Which CPU would be best 'Bang for your Buck'?

[Nick Young]

Problem:

Intel Pentium G3258:
Dual (2) core CPU, base 3.2ghz
OC:4.5 (safe)
Some games may have problems running on a dual core CPU however, I will have a graphics card (750 Ti)

AMD Athlon x4 860K:
Quad (4) core CPU, base 3.7ghz
OC: 4.2(stable)

AMD FX-6300:
Hexa (6) core CPU, base 3.5ghz
OC: 4.1(stable)

The Pentium is cheap and is probably the CPU which can be overclocked the most, however only taking advantage of 2 cores + no hyper threading. Will be working alongside a graphics card

Both AMDs have more than 2 cores and they can still be overclocked and will also be working with a graphics card.

Pentium: £50
X4: £60
FX-6300: £90

Which CPU should I choose?

If any further information is needed, please ask.

Nick.

 

[Andrei-Florin Gogan]

You mention about overclocking but if you do that, then you'll need a decent motherboard for that to work properly.

 

[Redneck5439]

Bang for your buck, with DX12 right around the corner, I would opt for the FX 6300. While it is true that you need a good motherboard for overclocking most of the mid range AMD motherboards will allow you to reach 4.1Ghz (being not really an "extreme" overclock for that processor). You will also need a good budget after market cooler, I recommend the Cryorig H7 (best bang for you buck).

While the Intel will have the best single core performance most AAA titles are already using more than 2 cores and when DX 12 mainstreams we will more than likely see most AAA titles using 6+ cores for gaming. Out of the 3 processors you are looking at the one that will provide you for the best bang for you dollar over the next few years is the FX 6300.

 

[Nick Young]

You mention about overclocking but if you do that, then you'll need a decent motherboard for that to work properly.

I have decided to go for the MSI Z97 PC MATE. That's only if I go for the Pentium

 

[Nick Young]

Bang for your buck, with DX12 right around the corner, I would opt for the FX 6300. While it is true that you need a good motherboard for overclocking most of the mid range AMD motherboards will allow you to reach 4.1Ghz (being not really an "extreme" overclock for that processor). You will also need a good budget after market cooler, I recommend the Cryorig H7 (best bang for you buck).

While the Intel will have the best single core performance most AAA titles are already using more than 2 cores and when DX 12 mainstreams we will more than likely see most AAA titles using 6+ cores for gaming. Out of the 3 processors you are looking at the one that will provide you for the best bang for you dollar over the next few years is the FX 6300.

Thanks for the reply.

I was also thinking the same as you however if I went along with the pentium, it would be working alongside a graphics card and for high-end games, the graphics card will be doing most of the work. Also I`ve heard Intel is better than AMD for some things, could anyone verify this?

For the cooler? Hyper 212 Evo, I was wondering whether I absoutely need this (for the pentium) because I`ve seen a stable OC at 4.3Ghz with the stock cooler.

Also if I got the AMD FX-6300, can anyone suggest a good 'Bang for your Buck' motherboard as well?

Nick

 

[Nick Young]

Also guys, I was looking at cpuboss.com

Upon comparison, the pentium scored higher than the FX-6300

Nick

 

[Andrei-Florin Gogan]

Also guys, I was looking at cpuboss.com

Upon comparison, the pentium scored higher than the FX-6300

Nick

It does have better single core performance but is only a dual core so in terms of gaming no really ideal.

 

[Redneck5439]

Bang for your buck, with DX12 right around the corner, I would opt for the FX 6300. While it is true that you need a good motherboard for overclocking most of the mid range AMD motherboards will allow you to reach 4.1Ghz (being not really an "extreme" overclock for that processor). You will also need a good budget after market cooler, I recommend the Cryorig H7 (best bang for you buck).

While the Intel will have the best single core performance most AAA titles are already using more than 2 cores and when DX 12 mainstreams we will more than likely see most AAA titles using 6+ cores for gaming. Out of the 3 processors you are looking at the one that will provide you for the best bang for you dollar over the next few years is the FX 6300.

