New CPU and Motherboard Questions

PB the First

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Apr 19, 2016
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This last Black Friday, I picked out a personal computer with a decent amount of power at Best Buy as an early Christmas present. (Best Buy website listing:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-inspiron-desktop-amd-fx-series-16gb-memory-2tb-hard-drive-black/4473100.p?id=1219751168579&skuId=4473100. A good number of the specs and hardward are included.) Prior to getting the computer, I had been looking at some of decently high performance computers available on the Best Buy website that were made by CyberPowerPC. I had one picked out, but it soon became unavailable, so I picked out a similar computer. I had to do this several times until none were available come Black Friday. So we (my parents and I) decided to see if there was one at our nearest Best Buy store; there was not. (Apparently they only sell CyberPowerPC computers on their website.) One of the sales reps at the store convinced me to buy the computer that I now have. (Plus, it was on sale.) At the time, there only seemed to be minor differences between the PC I bought and the ones I was looking at online (performance wise). However, this computer has some flaws that have become apparent.

The first thing is the CPU. When I bought the computer, really the only thing I knew about the performance specs of CPUs were the number of cores and processing speed. So little did I know that I had bought a desktop with a laptop processor until a few weeks after purchase. It does pretty good with normal tasks and a few games, but not so well when I'm running one of the railroad simulators that I have purchased. (Trainz: A New Era. The latest version of Trainz. I'm sure the performance demands can be found somewhere.) Just about every time the program's performance starts to suffer, the CPU is maxed out while the memory runs at about 15%-20%. (I'll admit, I do run it with rather high settings, but otherwise the graphics are subpar.)

The second thing (which is rather minor compared to the first) is the motherboard. The motherboard only has two SATA ports; one for the HDD, and the other for the optical drive. That's it. And it doesn't really make sense when you consider that the case has dedicated slots for at least one more 3.5" hard drive and two to three 2.5" hard drives. (Despite this fault, it has wi-fi connectability and Bluetooth built in!)

So after doing a little bit of researching, I figured that the best replacement for the current CPU (while staying on a budget) would either be an AMD FX-8370 with a Wraith cooler or an AMD FX-8350. Of course this means replacing the motherboard as well because of the different socket type (which would help eliminate the lack of SATA ports). But before going banana crackers on buying new hardware, I thought I would ask some questions.

1) Are there any CPUs that I would be better off buying instead of an FX-8370 or FX-8350, for around the same price (if not lower). (Budget wise, I'd like to stay in the $400-$450 range for the total price for CPU and the motherboard.)

2) What motherboard would you guys recommend for the FX-8370 and/or the FX-8350 (or for the CPU you recommend). I'm looking for a motherboard that will support the two USB ports, SD card reader, and the headphone/microphone jack in the front of the computer. ATX form factor. (The other requirements should be listed on the Best Buy listing.)

3) Is there any possibility that the GPU is the culprit? (AMD Radeon R9 360.)

4) I did a little research on motherboard replacement, and I ran into questions about having to re-install the OS (which I hadn't even thought of), and "how-to"s on how to replace the motherboard without a OS reinstall (which still requires a time consuming process). My computer came with, and is operating on Windows 10. Am I really going to have to re-install the OS or go through some patience-testing process if I replace the motherboard?

4) (This branches off the last question.) I've taken the hard drive out of my mother's laptop and hooked it up to my computer as the main hard drive, with little to no problems. (Her laptop came with Windows 8.) So if I was able to temporarily swap hard drives, does that mean I can go ahead and install a new motherboard without having to go through a large process? Surely swapping hard drives isn't that much different than using a new motherboard.

5) Am I really going to get better performance out of my computer by replacing the CPU, or would I better invest my time and money by buying a new computer when my current one becomes obsolete or conks out?

I hope I've included the needed information for you to answer my questions!
 

somePcNoob

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Sep 21, 2014
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1/2) For you price point I would personally recommend something like a an i5-6600K coupled with a gigabyte board (what I could find on best buy's limited range, links below) at around $400. If you don't care much for overclocking you could save some money by getting the non K version of the CPU, then a motherboard that is socket 1151 but not the Z170 platform (B150 for H170 I think are the non overclocking platforms), again links below.

CPU: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/intel-core-i5-6600k-3-5ghz-processor-silver/4712009.p?id=1219807034917&skuId=4712009
MOBO: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/gigabyte-technology-atx-motherboard-3466mhz-socket-lga-1151-black/4712000.p?id=1219807029556&skuId=4712000 (any lga 1151 socket mobo will do really)

Cheaper with no overclocking:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/intel-core-i5-6600-3-3ghz-processor-silver/4712001.p?id=1219807036822&skuId=4712001
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-gaming-pro-atx-motherboard-2130mhz-socket-lga-1151-multi/4832509.p?id=bb4832509&skuId=4832509

3) If your CPU is at 100% then it is most likely the bottleneck causing the problems with your system, your graphics card should be alright, although you might need to turn down some setting from maximum (sill high) for some sims.

4) Your operating system is installed on the hard drive independently of the motherboard. If you replace the cpu/mobo and plug back in the hard drive there will be no issues with booting the system from your os. Once everything is plugged in how it was (with the new components) and you press power it will boot as it did before, no other processes needed.

4.2) Similar to the above, you can plug any hard drive with an OS in into your motherboard to boot from, shouldn't be any problems

5) If your CPU is bottle necking your system then replacing it will offer you a performance increase, and upgrading from a laptop to desktop processor will heed a small difference in overall speeds, as well as a substantial increase in any tasks that are utilising around 100% of the CPU. The i5-6600 is from intel's most recent line up and will serve you well for many years to come. There is no particular need to wait and upgrade a whole system, you can still upgrade any part as and when you need to (e.g. you could buy a new graphics card a few years down the line when yours can't cope any more, or a new power supply for higher power needs etc)

Two other notes:

If you go with the i5 note it doesn't come with a stock cpu cooler so you'll have to grab something like a Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO (best buy have them), just check it fits in your case (can't find the case specs on best buy so just measure the space from your cpu socket to the case side panel then check the height of the cooler fits in that).

Make sure your power supply is good enough to run the new system, something from around 400W and upwards should be absolutely fine.

And finally don't take my word as law, search around and get some advice from other people as well before making such a large purchase.
 

PB the First

Commendable
Apr 19, 2016
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1,510


I'll keep that in mind.



Thank goodness! So what situations would require a OS re-install? Having a different OS than what was originally installed?



Just making sure I was covering all the bases. :)



Thanks for your help.
 

somePcNoob

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Sep 21, 2014
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Wanting a different OS is a common one, often if you get a new hard drive or SSD a fresh install of your OS is recommended but you can migrate the install from one disk to another with some programs (these often have issues however). If you're currently running windows 7 or 8 you can upgrade to windows 10 for free so no fresh install is needed there. And finally, I cannot stress this enough, if you do ANYTHING with your OS make sure to ALWAYS BACK UP you data first either on a cloud based service or an external drive).