Sandy Bridge upgrade advice

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darth_adversor

darth_adversor

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Jan 16, 2012
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Hello all,

My Sandy Bridge i5 is, sadly, showing its age. It's overclocked to 4.3GHz, paired with DDR3-1600 RAM. I read, however, that an i5-2500k can keep up with the entry level Skylake i5's when overclocked AND paired with fast RAM.

So, I've been considering upgrading to 16GB of DDR3 2133 as a stop-gap, to hold me over another year, until I'm finally ready to upgrade the entire platform. It would be a fairly inexpensive ~$100 upgrade.

The other option I've been considering is a Ryzen 5 1400, paired with 16GB of DDR4-3000 and a B350 motherboard. That would run me somewhere in the neighborhood of $380. I've always been an AMD fan, but I have a couple of concerns about Ryzen, specifically regarding gaming. One, reviews have shown inferior minimum framerates with Ryzen, versus Intel. Two, I haven't yet researched how well B350 can overclock (which is a must).

Any thoughts? I have a Samsung 850 EVO that I'm really happy with, no plans to upgrade to an NVMe SSD any time soon, so that's not a factor. I also don't have any need for USB 3.1 and/or type C. Just basically looking at gaming performance here.
 
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M
You're on the right path. You can start working backwards now. Check 2011-3 systems or scoot straight to 1151 until you meet your price point.

The current Ryzen chips aren't gonna get any better. Its a core thing. Also flaky memory clocking challenges. You'll probably land on an 1151 build.
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marko55

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If overclocking and high clock rates are your thing, Ryzen isn't for you. They peak at 4.0 basically, and that's for the X chips. The 1400 likely won't even reach that with stability.

Sounds like you build for the future so you'd be better suited with an Intel build. Check out the brand new LGA 2066 chips. The mobo will cost you a few more bucks but you could even buy an i5 right now, OC it, and down the road you'd be able to upgrade all the way to an 18-core i9 if you wanted to go nuts. Intel built this platform just for this reason. Build it now on a cheap CPU, then upgrade your CPU when you get your tax return next year.
 
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darth_adversor

darth_adversor

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That's a good idea, in fact I've already looked into it. In my opinion, people are asking way too much money for their used 3770k's. $200+ on ebay. At that point, I'd rather just invest in upgrading the entire platform.
 
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marko55

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Yeah, thing is those 3770K's can still clock high and provide darn close to as strong of performance of a brand new i7, and they provide you PCIe 3.0. $220 is cheaper than $300+ for a brand new one with about the same juice.... Newer chipsets open up your world to m.2, DMI 3.0 (on LGA 1151 and 2066 anyway), more SATA, USB 3.1, pretty lights (haha), etc. So its all about what you want.
 
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darth_adversor

darth_adversor

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Overclocking is definitely my thing, and while I don't think clock rates alone tell the whole story, it does indeed seem as though Ryzen is a bit underwhelming in that category. After re-reading the reviews Tom's recently published, I'm starting to get the feeling that I would wind up dissatisfied (for gaming) with the Ryzen build. *Maybe* AMD will release some patches to improve performance, and *maybe* game developers will start optimizing their code for Ryzen, but who knows.

I do definitely try to build with the future in mind, but I feel like LGA 2066 isn't in the cards for me. I threw a quick cart together on Amazon with the cheapest components I could find...$700 for just the platform. Yikes.

You're right about Ivy Bridge performance, but I was still shocked when I first started looking at them. $230 for a used, 5 year-old CPU seems steep.
 
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marko55

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Nov 29, 2015
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You're on the right path. You can start working backwards now. Check 2011-3 systems or scoot straight to 1151 until you meet your price point.

The current Ryzen chips aren't gonna get any better. Its a core thing. Also flaky memory clocking challenges. You'll probably land on an 1151 build.
 
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13thmonkey

13thmonkey

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Jan 10, 2006
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My opinion, just an opinion, is that a 4c8t CPU will now keep you going for another 2-3 years, 8t has recently become useful, prior to recently it was just nice to have, now it is actually beneficial. So even with slightly lower clock speeds & IPC the 8t will give you a lot of longevity.
 
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darth_adversor

darth_adversor

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Jan 16, 2012
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I don't disagree with you at all. It's just that I also need more RAM, in addition to a more robust CPU. So now we're talking about a ~$350 upgrade to an outdated platform. My motherboard is 6 years old.

The RAM upgrade was one thing. I found 16 gigs of DDR3-2133 on eBay for 85 bucks. That's worth it, to me, to stave off the platform upgrade another year. At $350, however, I might as well wait and upgrade to a more modern platform. I don't need PCIe 3.0, M.2, NVMe, or USB 3.1 at the moment, but I might in 2-3 years.

Edit: scratch the PCIe comment. It seems as though my board would support it, with the Ivy Bridge upgrade.
 
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