Thanks for the reply.

I was also thinking the same as you however if I went along with the pentium, it would be working alongside a graphics card and for high-end games, the graphics card will be doing most of the work. Also I`ve heard Intel is better than AMD for some things, could anyone verify this?

For the cooler? Hyper 212 Evo, I was wondering whether I absoutely need this (for the pentium) because I`ve seen a stable OC at 4.3Ghz with the stock cooler.

Also if I got the AMD FX-6300, can anyone suggest a good 'Bang for your Buck' motherboard as well?

Nick

As stated by Andrei-Florin Gogan for gaming a dual core in 2016+ is not ideal. It is true that most games are more GPU than CPU dependent, but he CPU still has important physics and background processes that run on it so if you go too "small" on either one you will have a problem.

The Intel processor is going to benchmark higher in any benchmark or application that uses a single thread (core) as it has better single core performance. The FX 6300 has much better multi-core performance than the Intel. In any benchmark or application that would allow three or more threads to be tested the FX 6300 is going to be much better than the Intel. With DX 12 games will be able to have direct communication with the GPU on every core they have, in this case the Intel will allow 2, the FX 6300 will allow 6. As games are becoming more and more multi-threaded the FX 6300 is going to handle those games much better than an Intel dual core without hyper-threading. Now if you could step up to say the i3 6100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2MN-0004-00002

There is a processor with the newest Skylake arch and hyper-threading. So far from what I have seen in benchmarks the i3 6100 can best i5 Haswell in some games and of course best the FX 6300 in some games. It is really a hearty processor with two cores and 4 threads it operates more like an i5 than an i3.

 

[Redneck5439]

The only shortcoming with the i3 6100 is its not a "K" series. You can't overclock the i3 6100, performance wise it is what it is for the lifetime of the processor.

 

[Nick Young]

Also guys, I was looking at cpuboss.com

Upon comparison, the pentium scored higher than the FX-6300

Nick

It does have better single core performance but is only a dual core so in terms of gaming no really ideal.

Very true.

As stated by Andrei-Florin Gogan for gaming a dual core in 2016+ is not ideal. It is true that most games are more GPU than CPU dependent, but he CPU still has important physics and background processes that run on it so if you go too "small" on either one you will have a problem.

 

[Nick Young]

Bang for your buck, with DX12 right around the corner, I would opt for the FX 6300. While it is true that you need a good motherboard for overclocking most of the mid range AMD motherboards will allow you to reach 4.1Ghz (being not really an "extreme" overclock for that processor). You will also need a good budget after market cooler, I recommend the Cryorig H7 (best bang for you buck).

While the Intel will have the best single core performance most AAA titles are already using more than 2 cores and when DX 12 mainstreams we will more than likely see most AAA titles using 6+ cores for gaming. Out of the 3 processors you are looking at the one that will provide you for the best bang for you dollar over the next few years is the FX 6300.

Thanks for the reply.

I was also thinking the same as you however if I went along with the pentium, it would be working alongside a graphics card and for high-end games, the graphics card will be doing most of the work. Also I`ve heard Intel is better than AMD for some things, could anyone verify this?

For the cooler? Hyper 212 Evo, I was wondering whether I absoutely need this (for the pentium) because I`ve seen a stable OC at 4.3Ghz with the stock cooler.

Also if I got the AMD FX-6300, can anyone suggest a good 'Bang for your Buck' motherboard as well?

Nick

As stated by Andrei-Florin Gogan for gaming a dual core in 2016+ is not ideal. It is true that most games are more GPU than CPU dependent, but he CPU still has important physics and background processes that run on it so if you go too "small" on either one you will have a problem.

