Help upgrading to something better suited for a bit of gaming

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devavictrix

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Nov 30, 2014
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I use an old server as my home pc. Two quad core xeons at 2.6ghz with 16mb of cache, 8gb of 667mhz RAM, SAS raid attached SSDs... Its solid and works great. The downside is that it only has a PCIe x4 slot and is fussy with graphics cards. The only two to have worked are a PCI Voodoo 5500 and my current card, a Geforce 8800gts with 320mb RAM.

The only game I have been interested in playing is SimCity (It sruggles at times at low settings) but now want to try Cities:Skylines, which needs a Geforce GTX 660. My computer won't come close to playing it given how SimCity performs.

I'm sick of owning computers that only play games on low settings at low resolutions so I want to price up a new computer that will play these games well. But I don't want to over-engineer and overspend for my requirements. My only other tasks are internet browsing and Microsoft Office.

I first priced up one that uses an i3-6100 and an ATI R7 370, 2133mhz RAM and the cheapest motherboard with onboard RAID. I'm worried the i3 will cause a noticeable decrease in performance over my xeons, and that the r7 370 will result in me playing Cities:Skylines at low settings.

So I started thinking about the i5-6400 (quad core, 6mb cache, physical cores over hyperthreading)... I saw it as a new consumer version of what I have already. Or is the i3-6100 more than good enough?

Also, the RX 480 seems to be a well recommended 'budget' card, though its close to twice the price of the R7 370. It seems a much better card than the R7 370 and the required GTX 660

2800mhz ram over 2133mhz RAM.... :) well I have 667mhz so I won't get too caught up on that.

Any help in recommending a CPU/Graphics card combo that suits my wants would be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
logainofhades
An i3 6100 would have no problems with office programs. Your CPU's probably only benchmark better in very well threaded situations. Based on your description, they sound like old Core 2 based units. 99% of all games rely on 4 or less threads, so your second Xeon is just sitting there. Even against an old third gen i3, with a slower clock speed, a core 2 quad is inferior, in gaming. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-20.html

GTX 950 is a decent budget card. It all really depends on how much you want to spend.

This would max out all but the worst coded titles, in 1080p, for instance.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz...
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logainofhades

logainofhades

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Those old Xeons are nowhere near the performance, of a current gen i5. In gaming, even the i3 would way outperform them. What kind of budget do you have for this system? Keep in mind that going a bit overkill now, saves you from needing a new PC quite as quickly. Always recommend getting the best that you can afford.

 
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devavictrix

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Thank you for replying.
Tbh, I don't really have a budget. Its not so much an issue but my first bout at pricing up came to just over £400. That's inc case/psu etc. My thoughts were 'That's £400 to play SimCity better and maybe Cities:Skylines... if I like it'. A bit of a gamble when I also need to decorate the bathroom!!

In terms of gaming, I totally agree... these Xeons will be shocking, though SimCity is a walk in the park for them. My concerns over the i3 6100 are more related to using Office and web browsing and other general pc tasks. I know my Xeons benchmark quicker than an i3-6100 and that physical cores are better than hyperthreading. Plus I currently have more than 5 times the cache space. If the i3-6100 will be suffice maybe I should shake the quad-core bug and get the i3-6100, as long as it is good enough for my gaming aspirations.

What are other good options for a decent graphics card? I found that the R7 370 and RX 480 came up quite a bit when it comes to bang for cheap bucks, that's why I looked at them. Plus the motherboards I was looking at supported Crossfire which I saw as a potential cheap upgrade option in the future.

It might be worth adding that last PC I built was a P4 2ghz, 133 SDR RAM, PATA drives etc... crossfire etc didn't exist so I don't know much about that!
 
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logainofhades

logainofhades

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An i3 6100 would have no problems with office programs. Your CPU's probably only benchmark better in very well threaded situations. Based on your description, they sound like old Core 2 based units. 99% of all games rely on 4 or less threads, so your second Xeon is just sitting there. Even against an old third gen i3, with a slower clock speed, a core 2 quad is inferior, in gaming. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-20.html

GTX 950 is a decent budget card. It all really depends on how much you want to spend.

This would max out all but the worst coded titles, in 1080p, for instance.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($87.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($66.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($72.44 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GAMING Video Card ($249.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Deepcool KENDOMEN Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($85.70 @ My Choice Software)
Total: $917.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-21 10:53 EDT-0400

This would be sufficient for the titles you are currently playing, and handle your office tasks too.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($87.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($38.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB FTW ACX 2.0 Video Card ($149.99 @ B&H)
Case: Deepcool KENDOMEN Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($85.70 @ My Choice Software)
Total: $629.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-21 10:55 EDT-0400
 
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Solution
Dynomite54

Dynomite54

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Jan 14, 2016
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CrossFire is Sli but for amd cards. And I dont really think you need a rx 480. A r7 370 would work more in your favor.
 
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devavictrix

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Nov 30, 2014
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Well last night my 8800gts simply died, mid game! So today a new computer was decided.

I went for...

Intel i3-6100
MSI Z170 Pro
8GB 3000mhz RAM
Geforce GTX 950
XFX 430w PSU
and a new case.
(£420)

I was pained to buy the PSU because I have a brilliant Dell 750w, only it has a proprietary 20pin power connector instead of the usual 8 pin. I could have botched something together but it would only make it harder to sell my old computer.

Ive got two 60gb Intel SSDs that I use in RAID 0 (so to get 110gb for OS etc) and two 2.5" 250gb 5400rpm drives in RAID 1 for files. Each pair in a tidy 3.5" caddy. The Intel SSDs are very slow (600mb/s, 170mb/s even in RAID 0) so I think ill upgrade to a 128gb Samsung Polaris M.2 soon... just £80. Ha, compared to $72.44 for a 275GB one in America. I wish we had those prices!

Thanks for all the help guys. Its been 16 years since I bought a new computer so i'm looking forward to putting it together on Tuesday. I remember the crippling point for my budget last time was PC133 RAM over PC100! And I certainly couldn't afford one of those AGP boards :)
 
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