What specs would you recommend?

kebbles · May 28, 2018

I am at a budget of £150-200

I want to be able to run games like GTA V, Call of Duty, etc at a solid 60fps

The specs I was going to go with was;
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 960 2GB

BUT people are saying I will need a new motherboard to run those specs and also maybe a new PSU, what specs would you recommend or should I keep to these specs I was going to choose?

Also if I keep to my current idea, would my PSU and my motherboard be fine with it?

My current specs;
CPU: AMD A4-6300 APU W/ Radeon HD Graphics
GPU: Radeon HD 8370D
RAM: 16 GB
Power: 400W
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A68M-HD+
OS: Windows 10 / 64-BIT

Please help me!

Gadhar · May 28, 2018

You will have to get a new motherboard if you are switching to Intel no way around that. You did not list the brand of PSU you have, but you would be better served by getting a minimum 550 watt psu.

kebbles · May 28, 2018

Gadhar :

What motherboard would you recommend? also the power supply I got right now, would that run good though because I am at a limited budget right now.

captaincharisma · May 28, 2018

its going to be difficult to find a motherboard compatible with a 3rd generation intel 3470. you would be better off getting a cheap 7th or 8th gen intel Pentium CPU and a motherboard to go with that.

a Pentium CPU like that should run most of the games you are looking for fine but its hard to tell with call of duty since you never mentioned which call of duty game you are going for

cryoburner · May 28, 2018

I suspect that the existing PSU would probably work, though there could potentially be stability issues if it happens to be an off-brand model that can't sustain a load near its stated capacity. If in doubt, a GTX 1050 will offer almost the same level of performance while only drawing around 70 watts from the PSU under load, as opposed to around 120 watts for the GTX 960. Just keep in mind that the GeForce 10 series cards dropped support for analog VGA connections, so if you have an older monitor that only supports that connection type, you would need an active VGA adapter to use a 1050.

Also, I'm not sure that you'll manage to get a "solid 60fps" in some of the more demanding games like GTA V with this level of hardware, at least not without turning down the settings a bit. Games like these should still be very playable though, and performance will be massively better than what you would get with your existing hardware.

kebbles · May 28, 2018

captaincharisma :

I meant call of duty games like bo3, etc

cryoburner · May 28, 2018

captaincharisma :

Then they would also have to get DDR4 RAM, which would likely double their budget. On the used market, I suspect that prices and availability of this somewhat older hardware should be fairly reasonable.

kebbles · May 28, 2018

captaincharisma :

also which motherboard should I go with? I am at a £150-200 budget right now

kebbles · May 28, 2018

cryoburner :

Ok since this is not going to work out, do you suggest me getting a different cpu? so I would not need to buy a new motherboard, that would save money

cryoburner · May 28, 2018

You might be able to find an i5-3470 or similar processor and a compatible motherboard on the used market, and those should likely work with your existing RAM. I'm not sure what the prices will be like for those in your region though, or whether they'll stay within your budget when combined with the graphics card.

With your existing motherboard, you would need to stick with an AMD FM2/FM2+ processor. Unfortunately, the fastest CPUs available for that older platform will be a fair amount slower than an i5-3470. I believe you would be looking at processors like an A10-7850K or an Athlon II X4 760K. Both are quad-cores, which would make them more suitable for modern games than what you currently have, though their per-core performance will be only a little faster than your current processor, and well behind current-generation processors, which will hurt performance in some games. Still, used X4 760K processors should be pretty inexpensive at this point, so if you can find one cheap on the pre-owned market, it might still be a reasonable enough upgrade to hold you over for a bit until you can afford a more significant platform upgrade. Just don't expect "a solid 60fps", as those processors will hold back performance in many newer games.

In my opinion, looking for a used i5-3470 or similar processor and motherboard as you were originally talking about would be a better option than sinking money into the outdated FM2 platform, as those should provide performance closer to that of current-generation processors.

Either way, getting a GTX 960 or 1050-level card would still be a big upgrade, and would make newer games playable, at the very least.

kebbles · May 28, 2018

cryoburner :

You might be able to find an i5-3470 or similar processor and a compatible motherboard on the used market, and those should likely work with your existing RAM. I'm not sure what the prices will be like for those in your region though, or whether they'll stay within your budget when combined with the graphics card.

With your existing motherboard, you would need to stick with an AMD FM2/FM2+ processor. Unfortunately, the fastest CPUs available for that older platform will be a fair amount slower than an i5-3470. I believe you would be looking at processors like an A10-7850K or an Athlon II X4 760K. Both are quad-cores, which would make them more suitable for modern games than what you currently have, though their per-core performance will be only a little faster than your current processor, and well behind current-generation processors, which will hurt performance in some games. Still, used X4 760K processors should be pretty inexpensive at this point, so if you can find one cheap on the pre-owned market, it might still be a reasonable enough upgrade to hold you over for a bit until you can afford a more significant platform upgrade. Just don't expect "a solid 60fps", as those processors will hold back performance in many newer games.

In my opinion, looking for a used i5-3470 or similar processor and motherboard as you were originally talking about would be a better option than sinking money into the outdated FM2 platform, as those should provide performance closer to that of current-generation processors.

Either way, getting a GTX 960 or 1050-level card would still be a big upgrade, and would make newer games playable, at the very least.

Thanks for the idea, I did some research and seen that a AMD Athlon X4 860K is compatible with my motherboard. Would this be a suitable cpu for the gpu, etc?

cryoburner · May 28, 2018

Much like the X4 760K, it will probably hold back performance to some extent. An X4 860K isn't going to be much faster (maybe around a 5% difference). A processor like an i5-3470 would perform better, and should be somewhere around 40-50% faster than those CPUs, but of course you would need a different motherboard for it. The 760K or 860K would be a less expensive upgrade, which might help you stay within your budget. Just keep in mind that they will limit performance in some games that are demanding on the CPU.

Also, what resolution are you planning on gaming at, 1080p? Performance at a given resolution will depend more on the graphics hardware though, when things aren't being limited by the CPU.

kebbles · May 28, 2018

cryoburner :

Much like the X4 760K, it will probably hold back performance to some extent. An X4 860K isn't going to be much faster (maybe around a 5% difference). A processor like an i5-3470 would perform better, and should be somewhere around 40-50% faster than those CPUs, but of course you would need a different motherboard for it. The 760K or 860K would be a less expensive upgrade, which might help you stay within your budget. Just keep in mind that they will limit performance in some games that are demanding on the CPU.

Also, what resolution are you planning on gaming at, 1080p? Performance at a given resolution will depend more on the graphics hardware though, when things aren't being limited by the CPU.

My monitor size is 1920x1080 so 1080p would be the best, I reckon.

captaincharisma · May 29, 2018

kebbles :

and because of the DDR4 ram is why i suggested a cheap CPU like a Pentium instead of an i3 or i5

if you look at places like ebay you will find any decent or reliable motherboard is way overpriced. believe me, i speak from experience. my last build had an i5 3570K and when my gigabyte motherboard failed there were no viable options for a replacement whether it had a Z chip set or not. all i found were used overpriced ones and cheap Chinese knockoffs. also the funniest thing was i found the same 3rd gen mobo i had on amazon and someone was trying to sell it for over $1500.00.

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