The Intel processor is going to benchmark higher in any benchmark or application that uses a single thread (core) as it has better single core performance. The FX 6300 has much better multi-core performance than the Intel. In any benchmark or application that would allow three or more threads to be tested the FX 6300 is going to be much better than the Intel. With DX 12 games will be able to have direct communication with the GPU on every core they have, in this case the Intel will allow 2, the FX 6300 will allow 6. As games are becoming more and more multi-threaded the FX 6300 is going to handle those games much better than an Intel dual core without hyper-threading. Now if you could step up to say the i3 6100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2MN-0004-00002

There is a processor with the newest Skylake arch and hyper-threading. So far from what I have seen in benchmarks the i3 6100 can best i5 Haswell in some games and of course best the FX 6300 in some games. It is really a hearty processor with two cores and 4 threads it operates more like an i5 than an i3.

Thanks for the reply, I read all of it and what you say makes lots of sense however,
I`m pretty sure the i3 isn`t multi-threaded. Would it still handle games well?

Again, thanks for the reply

 

[Nick Young]

What about stepping up?

Should I go for the Octa-Core? I think its the FX-9350.

Nick

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

Might want to say that you can overclock non K Skylake chips.

 

[Andrei-Florin Gogan]

What about stepping up?

Should I go for the Octa-Core? I think its the FX-9350.

Nick

It is a decent CPU but you want to stay away from it. In terms of temperatures, the 9xxx series are a nightmare so unless you have some good liquid cooling on it, I suggest you don't bother with them.

 

[Redneck5439]

What about stepping up?

Should I go for the Octa-Core? I think its the FX-9350.

Nick

It is a decent CPU but you want to stay away from it. In terms of temperatures, the 9xxx series are a nightmare so unless you have some good liquid cooling on it, I suggest you don't bother with them.

Totally agree, if you do a lot of multi-tasking, gaming, video editing then an 8 core AMD Piledriver would be ideal for you. I would stay away from the FX-9590 though, if you want to go 8 core AMD go with the FX 8370. It has the same binning as the FX 9590 (better binning than the FX 8320 - FX 8350) and has performance tweaks that makes it slightly better than the FX 8350. Having the best binning that AMD has the FX 8370 can overclock much better than any other AMD processor, even hitting better clock speeds and performance than the FX 9590. I have a FX 8370 myself and best "sensible" overclock I have is 5.5Ghz @ 1.52V. Now to hit the big overclocks you will also need a good motherboard (I have Sabertooth 990FX) and you need good cooling (I have NH-D15 with 2 Delta 3400rpm fans in a push pull config) and power supply (I have 1000W 80+ Gold). So with a more moderate systems (supporting hardware) you may be looking at 4.5Ghz as your top clock speed (I was able to hit 4.7Ghz @ 1.33V on a Hyper 212 EVO and Delta fans). If you want to go this route there is nothing wrong with it, I have no problems gaming at 1080p all ultra settings with all modern games (Fallout 4, Witcher 3, ect).

Now if all your doing is gaming and your not doing much multitasking or video editing, ect.. Your best bet is to go for the i3 6100. The i3 6100 has hyper-threading so it is 2 cores and 4 threads. It acts in video games like an i5, and seeing updated benchmarks can beat i5 Haswell processors in some games. For gaming, at this point in time Intel is the best choice, now that's not to say AMD can't game because they can, but an AMD processor is really wasted if your not going to be doing more multi-threaded tasks with it. I use my computer for doing massive spread sheets to keep track of my custom computer and horse boarding / transport / training businesses. I also use it to do a lot of video editing (mainly to advertise my businesses and keep up with my wife's ever growing video library of our children growing up), and typically while power researching things have up to 30+ (sometimes more) windows of MS Edge and Firefox open. If you are going to be doing video editing and have a lot of internet pages open at once, do lots of word processing and spreadsheets at once as well as gaming then the AMD FX 8370 would be an ideal processor at a great price. If you only going to game on it the i3 6100 would be your best choice.

 

[Nick Young]

Might want to say that you can overclock non K Skylake chips.

Yeah, I was reading about that earlier.

 

[Nick Young]

What about stepping up?

Should I go for the Octa-Core? I think its the FX-9350.

