Upgrading to Intel Haswell for DDR3 or Skylake for DDR4 ?

extreametech · Mar 14, 2016

So i have posted a few posts on here now expressing how I want to upgrade to intel yet users are very persistent on talking my out of going intel and that I should stay with my FX-6300.

My question was and still is , what is the best way to upgrade to intel as an inexpensive upgrade but still have the ability to upgrade to bigger and better things in the future.

I currently have
CPU = FX 6300
MOBO= ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
GPU= AMD 6670
RAM= Corsair XMS3 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3
SSD 240GB Kingson SSD NOW

Should I upgrade to an haswell platform and use my DDR3 Memory so all i have to buy is a CPU and MOBO

Or

Should I upgrade to Skylake platform and then buy a new MOBO, CPU and RAM ?

I'm Looking to upgrade for as little as possible at the beginning but have the ability to simply upgrade the CPU only in the future for an i5 or i7 if needed.

Any ideas thanks !

Geekwad · Mar 14, 2016

This would be an inexpensive Haswell upgrade:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($51.97 @ Newegg)
Total: $226.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

But if improving gaming performance is what your main goal is, you could just replace the GPU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380X 4GB DD XXX OC Video Card ($203.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $203.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Which your current CPU could still make very good use of for quite an improvement (as long as your PSU will support it).

NEmpire95 · Mar 14, 2016

I would do whatever is the best performance per dollar for you which sounds like it's haswell, but it's up to you ultimately (not a big performance gain from haswell to skylake).
If you want to save money and go skylake than stick with ddr3 and get a skylake board that supports it (remember Intel recommends low voltage ddr3 if that's what you choose to use). There isn't a huge benefit of ddr4 currently but maybe the higher clock speeds will come in handy in the near future, plus it's getting so cheap that it's affordable for mostly everyone now.

Solandri · Mar 14, 2016

DDR4 currently isn't an "improvement" over DDR3. It's more like a step sideways into a different traffic lane, which in the future will allow us to go faster than we could with DDR3. But right now there's not really any net performance gain (some memory functions are faster, some slower, no net gain).

If you need lower power consumption, USB 3.1 support on the motherboard (don't want to buy an add-on card), or wish to be able to cannibalize the DDR4 memory in this system for re-use in future systems, go with Skylake. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with going with Haswell if it saves you money.

Re-using the memory only saves you about $35 (and makes your current system unusable as a hand-me-down present for your cousin or nephew). I would not put much weight on upgrading the CPU in the future. Clock speeds have pretty much stalled due to thermal limits, and each architecture revision (roughly every 3 years) only nets about a 5% performance increase because all the low-hanging fruit in CPU architecture has already been picked. Because of this, Intel has been concentrating most of their R&D on reducing power consumption for the last 5 years. Any decent system you get right now will probably last you a good 5-10 years (heck, your current system should be good for another 3-5 years).

People are talking you out of upgrading because the FX 6300 is pretty decent. On par with or slightly slower than a quad core i5. If you're hoping for a tremendous improvement by switching from your current CPU to Intel, you're not going to see it unless you're doing heavy single-threaded tasks. As others have suggested, putting the money into the GPU will net you a bigger performance gain (assuming your target application is gaming). GPUs are still improving at a pretty good clip, unlike CPUs. You might want to upgrade to a better SSD as well when the Kingston starts getting long in the tooth.

Eximo · Mar 14, 2016

I prefer a Skylake build just for the reason that you have a CPU, motherboard, and RAM as a re-usable or sellable bundle as Solandri points out.

Also an opportunity to throw caution to the wind and try to overclock that FX6300 as much as possible. If you can afford a replacement, then you only risk a little downtime.

extreametech · Mar 14, 2016

Eximo :

Okay so would you recommend I get a new motherboard so i can overlook if i wanted to and also get something like a GTX 950 for the GPU ?

extreametech · Mar 14, 2016

Solandri :

DDR4 currently isn't an "improvement" over DDR3. It's more like a step sideways into a different traffic lane, which in the future will allow us to go faster than we could with DDR3. But right now there's not really any net performance gain (some memory functions are faster, some slower, no net gain).

If you need lower power consumption, USB 3.1 support on the motherboard (don't want to buy an add-on card), or wish to be able to cannibalize the DDR4 memory in this system for re-use in future systems, go with Skylake. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with going with Haswell if it saves you money.

Re-using the memory only saves you about $35 (and makes your current system unusable as a hand-me-down present for your cousin or nephew). I would not put much weight on upgrading the CPU in the future. Clock speeds have pretty much stalled due to thermal limits, and each architecture revision (roughly every 3 years) only nets about a 5% performance increase because all the low-hanging fruit in CPU architecture has already been picked. Because of this, Intel has been concentrating most of their R&D on reducing power consumption for the last 5 years. Any decent system you get right now will probably last you a good 5-10 years (heck, your current system should be good for another 3-5 years).

People are talking you out of upgrading because the FX 6300 is pretty decent. On par with or slightly slower than a quad core i5. If you're hoping for a tremendous improvement by switching from your current CPU to Intel, you're not going to see it unless you're doing heavy single-threaded tasks. As others have suggested, putting the money into the GPU will net you a bigger performance gain (assuming your target application is gaming). GPUs are still improving at a pretty good clip, unlike CPUs. You might want to upgrade to a better SSD as well when the Kingston starts getting long in the tooth.

Thanks for the help, DO you think I should just get a new motherboard and then upgrade my GPU to a GTX 950 or a 960 if I saved a little longer ? I should be able to use them to render videos quicker too! ?

synphul · Mar 14, 2016

If keeping the ddr3 I'd go with haswell. Skylake is a small but not overly noticeable step up and shouldn't be used with ddr3 per intel's warnings. The motherboard doesn't support ddr3 so they really have no room to make those claims aside from ddr3 compatible dimm slots. The memory controller still resides on the cpu, not the board.

As others pointed out, I don't think you'd notice a large improvement with ddr4 over ddr3 if any. A haswell i5 is a more powerful cpu than either the fx 6300 or 8350. I'm not sure there's much loss in a ddr3 system as a hand me down really, by the time it's a hand me down it should still be working/functioning at the same performance level to a skylake build when the time comes. What skylake has out now won't magically become 5x more valuable down the road than a haswell system.

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Upgrading to Intel Haswell for DDR3 or Skylake for DDR4 ?

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