My friend wants to upgrade.

[jamestomshardware]

Can anyone help me, see my friend wants to upgrade his PC so it can play games. He currently has an AMD Athlon ii x2 processor, and integrated graphics, so i said to him to get an AMD FX 4170, a 500 watt psu and to get a, sapphire radeon 7750 gpu, would this be compatible and would it work well for games like cod bf3 and skyrim? Thanks.

Also he has 4gb of ram and a 1tb HDD

 

[jamestomshardware]

bump

 

[13thmonkey]

bumping after 21mins is just rude.

we need more information.

 

[Soda-88]

Neither that CPU nor GPU are sufficient for 1080p in BF3 and Skyrim, he'd have to play at 1280x720 if he wants medium-high settings.

What motherboard does he have?

 

[masterman467]

different motherboards. underpowered gpu... your going to need a new mobo anyways, go i3/ 7770 at least, if you wanna spend 150 on a cart the gtx 650 ti would be much better.

the fx is horid. stay away.

 

[cmi86]

And see that graph perfectly shows that yes a dual core i3 will get you a couple frames more but is it really worth settling for a dual core in a market that is making the shift to quad core dominance ? I think it is just silly. The 4170 is fine, is it the best no but don't let anyone tell you it's not good enough to game because that's just BS. That GPU will need to be upgraded tho. 7750 is impressive for not requiring any external power however all things considered it's not fast enough.

 

[jamestomshardware]

does he really need a new mobo?

 

[masterman467]

And see that graph perfectly shows that yes a dual core i3 will get you a couple frames more but is it really worth settling for a dual core in a market that is making the shift to quad core dominance ? I think it is just silly. The 4170 is fine, is it the best no but don't let anyone tell you it's not good enough to game because that's just BS. That GPU will need to be upgraded tho. 7750 is impressive for not requiring any external power however all things considered it's not fast enough.

>61 fps min (SAME as the i7, so the card was the bottelneck, even on a i3)
>46 fps min (2/3rds of the cpu for all the price)
>a few more fps

right.

do what you want, op. you can get the $120 cpu that is 1/3rd better, or the $125 cpu that is 1/3rd more crap. you need a new mobo anyways. i would go lga 1155 mobo, i3, and atleast a 7770.

yes, the fx would need AM3+ not AM3, like the Athlon II. so might as well go with the superior lga.

 

[jamestomshardware]

could you link me to where i can buy an lga 1155 mobo for a good price? in uk?

 

[masterman467]

newegg.com/uk/?

 

[noob2222]

different motherboards. underpowered gpu... your going to need a new mobo anyways, go i3/ 7770 at least, if you wanna spend 150 on a cart the gtx 650 ti would be much better. http://media.bestofmicro.com/9/G/364516/original/CPU-scaling.png the fx is horid. stay away.

should call you the I3 boy.

seriously ... I3 ....

in fact lets get a 2nd opinion on farcry 3.

wait, what? the I3 is 15 fps (27%) slower than the I7, not tied and the 8350 is neck and neck with the I5?

To the op, 4170 is old, 4300 or 6300 is what you want if your on a tight budget.

I3 will be lucky to keep up with newer and newer games, no need to get an already stressed out dual core cpu. BF3, cod, and skyrim can all use 4 cores or more.

 

[MajinCry]

Actually, Skyrim may use 4 cores, but it performs much better wit' two.
...Though, setting it to use 2 cores of a quad core will yield a significant boost over the 2 cores of a dual-core.

@OP I second the 4300 option. Don't listen to the intel salesmen; AMD is what you should get.

 

[13thmonkey]

scan.co.uk
ebuyer.com
overclockers.co.uk
aria.co.uk

to name but a few.

as to do you really need a new mobo, the answer is it depends, on what mobo you have now.

 

[cmi86]

>61 fps min (SAME as the i7, so the card was the bottelneck, even on a i3)
>46 fps min (2/3rds of the cpu for all the price)
>a few more fps

right.

do what you want, op. you can get the $120 cpu that is 1/3rd better, or the $125 cpu that is 1/3rd more crap. you need a new mobo anyways. i would go lga 1155 mobo, i3, and atleast a 7770.

yes, the fx would need AM3+ not AM3, like the Athlon II. so might as well go with the superior lga.

See you are basing a CPU's over all performance on one aspect of computing. Yes it puts down more FPS, great wonderful. Will it still do that in a year or 2 when major titles are all quad based ? No it wont. Will it run 10 other programs in the background while gaming as smoothly as a quad will, no it wont. What if he want's to experiment with overclocking does an i3 do that ? No it doesn't. The i3's are good at one thing and one thing only, single threaded computing and that is it. So how does it make sense to suggest a cpu that is only good at running single threads in a world that is moving more and more in favor of multi threaded applications with every day that passes ? This is not some intel amd fanboi BS, I own both. This is the common sense that dual cores are already beginning to show their irrelevance in the performance PC world and this is only going to become more obvious with every day that passes.

 

[13thmonkey]

personally a PhII 965 if his board will take it, and then get a decent GPU (resolution dependent), that will see you through for a good while at minimal cost

 

[cmi86]

Back to the OP. For a cost effective more capable and future proofed performance PC (not just a gamer but good at everything) I would suggest one of the 4/6 core options from AMD's FX line such as the FX 4300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113287 or the FX 6300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286. If you can spend a little more cash the i5's from intel are great as they do benefit from intel's superior architecture but are not limited by being only a dual core.

 

[cmi86]

13thmonkey's suggestion of a Phenom II is also a great cost effective option as prices on them are currently under $100 and they are still very suitable for performance computing and the cost difference will allow more to be invested in a GPU furthering you gaming experience. I still run a phenom II with a good clock on it and I have had no reasons to even think about upgrading yet. Not trying to hog this thread just trying to give good advice.

 

[jamestomshardware]

so if i were to get a fx 4300 and a radeon sapphire 7770 what mobo would you recommend?

 

[noob2222]

if your on a really tight budget, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130630

but for a decent board, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872
has sata 6gb and usb 3.0 ports, and $10 off right now so its only 79.99 with free shipping when you enter the promo code, 69.99 if you get the $10 mir. heck of a deal.

 

[cmi86]

The ASUS noob suggested is a really nice board. If you are asking me my suggestion would have to be the asrock extreme 3not because I think it's any better than the ASUS but that I can personally attest to the features and quality of this motherboard as I have used it with multiple processors, huge OC's, core unlocks, multiple GPUS, raid arrays and just about anything you could ever ask of a motherboard for over a year now and have not had one single issue ever. This board always just worked and worked great. Here's a link

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157280

 

[noob2222]

same here, I have no experience or bad things about asrock, I love my asus sabertooth board.

I traded my original gigabyte because the bios wasn't up to do what I wanted, but the asrock and asus use nearly the same uefi bios.

flip a coin, they are both roughly the same.

 

[Mousemonkey]

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