Cpu or gpu upgrade?

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george_110

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Jul 3, 2016
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Cpu or gpu upgrade?
My current pc build is:
Amd a8 7600
Asus a88x plus 5 protection
Gtx 950 msi single fan
2x 500gb western digital HDD
windows 10
Corsair 430m
Thermalake h25 case
2x8gb Kingston 1866mhz ram DDR4
I plan on upgrading to a i5 6500, gigabite g1 sniper b7 ATX and Kingston 2x4gb DDR4.
Or I was going to buy XFX rx 480 8gb.
I eventually plan on buying all thousands new parts in the end, it's just I was wondering which ones would be best to get first the i5, motherboard and ram or a new gpu?
 
Solution
Barty1884
It depends where you feel you're currently falling short with what you do.

Either way, you're going to have a poor balance of components until you can upgrade everything.
The RX480 would be wasted paired with the A8-7600
On the flip side, an i5 would be a bit excessive paired with a GTX950- but it'll give you a solid foundation for the GPU upgrade.

As an FYI, I'd give some serious consideration to upgrading your PSU whichever route you decide. You don't want to invest $X on new, quality components & run them from a 'not great' PSU, especially at 430W.
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Silvy2

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May 21, 2016
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Tough choice.
I would say GPU.
A 4 core 2013 CPU should still do you good.

I got an 2009 i5. Upgraded my GPU to a GTX 960 and i was back on the road with ultra graphics, 60FPS on every game
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Apr 16, 2015
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It depends where you feel you're currently falling short with what you do.

Either way, you're going to have a poor balance of components until you can upgrade everything.
The RX480 would be wasted paired with the A8-7600
On the flip side, an i5 would be a bit excessive paired with a GTX950- but it'll give you a solid foundation for the GPU upgrade.

As an FYI, I'd give some serious consideration to upgrading your PSU whichever route you decide. You don't want to invest $X on new, quality components & run them from a 'not great' PSU, especially at 430W.
 
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Solution
Barty1884

Barty1884

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Apr 16, 2015
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In some games, absolutely. If you're playing a strict GPU intensive title, with minimal load on the CPU, probably not to a noticeable degree.
Anything that's trying to strike a balance between CPU/GPU will severely limit the GPU potential.

Unfortunately, as you have a locked CPU, you don't have the OC option to get some extra life out of it.

The only real reason to buy an A8/A10 etc APU, is for the good quality integrated GPU. The minute you add a discreet GPU, the APU's lose all appeal. Simply speaking, they're slower. An i5 is the 'sweet spot'. An i3 is a good alternative. Some of the FX chips are good options too, but the APU's (as a 'strict' CPU) are less than ideal.
 
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george_110

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Jul 3, 2016
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I got the apuoriginally because I had a r7 240 already and the dual graphics seemed appealing, but didn't cut it, so that's when I got the 950, but I do play quite a few strategy games which can strain my current cpu to 100% such as rome 2 and then I also play a lot of AAA games where my cpu does fine in but I can't get the settings past medium/high like even on farcry 4, battlefield I canthink get past medium, but that does strain everything in the system
 
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Silvy2

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Not only do I have an i5 750 that runs all of my games at high settings BUT a 430w PSU will do him fine. I got a 430w and I use more power than him
i5 750
GTX 960 4gb
4 hard drives

 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Ok? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there Silvy2?

An i5-750 + GTX 960 will run around 215W at max load (95W CPU, 120W GPU)

vs

Current: a8-7600 (65W) + 950 (90W)

Proposed A8-7600 (65W) and RX 480 (150W....which currently have power draw issues).
or
i5-6500 (65W) + 480 (150W as above)

Excluding things like HDDs etc which have minimal draw anyway, you have a small additional power draw over the OP currently, and near identical following the upgrade options for the OP.

What I said with the PSU, is that it's not the best quality for long-term use. Personally, I wouldn't invest $100's on a new CPU etc, or GPU and run it on a poor PSU. It's definitely sufficient 'in theory', in the real world though, that PSU can be lacking.

The Corsair CX430 is of decent enough quality, that if it were to die, it isn't going to take the CPU or GPU etc with it. It'll just 'fail' if it's going to happen at all.

Again, was just an FYI/recommendation.
 
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Silvy2

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And how many PSU's have you seen go bad unless it was due to redneck? All cheap PSUs I have had or known still run fine.
Only one of them had a bad fan

Evga is not cheap with their PSUs anyways

No, I'm not saying cheap, funky brand PSUs are good but EVGA is not one of them. Trust me, I get EVGA ones now. Not the cheap ones.
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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"Due to redneck" ? What?

How many PSU's have I seen go bad personally? One. It's really not a mistake you should make more than once.

Where did EVGA come into it? The OP has a Corsair PSU.

Trust you? I'm not arguing with you, but you're not really substantiating what you're saying. I'm not saying a PSU will fail etc, I was simply pointing out that's it's something the OP should consider before spending a bunch of cash on a new ...whatever.

You do realize though, the 'brand' on a PSU is rarely an indication of quality, right? EVGA brand PSU's from a few different manufacturers. Some better than others (the Supernova NEX -Bronze line, for example are not particularly good). Corsair on the other hand, use manufacturers across the spectrum.

Corsair branded PSUs range from
*some of the best out there (AX/AXi, made by SeaSonic)
*Ok on a budget (RM, by CWT)
*Not great, ideally avoid (CX/VS by CWT)
 
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Silvy2

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May 21, 2016
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One PSU that went in a 1999 PC.
Don't know where EVGA came from. I'm running on no sleep and I feel like I'm drunk.
Peoples perspective of a bad PSU is misleading these days. Il assume you're talking about that
 
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