Nick

It is a decent CPU but you want to stay away from it. In terms of temperatures, the 9xxx series are a nightmare so unless you have some good liquid cooling on it, I suggest you don't bother with them.

Thanks for the rep.

 

[Nick Young]

What about stepping up?

Should I go for the Octa-Core? I think its the FX-9350.

Nick

It is a decent CPU but you want to stay away from it. In terms of temperatures, the 9xxx series are a nightmare so unless you have some good liquid cooling on it, I suggest you don't bother with them.

Totally agree, if you do a lot of multi-tasking, gaming, video editing then an 8 core AMD Piledriver would be ideal for you. I would stay away from the FX-9590 though, if you want to go 8 core AMD go with the FX 8370. It has the same binning as the FX 9590 (better binning than the FX 8320 - FX 8350) and has performance tweaks that makes it slightly better than the FX 8350. Having the best binning that AMD has the FX 8370 can overclock much better than any other AMD processor, even hitting better clock speeds and performance than the FX 9590. I have a FX 8370 myself and best "sensible" overclock I have is 5.5Ghz @ 1.52V. Now to hit the big overclocks you will also need a good motherboard (I have Sabertooth 990FX) and you need good cooling (I have NH-D15 with 2 Delta 3400rpm fans in a push pull config) and power supply (I have 1000W 80+ Gold). So with a more moderate systems (supporting hardware) you may be looking at 4.5Ghz as your top clock speed (I was able to hit 4.7Ghz @ 1.33V on a Hyper 212 EVO and Delta fans). If you want to go this route there is nothing wrong with it, I have no problems gaming at 1080p all ultra settings with all modern games (Fallout 4, Witcher 3, ect).

Now if all your doing is gaming and your not doing much multitasking or video editing, ect.. Your best bet is to go for the i3 6100. The i3 6100 has hyper-threading so it is 2 cores and 4 threads. It acts in video games like an i5, and seeing updated benchmarks can beat i5 Haswell processors in some games. For gaming, at this point in time Intel is the best choice, now that's not to say AMD can't game because they can, but an AMD processor is really wasted if your not going to be doing more multi-threaded tasks with it. I use my computer for doing massive spread sheets to keep track of my custom computer and horse boarding / transport / training businesses. I also use it to do a lot of video editing (mainly to advertise my businesses and keep up with my wife's ever growing video library of our children growing up), and typically while power researching things have up to 30+ (sometimes more) windows of MS Edge and Firefox open. If you are going to be doing video editing and have a lot of internet pages open at once, do lots of word processing and spreadsheets at once as well as gaming then the AMD FX 8370 would be an ideal processor at a great price. If you only going to game on it the i3 6100 would be your best choice.

Thanks for the reply, I would game on it, GTA V, Black Ops however I do use word (often-ish) and I always web browse and watch youtube.

Keeping in mind what you said, I think the i3 6100 may be ideal but are you sure it can run these games I have listed? Also is a Dual-Core really not enough?

 

[madmatt30]

With a £90 ish CPU budget , i3 4170,i3 6100, fx 6300 should be the only options you consider

 

[madmatt30]

Set your total budget for the build - you'l get more helpful advice that way.
All 3 of those CPU's are fairly capable of a straight 60fps on the majority of games - the 750ti isn't.
Squeeze as good a GPU into the build as you can - meaning a minimum of gtx 950/r7 370 or you will be left disappointed.

The benefits of the newer skylake architecture are out weighted slightly by the fact that both the new socket boards & ddr4 ram are more expensive at the minute.

