Upgrading FM2 A10-5800K / DDR3 rig?

[kwalkingcraze]

True, but it's only a 60Watt cpu and i'm sure Larry has plenty of spare stock coolers laying around

And the cheapest online right now is $154.99 (on sale) at Newegg.

I bought the Pentium G3258 for as low as $35 at Fry's with promo code, and single-thread performance is identical to i3-7350K at 4.5GHz. New processors are more expensive than before. Haswell was cheaper than Kaby Lake. And buying DDR4 sucks too. I hate the new prices now.

 

[Ranulf]

Actually, his board has EIGHT SATA6G (SATA III) ports on it, native. It's an A85X-chipset board. That's another reason why he's been reticent to change, he uses like at least six of those SATA ports, and modern boards (except for X99 and X299), just seem to not have as many.

So basically this guy has the upgrade bug but no real reason to justify it. Other than he doesn't want discrete graphics because reasons. Logically, what others have said, he should get a cheap video card or go find some microcenter deal. Tell him to go buy a raspberry pi or one of those cheap gigabyte brix type deals. Oh how I wish I'd bought more than one of those when newegg had some deals last year. He just needs something to goof around with.

Oh, and when he goes to microcenter, make sure he picks up a sata pci-e card for his extra drives.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Maybe I'll try again to sell him my last H81 Biostar overclocking-capable mobo, and my last NIB G3258 CPU. He can part out some of his 4x4GB DDR3 RAM, and keep two in his existing rig, and then build an additional rig, just for fun and overclocking. I already told him I would give him my currently-occupied-but-not-in-use Antec 300 case.

 

[amd6502]

(FM1 chipsets and later have SATA 3.0 unless you have A55 or A58.)

Thanks for the clarification (I incorrectly thought FM1/2 was more ancient than it seems to be).

 

[waltchan]

Thanks for the clarification (I incorrectly thought FM1/2 was more ancient than it seems to be).

AMD A55 (later A58) only has SATA II ports. It originally was paired with the cheapest board, until it was phased out for A68 SATA III standard starting in mid-2015. I currently divide A58 and A88 in my builds, so both of them don't run at the same fast speed on my Windows 10.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Maybe I'll try again to sell him my last H81 Biostar overclocking-capable mobo, and my last NIB G3258 CPU. He can part out some of his 4x4GB DDR3 RAM, and keep two in his existing rig, and then build an additional rig, just for fun and overclocking. I already told him I would give him my currently-occupied-but-not-in-use Antec 300 case.

If you want to keep using DDR3 memory there is also the option of using an LGA1151 board with DDR3 support. Asrock has even made a couple of models with both DDR3 and DDR4 support, but they're apparently hard to find.

 

[kwalkingcraze]

If you want to keep using DDR3 memory there is also the option of using an LGA1151 board with DDR3 support. Asrock has even made a couple of models with both DDR3 and DDR4 support, but they're apparently hard to find.

H110M Combo-G

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm at 4.8GHz with A10-5800K, almost just as fast as Ryzen non-overclocked.

Really? Which "non-overclocked" Ryzen are we talking about here, and in which workload? I don't think you are correct, at all.

A10-5800K is the longest-lasting processor I've seen that doesn't show its age at all, even for 2018 next year. Graphics is still faster than Kaby Lake. Even i7-2600K Sandy Bridge is starting to show its age a little now, mostly due to slower graphics.

. . . okay. That would be a bigger problem if he played games.

I wouldn't get any Pentium-level stuff, that only upgrades the single-thread performance but the overall performance will be just as weak or likely worse - total waste of money. Personally I might be willing to switch to an octocore FX if it was really cheap, but never to Intel dualcore.

You seem to have missed the part where Intel gave HT to all the Pentiums. The G4560 will kill any 2m/4t chip AMD ever made in CPU performance. If he isn't a gamer, the graphics performance will not matter.

Actually, his board has EIGHT SATA6G (SATA III) ports on it, native. It's an A85X-chipset board. That's another reason why he's been reticent to change, he uses like at least six of those SATA ports, and modern boards (except for X99 and X299), just seem to not have as many.

My A88x-Pro has 8 SATA3 ports. The B350 Pro4 has 6 SATA3 + 2x M.2 slots. My X370 Taichi has 10 of them(!!!!) plus two m.2 slots. He has viable options. I doubt he wants to pay $199 for a motherboard, though.

 

[Jan Olšan]

You seem to have missed the part where Intel gave HT to all the Pentiums. The G4560 will kill any 2m/4t chip AMD ever made in CPU performance. If he isn't a gamer, the graphics performance will not matter.

