Upgrade for Gaming

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pass4367

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Jan 21, 2018
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Seeking Recommendations to upgrade an existing system for gaming, specifically Rainbow Six:siege. My existing system: Motherboard: Asus M4A 88TD M/USB3
CPU: AMD Althlon II X4 640 processor 3.0 GHz; Graphics Card: Radeon RX 460;RAM Memory: 8.0 GB; OS: Windows 7, 64-bit. I'd like to minimize costs by keeping the graphics card. Thanks for your help.
 
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Your best bet for a cheap upgrade is to get the fastest Phenom II X4 you can, I think the 980 was the fastest. Clockspeed is everything with those CPUs. Forget about the six core Phenom IIs, they aren't what you need. What that will do is give you more stable framerates with your 460. Your main problem right now is the Athlon II X4 was not a gaming CPU, so for anything semi-new, like RSS, you aren't getting the most out of your 460.

All that said, the 460 itself is intended as a lower tier esports videocard. CSGO is more what it's for, RSS less so. So you will need to either play at 720p or reduce the settings or possibly both no matter what CPU you have.
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clutchc

clutchc

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Minimizing costs is probably going to be your downfall. That board can only use obsolete CPUs and higher-end ones are getting scarce and expensive. In fact, anything to do with PC building is crazy expensive today.

The best that board can do is an obsolete Phenom II X4 970, 980 or one of the Phenom II X6 1075, 1090 CPUs. https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A88TDMUSB3/HelpDesk_CPU/
All of which are scarce and pricey. You might search out a 3.6GHz Phenom II x4 965 BE for a fairly decent improvement in throughput. OC'ing it would get you the same results. Unfortunately, your board is not designed for serious OC'ing.

While you may want to keep your gfx card, it too is a weak link in the performance chain. And new card prices are artificially high right now thanks to the crypto-currency miners and the surge in Chinese gamers.
 
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pass4367

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pass4367

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Thanks for responding. My thought is to replace the CPU and MB and keep the graphics card if possible. Just wondering whether that is possible and what is compatible.
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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The CPUs I mentioned above would be your only hope. Any Phenom II x4, x6 in the list in the link that are faster then the Athlon II X4 you have now. That said, the clock speed difference won't make as much difference as the fact that you will be gaining an L3 cache with the Phenom IIs.

But if the upgrade is mainly for gaming, a gfx card upgrade will provide the biggest performance boost. Unfortunately as I mentioned, gfx cards are outrageously expensive right now due to the crypto-miners and the surge in Chinese gaming.

The GTX 1050 Ti would give you a better performance boost than say a Phenom II X4 980
Nvidia GPU Upgrade: http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-460-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti/3641vs3649
AMD GPU Upgrade: http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-460-vs-AMD-RX-570/3641vs3924
CPU Upgrade: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Athlon-II-X4-640-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965/m225vs606

If your biggest slow-down is online gaming on busy servers, then the CPU would help more-so than the GPU. If you are a single player gamer, the GPU would help more.
The best thing would probably be to wait until prices stabilize again, and then go for a new build with a modern platform.
 
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pass4367

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This is great help. Neither alternative is great: 1) Pay the cost today to make a small improve with a new GPU or 2) just invest in a complete rebuild and hope the investment lasts a few years. Thank you.
 
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dontlistentome

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Sep 5, 2016
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Your best bet for a cheap upgrade is to get the fastest Phenom II X4 you can, I think the 980 was the fastest. Clockspeed is everything with those CPUs. Forget about the six core Phenom IIs, they aren't what you need. What that will do is give you more stable framerates with your 460. Your main problem right now is the Athlon II X4 was not a gaming CPU, so for anything semi-new, like RSS, you aren't getting the most out of your 460.

All that said, the 460 itself is intended as a lower tier esports videocard. CSGO is more what it's for, RSS less so. So you will need to either play at 720p or reduce the settings or possibly both no matter what CPU you have.
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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Exactly the point I was trying to make.
 
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