CPU Intensive Games

What is the most CPU-intensive game ever made?

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Cities: Skylines II, and Star Citizen compete for this title depending on the scenario. Flight Simulator is the most consistently CPU-limited commercial game in widespread use, particularly over dense real-world cities where its world-streaming system struggles to keep up on anything below a top-tier processor. Star Citizen’s persistent universe simulation arguably pushes CPU architecture harder in absolute terms, but its smaller player base means fewer real-world benchmarks exist to confirm it definitively.

Do any games use 100% CPU?

Yes. Cities: Skylines II will pin a single CPU core at 100% during large city simulations and keep it there indefinitely. Civilization VI in late-game turns, heavily modded Minecraft on a busy server, and Dwarf Fortress with large colonies can all do the same. The important distinction is that it’s usually one core at 100%, not all cores. Monitoring with HWiNFO64 shows per-core usage so you can confirm exactly which core is saturated. Sustained 100% load also drives temperatures up, so it’s worth checking that your CPU stays within a good CPU temperature range under that kind of load — throttling will look like a bottleneck even when the chip itself is plenty fast.

What games are most CPU intensive in 2025 and 2026?

The consistent top-tier CPU burners across 2025 and 2026 are Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Cities: Skylines II, Cyberpunk 2077 (at 1080p), Star Citizen, Baldur’s Gate 3 (Act 3), and Total War titles. Escape from Tarkov and competitive titles like Valorant and CS2 at high refresh rates are also CPU-bound but in a different way: they need fast single-core speed rather than sustained multi-core simulation capacity.

Are strategy games CPU intensive?

Yes, reliably so. Real-time strategy and 4X games (Total War, Civilization, Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings III) are among the most CPU-intensive game genres available because AI entity simulation runs on every single game tick. Each unit, citizen, or AI faction requires the CPU to evaluate decisions continuously. Strategy game late-game performance is almost always CPU-limited regardless of GPU tier, making it one of the clearest cases where a CPU upgrade directly translates to better gameplay.

Can I play CPU-intensive games without a dedicated graphics card?

Some of them, yes. Minecraft (unmodded), Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld, older Civilization titles, and Escape from Tarkov at very low settings can technically run on integrated graphics. However, most modern CPU-intensive titles (Flight Simulator 2024, Cyberpunk 2077, Cities: Skylines II, Baldur’s Gate 3) also have significant GPU requirements for their visual layers and won’t reach playable framerates without a discrete graphics card, even if the CPU is doing most of the simulation work.

What You Should Do

If you’re getting stutters and your GPU is sitting below 85% utilization, stop blaming the graphics card. A CPU upgrade is what you need. Match your processor tier to your game library: simulation and open-world games reward high single-core IPC and large cache (look at X3D chips); strategy games with huge battles need fast single-core speed above all; competitive titles at high refresh rates are solved with any modern 6-core at 5GHz+. Check your actual CPU and GPU usage numbers with MSI Afterburner before spending anything. The data makes the decision obvious.