Looking to upgrade any help please

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

Ok so im looking to UPGRADE my computer as my birthday is coming up.
I will get £250 for my birthday making that the limit or slightly over.
I am doing this to see what i can get to optimise my money.
Im currently on a amd system and would prefer to stay as i can get a better cpu for cheaper
Here are my specs,
GPU: GTX 970 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
CPU: AMD FX-6300
Motherboard: Gigabite GA-78LMT-S2P
PSU: 450W
RAM : 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance, 1600MHz
Air Cooled
AMD System
Any help much appreciated.

Gingerbread · Jan 13, 2016

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/T9DJ6h
Generally I would go for skylake with h170 but this is just as good and with skylake you need new ram which will push your budget too much. Also you need a new PSU, that's why I've included one. The minimum PSU requirement of the GTX 970 is 500W, with this 450W you risk damaging your whole system, especially if it's lower quality which I suppose it is. Change it or don't you know the risks.

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

Gingerbread :

Is there no way of getting a AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core in my computer?
could you tell me the risks aswell?

Gingerbread · Jan 13, 2016

You can get that, but you wanted to upgrade for 250 pounds not for 100. And I am giving you a real upgrade which will be way more noticeable.
What happens is that your system boots because GPUs start with lower consumption, but once the usage goes higher (when you start a game with higher requirements) the gpu starts drawing more power until at some point your PSu cant handle it and you get a BSOD and your system restarts. That's the good option - just a BSOD and system restart, but it often results in hardware damage. Short story you can fry your GPU.

chilly2468 · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

You could get a FX-8350 with a new motherboard but it's not really much of an upgrade. Right now Intel just has better offerings, even when comparing the new i3's and the fx line of cpu's.

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

Gingerbread :

Wow im definitely going to get a new psu now thanks!
Isnt the AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core better though? I found this
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4590+%40+3.30GHz

filippi · Jan 13, 2016

imho you should go for BaseCLK Overclock w/ Skylake platform. Your GTX970 will enjoy

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£129.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS10X OPTIMA CPU Cooler (£21.85 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£78.45 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£30.03 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £259.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-13 16:00 GMT+0000

PS. Get a good psu too. always a great advice

chilly2468 · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

User benches from several thousand users: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4460-vs-AMD-FX-8350/2310vs1489

At this point Intel is even starting to beat AMD for value. AMD is basically pointless to get unless you have a tight budget. hopefully this will change when AMD releases their new cpu's.

Tradesman1 · Jan 13, 2016

Check with GB - at present they show no support for the 8350 (and I wouldn't chance it on that mobo even if support is added, not a good chipset for the 8350), I'd look for an i5 - either Haswell or Skylake based

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

Tradesman1 :

thanks

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

filippi :

Could i drop the ram and the cooler and go for a EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply?

chilly2468 · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

filippi :

Could i drop the ram and the cooler and go for a EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply?

You can drop the cooler but skylake cpu's need the new ddr4 ram, or ddr3l which is capable of lower voltages.

geofelt · Jan 13, 2016

In what way is your pc deficient that it needs an upgrade?
I might guess it is in gaming.

1. Your motherboard is of poor quality and is not really suitable for even a FX-6300:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2384030/motherboard-tier-list-am3-chipsets.html

2. Your cpu has slow cores, and even upgrading to more of them will not help.
Few games can make good use of more than 2-3 cores.
To prove this to yourself,
experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If you decide on a cpu upgrade, a i3-6100, lga1151 motherboard and ddr4 ram is what you should look at. I don't know if your budget can handle that.

Your GTX970 is an excellent graphics card. No changes needed there unless you are looking at 4k gaming.
Your 450w psu might be a weak for a GTX970 unless it is a top quality unit.
Exactly what make/model psu do you have.

Other upgrade options might be a ssd for windows, it is one of the best performance upgrades you can make.

For web browsing, a second side monitor is very nice.

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

chilly2468 :

Jonathan-R :

You can drop the cooler but skylake cpu's need the new ddr4 ram, or ddr3l which is capable of lower voltages.

Ok well i made this on amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/37NTKYQW7PC97 would that work?

Jonathan-R · Jan 13, 2016

geofelt :

In what way is your pc deficient that it needs an upgrade?
I might guess it is in gaming.

1. Your motherboard is of poor quality and is not really suitable for even a FX-6300:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2384030/motherboard-tier-list-am3-chipsets.html

2. Your cpu has slow cores, and even upgrading to more of them will not help.
Few games can make good use of more than 2-3 cores.
To prove this to yourself,
experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If you decide on a cpu upgrade, a i3-6100, lga1151 motherboard and ddr4 ram is what you should look at. I don't know if your budget can handle that.

Your GTX970 is an excellent graphics card. No changes needed there unless you are looking at 4k gaming.
Your 450w psu might be a weak for a GTX970 unless it is a top quality unit.
Exactly what make/model psu do you have.

Other upgrade options might be a ssd for windows, it is one of the best performance upgrades you can make.

For web browsing, a second side monitor is very nice.

I made this http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/37NTKYQW7PC97 would this be better?

chilly2468 · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

chilly2468 :

Ok well i made this on amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/37NTKYQW7PC97 would that work?

Yes that should work for you wonderfully.

filippi · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

geofelt :

I made this http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/37NTKYQW7PC97 would this be better?

Excellent. You should get a 3rd party cpu cooler before overclock. This build has good overclock potential for sure.

geofelt · Jan 13, 2016

Jonathan-R :

geofelt :

I made this http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/37NTKYQW7PC97 would this be better?

Very good.

Looking to upgrade any help please

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