While Gaming, Will I SEE a Noticeable Improvement (~$300 Upgrade)

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

CURRENT:

ASUSTek P5N-D
Core2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66
Nvidia GTX 550 Ti
8GB DDR2 (1300, I believe)
550W OCZ Fatal1ty PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium (64Bit)
550GB WD HDD

PROPOSED:

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
AMD FX-6300 6-Core @ 3.5
AMD R7 260X
8GB DDR3 1600
550W OCZ Fatal1ty PSU (Unchanged)
Windows 7 Home Premium (64Bit) (Unchanged)
550GB WD HDD (Unchanged)

I'm trying to upgrade on a budget and I need to keep the upgrade under 300. Researching online, this seems like the most I can get out of that price range. I know this won't give me a top-end PC. I just want to be able to run recent titles on higher settings above 35FPS. I mostly play Far Cry 3/4, DayZ Standalone, Skyrim and H1Z1. Will I see a noticeable improvement with this change on these titles?

I know, I know. Get an i5. The i5s are twice the price of the 6300, though and that kind of kills my budget.

ganon11000 · Jan 25, 2015

Country your in?

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

The United States.

SmOg3R · Jan 25, 2015

For mobo+ram+cpu+vga with $300 budget, R7 260X certainly is the best card you can afford, as well as the FX6300.

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

SmOg3R :

It's the best I've been able to find. Newegg has the MB/RAM/CPU combo for ~$220..

Now, my main question, how much of an improvement will I see?

SmOg3R · Jan 25, 2015

I managed to build the R9 270 system for $314.

if you can stretch your budget little, that would be a lot better option.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($83.45 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus A78M-E Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($58.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2GB Dual-X Video Card ($136.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $314.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-25 16:31 EST-0500

The improvement from your current system should be quite huge he:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1133?vs=1080

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

Microcenter
g3258+mobo=100$, r9 270=140$, Ddr3 8gb=60= 300$.
a q6700 is nowhere near a 6300, single threaded performance is horrible when compare to AMD and amd is already more than 50% behind haswell. so yea he needs a cpu upgrade.

SmOg3R · Jan 25, 2015

It's in the OP. He's upgrading the old build, not buying everything from scratch.

So all being said, I would recommend getting this based on price/performance:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9280atdfd

You certainly can't upgrade the CPU with your current budget, and you still should see a big improvement in gaming.

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

SmOg3R :

Raiin :

I'm from NC, there aren't any MicroCenters here and they don't deliver so they're out.

SmOg3R · Jan 25, 2015

Seems like I'am too sleepy to think straight

,
Sorry for the confusion, but Raiin is right. After looking more closely at the benchmarks, FX6300 is indeed much faster than Q6700, I take my words back. That build for $314 stands.

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

SmOg3R :

So we're in agreement that I need a CPU update and that the FX 6300 is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Q6700?

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

yea the 6300 is leagues better than the q6700.
im just thinkin if you should go i3 or 6300, dayz benefits from stronger CPU core instead of more cores, and so do most games

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

Raiin :

I'd considered that. I had originally planned an i3 for that reason. The problem is that I can get the MB, CPU, RAM, and GPU for 300 after rebates. Everything I found with an i3 pushed me out of budget to get all of it.

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

i3 + Mobo+ 7850+ 8gb for $299
no rebates, hope that helps

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/bvB3Bm

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

Raiin :

MB?

EDIT: My mistake. Can't read.

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

Ozarrk :

just so you know a r7 265=7850, it might be 1gb but its a pretty damn good card for 85$, it should run most games at medium to high settings at 1080p just dont add AA and everything would run great, for MMO is another thing, league of legends would be maxed pretty easily
skyrim would run maxed out if you dont run 100+ mods on it

here is a video to see how capable the Gpu is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd94P05lI6w

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

Raiin :

Ozarrk :

just so you know a r7 265=7850, it might be 1gb but its a pretty damn good card for 85$, it should run most games at medium to high settings at 1080p just dont add AA and everything would run great, for MMO is another thing, league of legends would be maxed pretty easily
skyrim would run maxed out if you dont run 100+ mods on it

here is a video to see how capable the Gpu is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd94P05lI6w

You guys are awesome. I'm narrowing it down, here.

Negating the price difference for a moment, is the R7 260X or the HD 7850 better and by how much?

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

not by much really, about 10% give or take, but the 7850 can be OC to 1ghz easily from the 850
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1044?vs=1076

Ozarrk · Jan 25, 2015

Alright, guys.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DzzcFT

That's what I'm going to go with if no one objects. I went with all Newegg so I didn't have to worry about rebates and all that jazz. Also, I can order from one place.

SmOg3R · Jan 25, 2015

Em.. I don't think i3 is a good idea. New games are quite good at utilizing threads, and FX8300, when fully utilized, is ~20% faster than i3.
R9 270 is quite a bit faster than R7 265 as well.

Go with R9 270 and FX8300/X4 960K, intel is kinda overpriced in this price category.

Raiin · Jan 25, 2015

the i3 will run games much better than any AMd Quad core at Stock and even overclocked. theres no way to fit a 8300 + Gigabyte ud3 +RAm+ GPu on a 300$ budget, a 8320 on a 40$ mobo is asking for trouble.

SmOg3R · Jan 26, 2015

Raiin :

It's not Intel vs AMD, it's R7 260x+i3 vs R9 270+FX6300 in which case the latter will be faster. both in gaming (at least in most games) and in general when using modern apps.

Raiin · Jan 26, 2015

6300 + mobo + Ram + 270 does not run 300$ it runs over, rebates dont count, and the PC will be used for Dayz which takes AMD out of the equation.
a 7850= r 265 which is roughly 10% slower than 270.

mdocod · Jan 26, 2015

Raiin's solution is the best by far. i3 + HD7850 + Hi-Fi H81S2. Those are the best deals in gaming right now for sure.

While Gaming, Will I SEE a Noticeable Improvement (~$300 Upgrade)

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