Time for an upgrade... x4 651k

[littleyumyum]

Hi all, just looking for some opinions on an upgrade. I've realised my home built PC is now over 5 years old and even then that was done on a budget currently it has:

Asus FM motherboard (not sure of the model off the top of me head)
Athlon II X4 651k
4gb DDR 3
Sapphire R9 270

For most stuff it's fine but it's starting to run a tad slow, I'm looking to get back into PC gaming so need an upgrade, I know I'll need a new mobo for a new cpu and probably new ram but want to keep the cost low and also not screw me over for future upgrades....

I've actually mad great use of this with steam in home streaming with it hooked up to my tv but streaming to a linx tablet while me and the other half watch to etc....

Any ideas and links to products would be massively appreciated!!!


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[Ancalagon44]

Can you give us a budget, use and preferences please? What region/country are you in?

Do you want to buy a graphics card too, or do you want to use your current one for a while?

 

[VirtualLarry]

LOL. FM1. (I'm laughing with you, not at you. I just built two FM1 rigs the other night, to try to pawn off on someone with an older Core2/Sandy Bridge Pentium-era rig.)

Yeah, you're going to need a "full upgrade" (CPU/mobo/RAM, probably video card too), to play modern games.

Consider a Ryzen 5 1600X CPU (or a combo including a mobo, if you live near a Microcenter). Then, maybe a GTX 1060 6GB? (Don't pay over $300 though.)

 

[littleyumyum]

I live in the U.K... yeah I thought it was a great idea 5 years ago until I saw that I couldn't really upgrade anything....

I mean budget wise I think I can push a bit more out of my gfx for a while so mobo cpu and ram are my priority, realistically looking around £200/ $250

I'm not sure about amd anymore a lot of benchmarks doesn't see much improvement over an i3 so I'm leaning towards intel?


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[EliteRetard]

I live in the U.K... yeah I thought it was a great idea 5 years ago until I saw that I couldn't really upgrade anything....

I mean budget wise I think I can push a bit more out of my gfx for a while so mobo cpu and ram are my priority, realistically looking around £200/ $250

I'm not sure about amd anymore a lot of benchmarks doesn't see much improvement over an i3 so I'm leaning towards intel?


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You cant even fit an i3 into a budget like that. You'd be stuck with a Pentium G45xx/G46xx, the crappiest MOBO possible, and a budget 8GB RAM.

Another £100 would go a long way. At that point you could get an i3 and a decent MOBO/RAM, an i5 w/ cheap MOBO/RAM, or a Ryzen 5 w/ cheap MOBO/RAM.

I did a quick search on part picker, and came up with this:

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/nrFGRG
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/nrFGRG/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£166.74 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£75.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£60.24 @ Aria PC)

Total: £302.96

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-26 16:53 BST+0100

The 1500x is one of the cheapest AM4 CPUs, I chose it over the 1400 because it includes a better cooler, higher clock speeds, and is likely binned better and may OC better. Compared to Intel, this CPU is like an i5-7500 but adds hyper-threading and overclocking (4 core 8 thread)...so it's also kinda like a cheaper and slightly slower 7700k. The other advantage vs an Intel setup is future CPU upgrades. AMD has said they are committed to this platform for at least a few years, and even among current CPUs you can go up to an 8 core 16 thread CPU (competes with Intel 6900k). A cheap Intel system would not have this option.

As for MOBO, I went for low cost but decent quality. This MOBO has most of the modern features (USB C, PCIE M.2 etc), and some better quality components (thicker PCB/traces, better caps etc) with support for higher power CPUs and overclocking. This MOBO can support a 95w 8 core CPU in the future should you choose to upgrade (the cheapest MOBOs don't support this).

For RAM I searched for the cheapest 8GB DDR4, and noticed this higher speed RAM hanging out with the cheapest 2133/2400MHz options. So not the best, but not the worst either. I think 8GB is now on the verge of being to little, you'll likely want to be getting 16GB in a year or two. With that in mind, you may want to get the cheapest possible "throw away" RAM, or spend a bit more for a faster higher quality (3200MHz lower latency) 8GB stick so you can just add another matching 8GB stick down the road.

 

[ZGR]

You can try to find some used Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge i5 Towers out there. Those are pretty cheap and often have room for a small GPU; so long as the power supply is decent. I'd still be wary.

Going new with Ryzen is definitely the best idea though. AMD offers the best performance/price and AM4 has a great long life ahead of it.

 

[NTMBK]

I live in the U.K... yeah I thought it was a great idea 5 years ago until I saw that I couldn't really upgrade anything....

I mean budget wise I think I can push a bit more out of my gfx for a while so mobo cpu and ram are my priority, realistically looking around £200/ $250

I'm not sure about amd anymore a lot of benchmarks doesn't see much improvement over an i3 so I'm leaning towards intel?


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At that sort of price range, I would recommend a Pentium G4600. 3.6GHz dual core with hyperthreading, Kabylake architecture. Because it's got Hyperthreading, it's almost as fast as a Core i3 (though it is missing AVX). The processor is around £80, you can get a 2x4GB DDR4-2133 memory kit for around £65, and then you just need a motherboard.

To give you an idea of how the performance would compare, take a look at: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/399?vs=1682 This compares an (almost identical) i3 with a Llano CPU which is basically the same as yours, but with the GPU not disabled. In short the multithreaded performance is a little better (even though it only has two cores), and the single threaded performance is significantly better.