Looking to upgrade my current PC, CPU (FM2+)

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Huskyd

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I have had my PC since March and am looking to upgrade.
My Specs are:
CPU: A4-4000 3GHz
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970 4GB
RAM: 4GB
PSU: EVGA 600W Bronze

I am looking to upgrade my CPU from an A4-4000 to an Athlon X4 860K, and my 4GB RAM to 8GB.

I do a lot of gaming, ARK: Survival Evolved, DayZ, GMod, Space Engineers, GTA V, and others; I would like to play the majority of these games at close to or their highest settings at close to 60FPS.

Any advice or anything that would help is appreciated, I have looked through forums and Benchmark videos on youtube and this seems to be my best option with changing to Intel. (Also if someone wants to help me with a few tips on overclocking and give me a link to a good heat-sink)

Thanks,
 
Solution
madmatt30
Your board isn't terrible mate - its made by gigabyte who full stop don't make bad quality boards IMO.

Now I'm not going to dispute that an i5 is the better chip to run a gtx 970 on but my suggestion is this.

The pentium g & the 860k both retail at £50 ish - they're virtually the same price.

For the time being why not just buy the 860k & upgrade your ram as originally intended?
This saves doing a windows reinstall for starters ,costs you less than a mb & pentium g upgrade & will give you a huge performance boost - while an 860k will still limit the 970 a bit it will 100% let you push 50-60fps on 99% of new titles - that's a fact.

Keep the rest of your money aside & upgrade to an i5 + decent Intel board fully when you can afford it...
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StarChief

StarChief

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Holy bottleneck!!!

You need to upgrade your socket man, something like an Intel I-5 or an AMD FX 8xxxx series.

That GTX 970 is weeping in your current rig, crying out for a better partner.

There is no FM2+ processor that can match the 970 for good performance, time to upgrade.
 
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Huskyd

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I know, I'm gonna upgrade to Intel at somepoint! If you can, could you link me to an Intel CPU+MOBO that would better suit this, at a decent price?

Thanks,
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Your games are single threaded and cpu bound.
There are no worthwhile upgrades for your motherboard.
AMD cores are slow compared to Intel.
You would do well with even a $70 G3258 and a lga1150 motherboard.
Here is a comparison of G3258 vs. a X4-860K
http://www.techspot.com/review/1017-best-budget-gaming-cpu/

The really nice thing is that you will have an upgrade path to I3, I5, or I7.
With FX2+ you have no effective upgrade.
 
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StarChief

StarChief

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G3258 is not a good pair with a GTX 970, still a massive bottleneck.

At least an I5 is required from Intel
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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I wouldn't say the 860k isn't a viable upgrade if his motherboard supports it.
It will at least push decent fps with a 970 & will be a cheap upgrade (be it temporary or not)

At the minute I can only imagine how that poor 970 is being held back by a dual core low clocked athlon & 4gb ram!!!


What's your actual motherboard model??
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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I agree, but compared to the X4-860K it is a better deal if the OP is on a budget.
The usual recommendation is to budget 2x the cpu cost for the graphics card.
By that metric, a strong I3 like the I3-4170 or a entry I- 5 would be appropriate.
 
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Huskyd

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Ok, thanks. I've just googled and looked around a bit on different sites and found this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/ADMI-COMPONENT-BUNDLE-Overclocked-Motherboard/dp/B00WKB368A/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1438096697&sr=1-5&keywords=G3258 (I'm in the UK) The colours are horrible, in my opinion, but is this something that would work well with my gtx 970?
Thanks,
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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^ no mate buying a Pentium g would IMO be p1ssing money up the wall.
An absolute minimum on the intel front would be an i3 with a budget h97 board.

You're in the UK - if your board is compatible a £52 spend on the 860k & another 4gb ram would give you a huge & instant noticeable upgrade fircthe minimum spend & effort.
 
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StarChief

StarChief

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100% agree, I don't know why people here keep trying to shove the G3258 down everyones throat, it's not a very good chip.

At the very least you want a hyperthreaded I-3

Your best bet is shooting for a 4th ot 5th gen I-5

Or, like I said before, an AMD FX 8xxx series chip.
 
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Huskyd

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MOBO: GA-F2A58M-HD2

Both my CPU and MOBO are terrible, I bought the whole pc with no gpu and a lesser psu for just under £200 and have been upgrading it, will probably go for the G3258, overclock it to around the same as an i-3 and then upgrade to an i-5
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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Your board isn't terrible mate - its made by gigabyte who full stop don't make bad quality boards IMO.

Now I'm not going to dispute that an i5 is the better chip to run a gtx 970 on but my suggestion is this.

The pentium g & the 860k both retail at £50 ish - they're virtually the same price.

For the time being why not just buy the 860k & upgrade your ram as originally intended?
This saves doing a windows reinstall for starters ,costs you less than a mb & pentium g upgrade & will give you a huge performance boost - while an 860k will still limit the 970 a bit it will 100% let you push 50-60fps on 99% of new titles - that's a fact.

Keep the rest of your money aside & upgrade to an i5 + decent Intel board fully when you can afford it (buying the pentium is just a wasteful temporary measure - 6 months down the line you won't get anything back for it)
You'll easily sell your 860k+mb for a decent price when the time comes (you'll get next to nothing for your current a4 cpu.).

 
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Huskyd

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Is there any possibility of Overclocking of the 860k? I would just like to see that I can get the best of it,

Thanks,
 
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sora

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I personally think that you could easily overclock the 860k as long as you have proper cooling!
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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I have no doubt you can overclock ,while the gigabyte board is a budget 4 phase they do always use good quality components on the vrm set.
While the board seems to be rated at 95w ,they have allowed support for the 7870k which can pull 140w or so when fully stressed.
There is definitely headroom there.
I would add a blower cooler just to keep the non-heatsinked vrm's cool if you are definitely going to over clock though mate rather than a tower cooler.
Your board does need to be running bios version of f2 for the 860k so may need updating.

 
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