Suggest an reasonably priced upgrade from an old CPU.

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lightsunglasses

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Feb 10, 2010
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I'm thinking my current CPU might be a bit dated for modern gaming. Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced upgrade? I'd have to upgrade the motherboard as well; but not really looking to upgrade any other components at this time.


AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad-Core 2.6 GHz (OC to 3.1 GHz)
8GB ram 1333 MHz
AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB
Windows 7 x64
7200rpm hard drives
SSD for C: drive
 
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Ecky
In my opinion, yes. Get a board that has an M.2 slot and preferably USB 3.1, and some DDR4 to go with it. You should be able to get a fair bit from your DDR3 on eBay or the classifieds on this site, almost enough to cover an equal capacity of DDR4 for your upgrade.
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Ecky

Ecky

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Feb 3, 2013
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You have an AM3 motherboard which may support FX CPUs. It's rare that I recommend them, but they might make sense, depending on what board you have. An overclocked FX-8320e is great in 125w boards, while an FX-6300 is probably a better choice for 95w boards.

If you replace your motherboard, you'll probably need to replace your RAM too. Intel's socket 1151 is the only socket that makes sense in a new build right now, and it will not take your DDR3. If you go that route, the common recommendations are either the i3 6100 or i5 6500. A Core i3 6100 generally outperforms any FX CPU in games and other tasks that aren't very well threaded (99% of what people do on their PCs), and falls between an FX-6xxx and FX-8xxx in things which can fully load all 8 cores on the FX chip.
 
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lightsunglasses

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Interesting! Unfortunately I think my motherboard supports only AM3 CPUs and not AM3+. It's a BIOSTAR A770E3.





 
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phoenix061992

phoenix061992

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i5 4460 or 4490 whichever suits your budget will be a very good upgrade from the current CPU you are using..... You can pair it up with a MSI MOTHERBOARD H81M-E33. It is the cheapest motherboard out for the 4th generation intels or if you can push your budget a little more you can get MSI MOTHERBOARD B85M-E45 which will give you more slots and connectivity options.....
 
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Dustybin

Dustybin

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What do you consider reasonably priced? For the price difference personally buying today an i5-6500, H170 motherboard and 8/16gb of DDR4 would be fine for gaming. £280-320 depending on where you buy and what motherboard/memory you pick... US probably about $300-350.
 
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Ecky

Ecky

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While the i5 4xxx CPUs will take OP's DDR3, and are very little slower than the 6xxx CPUs, it's hard for me to recommend them considering most of the 1150 motherboards are going out of production right now, and DDR3 production is dropping. It would be more cost effective today, but leave far fewer upgrade options down the road.
 
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lightsunglasses

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I'm in no rush and I'm willing to wait for CPU/Motherboard combo deals. Would it be better to wait for a good deal on say, a i5-6500 and compatible motherboard to help any potential future upgrades later down the road?
 
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Ecky

Ecky

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Feb 3, 2013
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In my opinion, yes. Get a board that has an M.2 slot and preferably USB 3.1, and some DDR4 to go with it. You should be able to get a fair bit from your DDR3 on eBay or the classifieds on this site, almost enough to cover an equal capacity of DDR4 for your upgrade.
 
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