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CPU+GPU upgrade
I currently have i3-3220 as CPU and AMD HD7770 as GPU and I'd like to upgrade. I don't OC. I play at 1920x1080 and don't mind medium settings.
Would prefer 45+ fps. I prefer intel for CPU and AMD for GPU.
I'll need a new MOBO and RAM too. my budget is $600.
What are the best parts I can get?
Would prefer 45+ fps. I prefer intel for CPU and AMD for GPU.
I'll need a new MOBO and RAM too. my budget is $600.
What are the best parts I can get?
Comments
CPU - Intel I5 6500 3.2ghz
Motherboard MSI Z170-A Pro Intel Z170
GPU - XFM Radeon R9 380 Double Dissipation 4gb DDR5
The motherboard uses DDR4, and as your not overclocking at all, i think that i5 is probably the most suitable within a restricted price range, i may well be wrong however as there are other options open to you.
I'm not overly familiar with the AMD gpu's as i mostly use Nvidia, but others with more knowledge of them will probably be able to give you better advice on those, i just chose that one as it looked to be pretty good on tech spec's and the noise factor etc.
In the UK that comes to something like £400, but in $ it will be slightly more, but, the components may well be cheaper.
As for processor, I'd recommend checking if your motherboard can support I7 3770K, and if you can get one at decent price from Ebay. It's not quite as fast as new I5 processor would be, but the speed difference is small and you'd save a lot of money by not having to replace your current mobo + RAM.
EDIT: If you have less than 8GB of RAM, then you'll need more of it. But a 8GB set of DDR3 RAM costs something like 30$ /EDIT
Then you could use the saved money to buy something nice. Cheapest 512GB SSDs are now less than 150$, if you got I7 3770K you might be able to fit one into your 600$ budget.
If you're interested in VR, then you should check your USB ports before deciding to keep old motherboard. Oculus Rift requires 3x USB 3.0 ports, and it's not compatible with all USB controllers.
This is only if you're interested in VR, and even then only for Oculus Rift. HTC Vive only needs USB 2.0 and should work with every motherboard.
MOBO+CPU is fairly simple then
CPU 190$: i5 6400 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117564
MOBO 80$: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157636
RAM 2x4GB 40$: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231931
Cooler 16$: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA66Z28H0869
229-239+190+80+40+16= 555-565$
Exactly what other hardware do you have in the system that you're hoping to reuse?
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
1) Get a faster Ivy Bridge processor (Core i5-3570/3570K or Core i7-3770/3770K) to drop into your old computer, add a Radeon RX 480, and use the leftover budget to get yourself a good SSD.
2) Sell the old computer excluding peripherals intact (potentially to the person you were planning on giving parts to) and use the revenue from that to expand your budget so that you have $800 or $900 or whatever to spend on a new computer.
If you try to replace the motherboard, then you also have to replace memory and your old OS license probably isn't still valid. That eats up so much of your budget that if you try to fit a Sky Lake quad core, you're stuck with a low clocked one that defeats the whole point of getting a Sky Lake quad core. I've seen recommendations for a Core i5-6400 above, but that will often be slower than a Core i7-3770 that can be had for much cheaper because you don't have to replace the motherboard and memory.
If you go with option (1), you could still gift your old video card to a friend, as you're replacing that outright. Depending on what CPU he has, even from 2008 might still not be completely terrible.
Thus unless you need more than 6 sata slots for hdd/sdds and more than 6 or so usb you won't be missing anything when going with b150/h170 (you get more of these with h170)
Even in the off-case you would want to overclock a i5-6400/6500/6600 or an i3, Asrock offers b150 and h170 motherboards that support overclocking out of the box.
And the differences between b150 and h170 again being less than previous generations, there is no point in going for a h170.
for any intel cpu below i5-6600k, a b150 will fulfill every need (they even come in the exact same visual styles as their more expensive counterparts nowdays)
The stock Intel one - that one I always have problems with.
It is rather tall though, and on mATX especially, it can interfere with some RAM sticks because of the size.
I recently installed a i5 4690 with a default Intel cooler - the chip would throttle under full load due to insufficient heat sink, although it ran fine under "typical" loads (very rarely are you ever at 100% CPU load for very long under normal use). Not sure if a Skylake would do the same or not, it is about 10W lower on TDP.
Do keep in mind - Skylake motherboard means you need DDR4 RAM, and motherboard replacement means, in all likelihood, you will need a new copy of Windows.
And yes you can OC ANY Skylake CPU.
Please freak out some more...
Z170 with a 6700K or 6600K
Z97 with a 4690K or 4790K -- this is mostly if you still have DDR3 RAM laying around
X99 with a Broadwell-E - if you have some money to spend
If your going Intel, your budget isn't so tight that you need a bottom end motherboard. Get a bit better power delivery, usually better networking and sound, better layout and features, etc.
and your 2nd paragraph doesn't make any sense, ...
Why would you need much better power delivery if you have a i3 or a 6500/6600 ?.
What about the people going for mini-ITX motherboards ? lower case formats ?
If you're not overclocking it's irrelevant, if you are overclocking, you are either A. using a z170 with BCLK oc sup (thus your point is mute) or
B. using a hyper series AsRock which unless we're talking about the h110 model will overclock nicely with the 2 upper tier giving you 95% of the overclock of a up to $50 more expensive z170, and the 3 lower tier ones, giving you slightly less overclock capability, while the same basic layout and features of their counterparts.
