Help improve my wooden PC

Hey so basically I'm experiencing quite some lag while playing Battlefield 1. I have to close everything in the background to make it run partly smoothly on the lowest settings. My current PC specs are those:

CanYouRunIt suggests updating me GFX drivers and upgrading my CPU:
Minimum: Core i5 6600K / AMD FX-6350
You Have: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz

That is for minimum settings.
Maximum settings suggests:
Recommended: DirectX 11.0 Compatible video card (AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB / nVidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB)
You Have: GeForce GTX 660 Ti

CPU:
Recommended: Intel Core i7 4790 / AMD FX 8350 Wraith
You Have: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz

CPU speed:
Recommended: Info
You Have: 3.1 GHz

RAM:
Recommended: 16 GB
You Have: 8.0 GB

This PC is quite new for me as I got it like since last summer, even though it's a combination of old PC components from IRL friends which I was allowed to have for free. I already got a new RAM and Storage disk for it, but this seems like I need a new CPU aswell. If I get a new CPU will I be able to play BF1 on atleast normal settings? Right now I'm getting 30-60FPS on the lowest quality. Feel free to suggest CPU's, aslong as it's not super expensive, preferably below $200.
Some say I need a new GPU, however I have the feeling that's the best thing in my PC right now. I might be wrong though..

 

i7 2600 would be a good upgrade for this motherboard, would cost you around 120 EUR, to get one from marktplaats or tweakers, as for the graphics card, a 660 Ti is actually not a bad card, it shouldn't be a bottleneck for your system if your playing at medium/high settings on a 1680x1050 resolution. 16gb of ram would be a worthwhile upgrade considering your complaints about having to close background programs while running BF1. if you have a look at how your motherboard Dimm slots are currently populated you can probably purchase an additional two 4gb 1333mhz DDR3 Modules, or you could decide to look for a complete new set of DDR3 4x4gb or 2x8gb and put your current RAM up for sale, should get you around 25-35 EUR if you put them on marktplaats or tweakers, the i5 2400 sells for approximately 40-60 eur second hand.

 

What's your CPU/GPU usage when running BF1?

If you're going to get a new CPU I would honestly look into buying a 2500K (sells for <100 on tweakers for example) with a cheap heatsink and overclocking it instead of buying a 2600.

 

Not sure how to check the usage, but both my CPU and motherboard were at 80~ degrees Celcius, while my GPU was at 70 while playing Battlefield 1.

 

The GPU temps are quite normal I think, but 80 on a non overclocked 2400 seems high too me, even with a (I pressume) stock cooler. What are the temps on the individual cores? Might just be a faulty sensor.

To check everything while gaming you could run something like MSI afterburner (Free: MSI Global) and have it display the GPU usage and temps, CPU usage and temps, etc..

 

Well, you could do that, but thats not really an upgrade. I feel like if your gonna replace an i5 with a slightly better i5 your basically just postponing getting an i7, if you want to pull some extra years out of a decent board, then an upgrade to an i7 would be a smarter choice. especially considering the small difference in price. Regardless of which CPU he ends up choosing, 80 degrees is not a comfortable operating temperature, I suggest you get something like a Scythe Mugen 4.

 

How is it not an upgrade? His 2400 runs at 3.1ghz while a 2500K can be overlocked to 4.5 with ease. 2400 -> 2600 is hardly an upgrade, only thing he would get out of it is hyperthreading which doesn't do much for gaming except maybe for specific games and I'm not sure if BF1 is one of them, regardless if it does or not, a higher clocked 2500K would be alot more beneficial for him

 

Tbh I think your problems might be software-side. The Sandy bridge i5s are all pretty powerful and upgrading to another sandy chip would bring you a negligible boost in performance.

When was the last time you reformatted or REALLY cleaned your PC, both physically (dust) and digitally (format/defrag)?

 

Since last September/October most likely. At that time I basically got this PC.

 

Are you experiencing frame lag or signal lag?

 

Signal lag being a bad connection? If so, frame lag.

 

Describe it though, like stuttering or things just being slow to respond in general?