upgrading with my current components

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joshueian

Commendable
Nov 2, 2016
4
0
1,510
Hello, need your help guys! My pc is 4 yrs. old now., i only bought 1 upgrade..
(seems odd but i only upgraded a brandnew gpu coz im poor) :(

my specs:
proc: i3 2120 3.3 ghz
mobo: Gigabyte B75M-D3V
ram: 2x4 4gb 1333
gpu: MSI Radeon rx480
storage: 1TB hdd

what should be my next upgrade? or what specific item should i buy? for my upgrade..
thanks in advance..
 
Solution
spdragoo
Have to agree, not sure that going from a Sandy Lake i3 to a Skylake i3 is going to provide a whole lot of boost -- although the latter doesn't show up in the hierarchy (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html), from recent benchmarks I've seen the Skylake i3 is basically hovering right around the performance of an AMD FX-8300 series CPU (i.e. a 2nd-tier CPU), & your CPU is a solid 3rd-tier CPU, so you want to go higher if possible. Not to mention that DDR3 with a Skylake build is kind of a waste, since DDR3 will more & more be unavailable as AMD also starts the DDR4 transition in the very near future.

Based on what your motherboard can support...
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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I'd disagree. The days of CPUs doubling in speed every 1.5 years ended around 2000. The speedup since then has only been about 5%-10% per generation (roughly 3 years by Intel's tick-tock cycle). So at the same clock speed, the speed difference between Sandy Bridge and Skylake (2 architecture improvements) is only going to be around 10%-25%. Not worth it.

The integrated graphics sees much more improvement with every iteration, but that's irrelevant since you're using a dedicated GPU. Aside from that, the only practical reason to upgrade to Skylake is if you need USB 3.1 support.

8 GB of RAM is still plenty unless you're using virtual machines, doing heavy multitasking, or doing heavy video editing. As the future looks to be DDR4 memory, you'll probably want to do a full system upgrade if you wish to move past 8 GB.

The RX480 still holds up fairly well against the 1070. So you can probably wait another gen to upgrade the GPU.

I'd add a SSD. 250GB or larger, to hold your OS, apps, and 1 or 2 of your most-played games. 500GB if you want to be lazy and keep your games and data on it. Be aware that SSDs operate best with about 15% free space, so don't plan on filling it up completely. The Samsung 850 EVO series is practically indistinguishable while in use from the Pro, while remaining very cost-competitive.

Intel/Micron have been making lots of noise about 3D Xpoint being released at the end of 2016, so you may want to wait on the SSD a couple months to see how that shakes up the storage market.
 
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spdragoo

spdragoo

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Oct 17, 2011
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Have to agree, not sure that going from a Sandy Lake i3 to a Skylake i3 is going to provide a whole lot of boost -- although the latter doesn't show up in the hierarchy (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html), from recent benchmarks I've seen the Skylake i3 is basically hovering right around the performance of an AMD FX-8300 series CPU (i.e. a 2nd-tier CPU), & your CPU is a solid 3rd-tier CPU, so you want to go higher if possible. Not to mention that DDR3 with a Skylake build is kind of a waste, since DDR3 will more & more be unavailable as AMD also starts the DDR4 transition in the very near future.

Based on what your motherboard can support (http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4151), I would strongly suggest geting an Ivy Bridge i5, something like the i5-3470 or i5-3550. They're a little bit more expensive, but both are available for under $250 (http://pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/#m=21&f=29&sort=a7&s=12,13), & would give you a 1st-tier CPU that will still handle modern games very well.
 
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Solution
elbert

elbert

Glorious
Jan 11, 2005
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It the clock rate change that offers most of the boost. The 400Mhz is a pretty good climb. If his CPU could be overclocked then that would work but its both the cpu and motherboard holding that option back. I thought about suggesting the 3570K 3770K but parts picker didn't have any. Everything there has him stuck at 3.3~3.4Ghz with the non K versions.

Least with the new 1151 he could later stepup to a cheap KabyLake quad.
 
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