What would make the most sense to upgrade in my PC?

agamersday

Hello,

currently I have 

16GB G.Skill RipJaws V rot DDR4-2800 RAM (another 16GB incoming shortly)

6GB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming

Intel Core i7 6700 4x 3.40GHz

looking for faster render times... and sometimes when the scene gets really busy it really lags when I drag things around, so I hope to fix that.

Thanks in advance

Silver Dolphin

Hi, I would start with another video card preferably a 8gb Nvidia 1070 and use it in first PCI slot to run monitors. I mention the 8gb 1070 because windows will use about 2gb video card memory to run monitors. Next with both the 1060 and 1070 you may need a stronger powersupply it is better to have more power supply than less. Lastly, you will have to bump up to 32gb of ram so Daz Studio and Iray and your video cards can render your scenes. On a final note download MSI afterburner and take your 1060 off auto and while you are rendering Iray turn on the fan to 100% This will keep your video card from burning up those auto fan profiles are for 3d gaming not Iray rendering which puts alot of stress on video card not to mention heats them up. If you are on a buget and can't get 1070 get a cheap nvidia video card to run monitors and use the 1060 just to render Iray.

tj_1ca9500b

Just sort of echoing what Silver said.  Assuming your power supply is up to speed, yeah I'd look at either an Nvidia video card with more VRAM, or maybe a second 1060 to run in crossfire mode (if your card and mobo support that, if not never mind).  Next, I'd at least double that memory.  More if it's in your budget.  Finally, if you don't have a decent modern SSD (a quality one built in the last year or two), definitely look into that (increases caching responsiveness, shorter boot times/software load times, etc).  With some sort of backup configuration of course (a large HDD to regularly do backups on, etc.).

And yeah, take a good look at your cooling.  Your video card will be pushed pretty hard by Daz, along with your system, so if you feel like your cooling is weak, definitely look at more/better fans, and give your CPU cooler a good once over (is it doing the job OK, or are you running hot?).  Or liquid cooling if you have the budget for that.

Your processor is still very respectable, and unless you are doing a lot of CPU based renders, yeah that'd be the last thing I'd look at.  Might as well squeeze some more life out of it!