Upgrading motherboard or buying CPU/Motherboard Intel combo

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Neverluke

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Now, I actually have an FX 8320 as my cpu whit a very basic motherboard, a GA-78LMT-S2P. I know that this two components does not really get along well, and I already thought about an uprgrade. The question is:
Should I buy a new high end MB, like a Crosshair V Formula, or will I win a lot in performance with a new Intel proccesor and another MB for it?
I have a R9 290x as a vga (soon will become a 970) and a 800w gold power supply.
Sorry if any grammatical mistake and thanks!
 
Solution
Brunostako
You will see a significant performance increase by upgrading to a Haswell Core i5 (4460 recommended) and its MoBo (H97 chipset recommended). Motherboards don't increase the gaming performance by much.

Why changing a R9 290X with a GTX 970? They have almost the same performance.
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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Your gaming performance will improve with a higher end Intel build. You have a good probability of having to reinstall the OS with just a motherboard change. If you have to do that, and want more gaming performance, then you might as well switch processors.
 
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Brunostako

Brunostako

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You will see a significant performance increase by upgrading to a Haswell Core i5 (4460 recommended) and its MoBo (H97 chipset recommended). Motherboards don't increase the gaming performance by much.

Why changing a R9 290X with a GTX 970? They have almost the same performance.
 
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DubbleClick

DubbleClick

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The i5 + board upgrade would certainly make sense with that strong of a gpu. However, instead of replacing the r9 290x with a gtx 970, you should get another r9 290x to crossfire. Make sure to get a crossfire able motherboard (for example gigabyte b85m-d3h as a cheap yet good one, otherwise h97 with crossfire support). Or go all out and get the i5 4690k and a $110 z97 board like the asrock extreme 4. For $250 an i5 4590 and the b85m-d3h would certainly do fine with two r9 290x's, too, though. Also 800w are easily enough for crossfire 290x's + cpu. You'll maybe have 600w consumption under full cpu and gpu load.
 
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Neverluke

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Thanks for the answers, but I have two problems.
First, the money. Where I live , Argentina, hardware is not cheap at all, and find it very difficult too. So, an i5 with a good board will work better than my actual 8320 and a high-end mother?
Second, the R9 290x. I don`t know if it`s because of the vga itslef who came alredy broken from the factory, or any incompatibility with any of my hardware, but it crashes a lot and in random moments. Like, it freezes any thing I was doing on the pc and restarts it, telling me latter that windows has recovered from an error and bla bla bla (with a 124 BCCcode). I try to find a solution all across the net, but I could not, so I moving to Nvidia o see how it goes.
 
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Wisecracker

Wisecracker

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You should have no issues running the R9 290X with the FX-8320 on the GA-78LMT-S2P.

If you would like to troubleshoot, post your model video card, power supply, system RAMs, and any other information you think may be pertinent.

edit: You may also wish to check your Windows Event Viewer for further information.



 
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DubbleClick

DubbleClick

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Why do you think that it is connected to the gpu? Have you tried lowering core and memory clock a bit in MSI afterburner? I'd do some basic troubleshooting before buying into a gtx 970 which is barely an upgrade.
Anyway, yes. An i5 will work MUCH better than a 8320 fx, no matter how good the board paired with it. Motherboards generally don't really affect performance anyway, may at best lead to higher possible overclocks. But even if you got it to past 5ghz, the i5 would still outperform it in games by quite a bit.
 
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Neverluke

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Maybe then I will do a troubleshoot too add to the many ones that are alredy, but in the rigth part of the forum. I had alredy played with some spects in afterburner, and neither worked. (I had a slightly better performance increasing the fan speed, that made me think it was a temperature issue, but it kept doing the same). Now, I changed the R9 with an old 6990 that I have and, voila, no more crashes. So I guessed there was something bad with the card itself.

However, thanks for the opinion about the cpu. I may start saving for an i5 or an i7 and a mother!
 
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Brunostako

Brunostako

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If your PC is just for gaming, don't go with an i7. The 8 processing threads don't do much for gaming performance (which is the same issue with the FX 8-core CPUs).

Stay i5, the 4690 + H97 mobo or 4690K + Z97 mobo if you want to OC.
 
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Neverluke

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Came on bro, don`t start a figth... Yes, there is a issue with a lot of R9 290x, not just mine. Yes, it has nothing to do with the rest of the hardware, since I test it all and it`s fine.

I know that Intel usually works better than Amd, it`s just that my old Fx 6300 and this one never failed me. But an i5 worth a try.

What`s the problem with the 8 core prossesors and gaming stuff? I did not know about it.
 
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Brunostako

Brunostako

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Games today don't use more than 4 cores (usually less), so having 8 processing threads is quite useless for gaming. That's why having 4 strong cores is better than 8 weaker cores, even when the combined performance of those 8 cores is more than the combined performance the other 4 cores.

This definitively will change in the near future with Mantle, DX12 and OpenGL 5, but until then, Core i5s are better than FXs (for gaming). FX CPUs are more like budget multitasking CPUs.
 
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