Better networking, HAH i hope you're joking, this is pure placebo. Sound also, unless you've checked out all of the motherboards for skylake series and found the most optimal quality to price sound one it's also placebo and completely irrelevant, past the cheapest point it's all the same until $230+ z170s.
This isn't haswell or ivy bridge, and that these b150/h170 have a distinct lack of features, it's a whole new ballgame, they have the same features, the same good visual design, the same power delivery, the same rgb support, m2 support, usb3.0/3.1, heck for the first time in history they have 99% of all the stuff the more expensive models have.
And that's why i'm writing the wall of text, because most people are out of the loop and didn't noticed that this has happened with skylake, and then we get wrong suggestions and advice on the count of past generations recommending without adjusting to change, thus making people spend unnecessary amounts of money on fluff.
If the whole point of asking tech savvy people for advice isn't hey, what's changed and what's not, what can i save money on or not, i'm a bit out of the loop, and i want to get the most for my money, you know min-max it; then what the hell is the point of asking for advice ?
And if you justify going for a more expensive motherboard when you are using 2 disk drives, and 3 usb ports, 1 gpu, no overclock, just to be safe and just because well i'm going intel already, i'm paying intel superiority tax, might as well waste more money when i'm already giving more than it should cost.
That's just fiscally irresponsible, and not to mention that you will miraculously have money for more ssd storage, a slightly better gpu which was dozens of $ out of reach from the max amount you wanted to spend, through the sheer miracle of choosing parts with 10-15% of leeway of how much you reckon you actually need, and not going for stuff you will never use in the lifetime of the current machine because, "reasons", ...
B. I don't use Asrock stuff, I don't like the way it's built. Some people have had good luck with it, I'll let them keep rolling that dice.
C. Nothing against min-maxing, it all has to do with budgets after all. But if you can fit a i5 6500 comfortably in your budget, you aren't doing yourself any favors saving $10 on a B170 over a Z170.
D. If you don't overclock, and build a rig that could at least have a chance of pulling out modest OC numbers, you have that option in the future, even if you choose not to use it. That can easily extend the life of a computer by a year or more. If you don't, because you don't plan on using it now, you don't have that option at all when the need for it pops up. I'm not saying you need to spend a lot of money on overclockability, I'm just saying not to completely ignore it just because you aren't planning on using it today.
E. I'm not telling anyone to waste money. In fact, I would argue that a B170 is throwing away money, when for just a few dollars more you get something that will perform better, have higher quality components, have the option of overclocking, probably run cooler because it will have better heatsinks and fans, have better audio and networking, and whatever else a better motherboard brings. If you can't afford all of that... then maybe it's time to look at not paying the Intel Tax in the first place, or re-analyzing your budget and whatever other components you have selected.
1080p @ 60fps on high/ultra settings playing anything you can throw at it. That's with an i5 4690k and 16Gb RAM on a cheap MSI z97 mainboard. Nothing OC'd either, straight out of the box.
B. personal opinion, Asrock is the same quality wise as any other manufacturer at given price points (just more competitive price wise and with less software features)
C. it's more like $40, and if u want to get MicroATX, there's many more b150s to choose from that are even cheaper. Again why would you pick z170 if you have a 6500 ? (unless you pick a specific msi motherboard that is getting updated BCLK OC bioses)
You have all the same features, you can choose a microATX B150 for smaller build factor, a good power delievery full ATX B150 with same or better lan+sound as a z170 ? so again why spend from $15-$50 more depending on what you were looking to buy ? $15 is your cpu cooler for instance.
D. This is a logical fallacy, 90% of people who do get <6600k will not overclock, ever. They're not looking for a possible boost down the line, they would have to learn to OC it ? Risk it ? They will simply get a new pc or new parts when they stop being satisfied with the performance and can afford it.
If i got a penny every time someone got convinced to get a OC cpu just in case for down the line and never OCed i'd be richer than bill gates. There's dozens of millions of tech posts about it, not to mention the couple of hundred personal examples for me.
E. You don't get that there's been a change ? the z170 will not perform better, will not have higher quality components, will not have OC exclusivity if u choose a specific b150/h170. It won't have better heatsinks or fanks nor audio nor networking nor anything at.
Whether a specific motherboard will have any of these is UNRELATED to the CHIPSET. This is the whole point of my walls of text. You auto-assume that because its a z170 it will have some or all better of the above, because it has been this way in the previous years. BUT It's not the PRECEDENT. They only things that they will lack is what's not on the chipset itself. Anything else that can be put on a z170 can be put a b150/h170, ...
We would all like to live in a pretend dreamworld where we don't have to pay intel tax, and can get a minor-to-moderate performance loss with amd. But guess what we can't do that because we live in the real world, and AMD's ZEN is not here to challenge that, so we have to do with being smart+savvy+logical+informed and not get the advertised motherboard and "kickass" parts, but get 95% of what we need for less than 95% of the price of what's advertised that we should buy, ...
In the case of the Core i5-6400 or 6500, you give up too much performance for not enough price savings as compared to the 6600. 3.3 GHz is an awfully long way away from 3.9 GHz.