How should I upgrade my 3 years old system

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SadiFX

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Dec 30, 2014
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Hi there folks. Let me write down my system specs first:
Sapphire HD7850 2gb oc
AMD FX 6100 working at oc'ed 4ghz
CM Evo X CPU Cooler
Asus M5A97 R2.0 mobo
Kingston 2x4 GB 1600mhz ram sticks
1TB HDD
Stock psu from my Gigabyte Setto II Case, 550w

So, I wanted to upgrade my system for a while and with the announce of Sapphire RX 480 nitro+ I wanted to ask if that would be logical to upgrade to a rx480 right away. I dont have enough budget to upgrade the whole system and the card seemed cheap enough and the best part to upgrade first. Or would be better to wait and try to upgrade the whole system(cpu and mobo accordingly) ?
 
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hang-the-9


I would actually start with swapping the CPU. I think your video card is better as a video card than your CPU...
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cfortney

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Jan 13, 2016
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I would pick up the RX 480 first and then see how you feel. It's about equivalent to a GTX 970, which I used to have paired with my FX-6300 @ 4.2Ghz and the combination was A-Okay. In CPU intensive games the 6300 held me back a bit, but it was no big deal. Once you get some more money together, I'd put together an Intel setup later on.
 
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Redneck5439

Redneck5439

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Aug 21, 2015
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The RX 480 is a very good mid range / upper mid range video card, but make no mistake your FX 6100 @ 4ghz will bottleneck the RX 480. To what degree it bottlenecks it is largely depending on the game and API the game utilizes. Games that are not coded well, bad ports, or otherwise highly CPU dependent are going to create bottlenecks and will require setting said game at the lowest possible settings. Other games that are coded better, and hopefully utilizing DX 12 API and take advantage of all 6 cores will perform better but will probably peak at mid to high settings at the very best. While the RX 480 is a very good GPU, don't expect to be playing anything on Ultra settings as your CPU will hold you back, however as a "first step" upgrade the RX 480 would be a very good upgrade.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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I would actually start with swapping the CPU. I think your video card is better as a video card than your CPU is as a CPU. For example when comparing the FX-6300 to the lower end i3-6100 CPU from Intel, the 6300 is behind, and your 6100 is behind the 6300, which means it's really behind a low end Intel CPU. http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/350/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-6100.html

To save a bit of money on RAM, you can go with a last gen CPU like an i5-4570 (just under the best few i5 CPUs from that generation) and keep your RAM. Once you have that running for a bit, you can see how things run on the system and upgrade the video card. Or go all in for new stuff and spend another $50 to go to DDR4 RAM and the new Intel CPUs, the i5-6400-6500 are good for the price if you are not overclocking.

Keep in mind that you can still sell your current parts once you get new ones to probably cut the total cost to you by a good amount.
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Apr 16, 2015
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Before spending any significant amount of money of a GPU (or CPU), I'd aim to replace that PSU.

It's clearly working ok for you at the moment, but 'included' PSUs are never a good idea - especially when you want to upgrade to nice new (relatively) expensive components.

The RX480 shouldn't vary too dramatically in power draw, but it will pull more than the old HD7850.
 
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