Overclock Vs Turbo Boost Vs Upgrade

Hi,

I've been playing DCS for a while with this:

Asus Z77 Motherboard

i5 3570K

24 GB DDR3

1 SSD for Windows, one SSD for DCS and X-Plane

Recently upgraded to a GTX 1080Ti. I play in 1080p and Vsync activated (60hz, 23" office monitor), no VR.

My CPU has been turbo boosted @ 4.4Ghz for a while, without any issue (but no overclock, voltage stuff, etc.)

I've been usually satisified with my framerates, low 50s minimum (Caucasus and Vegas with max details except for depth of field), flying mostly solo missions (choppers and jets)

However, now that more complex maps are here or on the way, I feel I need a boost in FPS and I believe the CPU is bottlenecking the 1080Ti. 35-40 FPS in some simple Caucasus F-18 missions or above Dubai is not a game breaker yet, but frustration is building up.

My objective is to play at 60 FPS at all time (meaning even above highly detailed locations), in 1080p for now, and in 1440 next year.

Would overclocking the 4 cores of my venerable i5 be helpful (I suspect not)?

Or should I upgrade the whole system with an i7 9700K/Z390/DDR4 to feed the 1080Ti to the max? Would it improve my minimum FPS noticably? I read conflicting posts in the forum. Some said CPU upgrades of that magnitude have not yielded any big performance boost for them, while someone said it was day and night.

Thanks in advance for your wisdom!

You should firstly monitore a gameplay flying over a stressing area (with msi afterburner f.e.).

Then you watch your FPS curve (normally a 60 fps flat line). When you have fps dips, if the GPU usage curve is at 100% at same time your only solution is to reduce level of details.

If the gpu is the limiting factor you shouldn't benefit from a better cpu. Only theory but concerning gpu it works and is easy to see.

With actual options we have (SSAA, etc.…) I bet that a 1080Ti can have troubles even in 1080p.

Thanks Toutenglisse. I'll check again with afterburner.

Delid the beast and spicy the cores.