CPU and video card

[Malzian]

CPU
Intel i5-3570K (3.40GHz...3.80GHz)

Video card
NVidia Geforce GTX 970

Got the video card late last year but wondering if the fps drop is the CPU or the video card

Thank you in advance

It's probably your CPU, that thing is several generations old, and if you've been using it for a few years, it could very well be approaching the latter half of its life cycle

The intel 7XXX series just launched and is quite reasonably priced. I recommend a 7600k and a Z270 motherboard if you want to overclock.

Actually that's still a decent and capable chip, and the GPU should be fine, as well. However, if you're looking for a culprit in load times, the most likely source is the hard drive the data files are on. You should routinely defragment the drive if you aren't already and I also recommend running some health checks on it like chkdsk and the like just to make sure you're not developing bad sectors. Also other things might contribute to it, like antivirus scanning the drive or other programs like Steam doing background updates.

Before you invest in new hardware, make sure everything you have is operating as it should.

[Kosmos992k]

Actually that's still a decent and capable chip, and the GPU should be fine, as well. However, if you're looking for a culprit in load times, the most likely source is the hard drive the data files are on. You should routinely defragment the drive if you aren't already and I also recommend running some health checks on it like chkdsk and the like just to make sure you're not developing bad sectors. Also other things might contribute to it, like antivirus scanning the drive or other programs like Steam doing background updates.

Before you invest in new hardware, make sure everything you have is operating as it should.

Hybrid or SSD drive to replace the HDD. I saw someone recently commenting about how crap the HDD in the PS4 is, the HDD in 90+% of PCs is just as crap. A better HDD will boost performance a little, as will keeping the existing drive cleaned up - as you suggest. but an SSD or Hybrid will do far more.

[Malzian]

Hybrid or SSD drive to replace the HDD. I saw someone recently commenting about how crap the HDD in the PS4 is, the HDD in 90+% of PCs is just as crap. A better HDD will boost performance a little, as will keeping the existing drive cleaned up - as you suggest. but an SSD or Hybrid will do far more.

The original PS4 HDD is pretty crappy. Replaced mine with a higher performance 2TB drive (HDD since that size in Hybrid or SSD is not something I'm going to pay for right now... >.>). Easy enough to put in a PC, but I still only recommend SSDs for system drives right now as the high volume of Read/Writes on a game drive will reduce its lifespan. A decent 7200RPM drive on a 6Gb/s SATA will give you plenty of performance, though a hybrid would indeed be better.

[Kosmos992k]

The original PS4 HDD is pretty crappy. Replaced mine with a higher performance 2TB drive (HDD since that size in Hybrid or SSD is not something I'm going to pay for right now... >.>). Easy enough to put in a PC, but I still only recommend SSDs for system drives right now as the high volume of Read/Writes on a game drive will reduce its lifespan. A decent 7200RPM drive on a 6Gb/s SATA will give you plenty of performance, though a hybrid would indeed be better.

People would be well advised to check the drives own cache size as well. a drive with a 64MB cache/buffer will peform better regardless of rotation speed. If you can get a 7200rpm drive with larger cache, double bonus. I'm not arguing that the HDD in the PS4 isn't crap it's costed very tightly so it's not going to be a premium drive, just like most PCs.

Also, unless you have specific evidence of SSds actually wearing out, you might want to re-examine the technology. I know very well the limitation of flash memory cells, but that's not the whole story for SSDs, at least not modern ones. With a larger drive and decent wear leveling, the lifespan of an SSD even in gaming can exceed the MTBF for 99% of HDDs.