Older Gen Cpu Upgrade vs Full Mobo, Cpu, and Ram Upgrade

andrew_hirtle

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Jan 3, 2016
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Hi, I bought my computer pre-built around 3 years ago. It has a very bad processor (Pentium G3220). It is barely able to maintain any games with my graphics card and it is in an 1150 socket. I want to upgrade, but I can't decide between just upgrading to an i5 4690 or upgrading my motherboard, ram (because my current ram is GDDR3) and upgrading to a i5 6500.
The pros and cons I see are that the full upgrade costs around 150 more but will give me more room to upgrade in the future.


My main question is, will the i5 4690, paired with a good graphics card, be able to run new games on high settings 1080p? Or is it worth it to wait longer and do a full upgrade?
 
Solution
i5-4690 is plenty enough to run new games on high settings at 1080p. There is only a +5% difference in moving from 4th-gen Haswell to 6th-gen Skylake. Also, DDR4 isn't any faster than DDR3 because of cas latency.

Since you mentioned the i5-6500, I'll show you the differnce between the 4690 vs. 6500 http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6500/2311vs3513

6th-gen equivalent of the 4690 would be the 6600. http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6600/2311vs3514
i5-4690 is plenty enough to run new games on high settings at 1080p. There is only a +5% difference in moving from 4th-gen Haswell to 6th-gen Skylake. Also, DDR4 isn't any faster than DDR3 because of cas latency.

Since you mentioned the i5-6500, I'll show you the differnce between the 4690 vs. 6500 http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6500/2311vs3513

6th-gen equivalent of the 4690 would be the 6600. http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6600/2311vs3514
 
Solution