 

[madmatt30]

Just for example - these are the cheapest but still decent quality build you can throw together - there are some fairly insubstantial price differences here apart from the 860k build


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£58.83 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool GAMMAXX S40 54.2 CFM CPU Cooler (£18.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus A68HM-Plus Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£40.49 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £147.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:47 GMT+0000
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£89.69 @ Dabs)
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK THEMIS 65.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£19.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£66.41 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £209.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:51 GMT+0000

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£93.98 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.81 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £192.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:52 GMT+0000


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£95.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI B150 PC Mate ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£71.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£39.48 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £207.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:56 GMT+0000

 

[Nick Young]

Just for example - these are the cheapest but still decent quality build you can throw together - there are some fairly insubstantial price differences here apart from the 860k build


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£58.83 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool GAMMAXX S40 54.2 CFM CPU Cooler (£18.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus A68HM-Plus Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£40.49 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £147.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:47 GMT+0000
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£89.69 @ Dabs)
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK THEMIS 65.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£19.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£66.41 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £209.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:51 GMT+0000

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£93.98 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.81 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £192.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:52 GMT+0000


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£95.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI B150 PC Mate ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£71.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£39.48 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £207.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 18:56 GMT+0000

Thank you for all the very useful replies!

I was looking around a bit and have seen that yeah, the gtx 750 ti really isnt enough and I would need a more powerful card.
My budget is: £350-£380
I`m sure a PC can be built with this budget and still have the cool looks and most importantly, the power to game smoothly.
I was watching a youtube video, I remembered AMD makes APU`s, as far as I understand its a CPU+GPU in the space of a GPU.
Why should I/should I not go for a APU?

Regards,
Nick

P.S. Thanks a lot for all the help and for throwing together the part picker lists

 

[madmatt30]

The apu's (even the best ones) are maybe just on a par with the last gen 360/ps3 - you're looking at 720p medium settings realistically.
With that budget you're firmly 860k territory mate.
Is that £380 max for the full build as in everything??

Its doable but not with a retail copy of windows included in the price!

 

[Nick Young]

The apu's (even the best ones) are maybe just on a par with the last gen 360/ps3 - you're looking at 720p medium settings realistically.
With that budget you're firmly 860k territory mate.
Is that £380 max for the full build as in everything??

Its doable but not with a retail copy of windows included in the price!

Yeah £380 for the whole build, I guess I can go up to £400
Thanks for the rep on APUs, they`re totally not worth it for my need.

Anyway, right now my PCPartPicker list looks like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LvsxXL
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LvsxXL/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£89.69 @ Dabs)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£52.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £434.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 23:13 GMT+0000

As far as I understand I should change to an i3 however I don`t really want to, I have an i3 in my laptop and I`m really not pleased with it + 2 cores really doesnt seem enough (despite hyper threading).

You have recommended I change my GPU, what do you suggest? R9?

And that part list is over my budget, I will almost definately change the case and I`ll look around to see if i can get any of the
parts even cheaper.

Apart from that, what else do you recommend me change on that part list?

Regards,
Nick

 

[Redneck5439]

The apu's (even the best ones) are maybe just on a par with the last gen 360/ps3 - you're looking at 720p medium settings realistically.
With that budget you're firmly 860k territory mate.
Is that £380 max for the full build as in everything??

Its doable but not with a retail copy of windows included in the price!

Yeah £380 for the whole build, I guess I can go up to £400
Thanks for the rep on APUs, they`re totally not worth it for my need.

Anyway, right now my PCPartPicker list looks like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LvsxXL
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LvsxXL/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£89.69 @ Dabs)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£52.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £434.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-02 23:13 GMT+0000

As far as I understand I should change to an i3 however I don`t really want to, I have an i3 in my laptop and I`m really not pleased with it + 2 cores really doesnt seem enough (despite hyper threading).

You have recommended I change my GPU, what do you suggest? R9?

And that part list is over my budget, I will almost definately change the case and I`ll look around to see if i can get any of the
parts even cheaper.

Apart from that, what else do you recommend me change on that part list?

Regards,
Nick

At your budget, there really isn't much that can be changed around. It would be nice to add in a better GPU, but would be difficult. I would recommend switching from the Hyper 212 EVO to the Cryorig H7 (or even better H5 if you can swing it). Hyper 212 EVO use to the the very best budget cooler you could get, but now the Cryorig H7 can be found cheaper and cools better.