Much Needed Upgrades to Old Rig (Advice and Help Appreciated)

polo53

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Nov 7, 2013
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Morning all,

Looking at spending a bit of money on my old-ish rig in order to give it some much needed love!

Currently running with;

AMD-6300
GTX 960 (2GB)
8GB DDR3 669MHz RAM
Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P MOBO

I have a decent PSU and a nice case, which have been updated more recently as well as a Samsung SSD so no interest currently in upgrading those.

Most games I play run fine at low-mid settings however looking at possibly streaming alongside playing games and it just cannot handle this and also I would like to take advantage of the 1440p monitor I have but am not currently using to it's potential due to the drawbacks.

Out of the aforementioned, what is holding me back primarily? Is it the CPU as I suspect?

I am debating upgrading the GPU for Christmas anyway, possibly a 1070 if I can justify it. If I had a budget of £350-400, could I get a decent return on the other 3 mentioned, or would I be pushing my luck?

How much difference will I see between a nice i5 (4690k) and an i7 especially considering newer gaming releases.

Thanks in advance for any help,

P
 
Solution
Upgrade the CPU first, that'll hold you back significantly.
An i5 6600k will do very well.
I'd sell the old mobo, CPU and RAM for $130 as a bundle, or $70 $50 and $30 individually.
If you can kick out for it, with a card like the 1070 with an i7 will definitely give you a nice 10% boost in fps or so, but if you don't have the funds the i5 is the best value option and will keep up no problems.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£209.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.05 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming K3-EU ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£99.00 @...
Upgrade the CPU first, that'll hold you back significantly.
An i5 6600k will do very well.
I'd sell the old mobo, CPU and RAM for $130 as a bundle, or $70 $50 and $30 individually.
If you can kick out for it, with a card like the 1070 with an i7 will definitely give you a nice 10% boost in fps or so, but if you don't have the funds the i5 is the best value option and will keep up no problems.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£209.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.05 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming K3-EU ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£99.00 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£67.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £399.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-22 13:17 GMT+0000
 
Solution

polo53

Honorable
Nov 7, 2013
71
0
10,630
Thanks for the reply Chugalug, really helpful!

Is it worth spending the extra £100 on an i7 or is that i5 worth the money?

Other question is, if I didn't want to spend £100 on a MOBO, what would be the next step down around the £65 range, assume you want a DDR4 memory compatible MOBO in today's market!

Thanks

P

 

spdragoo

Expert
Ambassador
Yes, the GTX 1070 would be a great upgrade for you. It's perfect for 1440p gaming.

CPU-wise, yes, you're being held back a little bit. However, that's also going to vary from game to game. In your case, your motherboard actually supports all of the 125W FX chips (http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4591). Currently, Tom's Hardware still has the FX-8300 as one of their recommendations for mid-range chips (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html); that would move you from a 4th-tier to a 2nd-tier CPU (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html), which would run you about £103 (http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/qmrcCJ/amd-cpu-fd8300wmhkbox). Although it has great overclocking potential, my concern is with that particular motherboard. A better choice would be the FX-8320 for about £120 (http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/dmw323/amd-cpu-fd8320frhkbox), or even an FX-8350 for £135 (http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/ykphP6/amd-cpu-fd8350frhkbox); the former is essentially an 8-core version of your FX-6300, & the latter has faster core speeds.

As for going Intel...at this point, I wouldn't recommend a Haswell build, as you'll have very limited upgrade potential with it (about as limited as any AMD FX-based build, to be honest). @Chugalug_'s recommendation isn't bad...but the only problem is that you either stick that with your old GTX 960 (which will mean your in-game increase will vary wildly from game to game, plus you're more likely to run into a bottleneck issue), or you're essentially doubling your budget to get both the new Intel build & your GPU. Granted, he picked one of the unlocked chips, but even going with the i5-6500 only saves you about £45 (half for the chip, half for the cooler), & even going with an H170 board doesn't really save you anything.

Biggest thing is, to take advantage of your 1440p monitor, you need a better GPU. A better CPU will help, but you have some cheaper options available with your system that won't involve swapping out your entire motherboard & RAM (not to mention having to back everything up & reinstall your OS).
 

polo53

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Nov 7, 2013
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Spgragoo, once again thanks for taking the time to respond!

I have some knowledge about PC's, albeit small on the grand scale of things. My budget isn't finite, but I would happily spend a bit more if it meant getting an extra period of time out of the components I brought.

I understand the GPU will be a massive boost, my 960 struggles in some games at 1080 no matter 1440! I was under the impression the better i5's such as the 4690k and 6600k are a significant upgrade on any current AMD offering? (no bias, I am not fussy between the two!)

If it's a case of spending £135 on an AMD-8350, £220 on a 6600k or 4690k or £300 on an i7, would you still recommend the AMD and have I got my wires crossed in terms of gaming performance.

Cheers,

P

 

spdragoo

Expert
Ambassador
It can depend on the game quite a bit. There are games where the 8-core FX chips closely match even Haswell/Skylake i5 chips in performance, there are games where the FX chips can't quite keep up with the Core i5s but will at least hang with a Skylake i3, & there are games where even Haswell Core i3s trounce an FX chip.

Trust me, the gamut runs quite wide. Even with fairly new games, you can get a wide spread. Take a look at Tom Clancy's The Division (http://www.techspot.com/review/1148-tom-clancys-the-division-benchmarks/page5.html), DOOM (http://www.techspot.com/review/1173-doom-benchmarks/page5.html), Overwatch (http://www.techspot.com/review/1180-overwatch-benchmarks/page5.html), Deus Ex Mankind Divided (http://www.techspot.com/review/1235-deus-ex-mankind-divided-benchmarks/page5.html), Gears of War 4 (http://www.techspot.com/review/1263-gears-of-war-4-benchmarks/page4.html), Battlefield 1 (http://www.techspot.com/review/1267-battlefield-1-benchmarks/page4.html), Battlefield 1(http://www.techspot.com/review/1271-titanfall-2-pc-benchmarks/page3.html), just to name a few. More benchmarks can be found here: http://www.techspot.com/reviews/graphics-cards/gaming-benchmarks/

One of my personal favorite games, Battlefield 4, shows pretty much across-the-board equality (http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html): even an A10-5700 & Athlon II X4 640, as well as the old FX-4100, were able to hang with the Haswell i5 & i7 chips (although that Athlon II was lagging a little behind). Just depends on the game & your hardware.
 


Tbh it wouldn't be a bad purchase provided I can find a black friday deal, I'll see what I can do for you and get back to you soon. ;)
 


Tbh it wouldn't be a bad purchase provided I can find a black friday deal, I'll see what I can do for you and get back to you soon. ;)
 

polo53

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Nov 7, 2013
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That would be brill, thanks once again chaps for replying and taking the time to do so!