I'm aware of that but that just made them into cheaper Core i3s without AVX2, and Core i3s aren't really an upgrade for two-module Piledriver/Steamroller/etc?

I was talking about multithread there (I'm not really bothered by ST myself). G4650 certainly doesn't "kill", it is just about the same as the construction-family quads in relevant tasks like encoding, as far as I can see, so it is exactly this "sidegrade" that people mentioned. You uselessly spend money as if you were getting a new computer but get more or less the same value for it as you had before. Warranty on components and power efficiency might matter for somebody, but IMHO, if you put money into a new machine, it better be meaningful step-up from the previous one, not just "slow but will pay itself back in electricity costs over 5 years".
IMHO, the only meaningfull way up from these CPUs/APUs is i7 (or some new i5), R5 or getting more cores (the FX-8300 option but that would have to be for an almost-free price because of the old platform and higher power consumption).

 

[DrMrLordX]

I was talking about multithread there (I'm not really bothered by ST myself). G4650 certainly doesn't "kill", it is just about the same as the construction-family quads in relevant tasks like encoding, as far as I can see

Here's a G4560 vs an x4 750 (same basic generation as OP's CPU) OCed to 4.3 GHz. OP doesn't OC but hey, go ahead and run up the clockspeed to extrapolate better scores as you like. It won't help the 750 much:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-pentium-g4620-g4560-cpu,4934-3.html

It's faster in ST and MT. And that's why the G4560 has been a budget darling since it came out, at least whenever people haven't been marking it up needlessly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have some G4560 CPUs, NIB, that I picked up I think last month, when they were available on ebay for under $64 (MSRP). I'm glad I did. Haven't seen them for sale at reasonable prices since. (OK, B&H charges a fair price, when they get a shipment in, although the price has been increasing every shipment. They've gone from $68-69, to $74-75, AFAIK. Which is still better than the $90+ ebay scalpers.)

 

[Jan Olšan]

It's faster in ST and MT. And that's why the G4560 has been a budget darling since it came out, at least whenever people haven't been marking it up needlessly.

You really think 10-20% is enough of an improvement when you basically change the whole computer (RAM, MB, CPU)? My point this whole time is that it's this so called "sidegrade". Even assuming you sell your old components well and shrink the upgrade costs a bit, it's extremely inefficient to blow 100-150 $ for 20% improvement, IMHO (in the context of this thread, which is cheap upgrade for somebody who doesn't want to spend too much). I would start to consider it at +50 % or better, but ideally +75-100%. That's upgrade, while getting something that is just 20% faster is a bad investment, unless you get a lot of enjoyment of having a new thing (... but reinstalling Windows, hmmm).

Such low two-digit improvements are IMHO worth it if you can get it as a hassle-free upgrade for little money. (Edit: I don't dispute that it is nice for new PC, to be clear.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

G4560 has probably 2X the ST performance of a construction core. That's a noticeable improvement.

 

[Jan Olšan]

That is true, but I noted in my comments that what I said goes for MT (that's the performance that matters to me).

Actually with that, I keep wanting to point out that we don't know what does the person from OP actually use the PC for. It kind of matters a lot what his needs are. If it is actually dominantly single-thread even though you said he doesn't game, then yeah, these Pentiums are way to go. But if he uses multithreading stuff like encoding, then he needs something completely different! (I'd say for MT try to find used i7-2600/i7-2600K, but then there is the problem of finding a LGA 1155 motherboard on the market and with decent VRM --- hmm and hope there won't be iGPU driver issues, now that I think about it)

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would say his needs are similar to most other people - 99% ST tasks. He doesn't do a lot of encoding, or compression, or whatever.

 

[scannall]

If his biggest gripe is the old video, the cheapest solution is the GTX 1030. Pop it in and go. It's certainly not a gaming GPU by any measure. But it is supported, and supports all the current codecs.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If his biggest gripe is the old video, the cheapest solution is the GTX 1030. Pop it in and go. It's certainly not a gaming GPU by any measure. But it is supported, and supports all the current codecs.

Yea, we are back to the real answer here, which Larry's friend apparently does not wish to do. I never did understand why people ask for advice (your friend Larry, not you) and then disregard it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

His primary OS is Mint. Would a GT1030 be able to HW accelerate codecs in Linux?

 

[DrMrLordX]

You really think 10-20% is enough of an improvement when you basically change the whole computer (RAM, MB, CPU)?

When you consider the sum totality of the upgrade - improving the platform, reducing power usage, and the needs of the individual in question - then the answer is an unhesitating "yes".

 

[scannall]

His primary OS is Mint. Would a GT1030 be able to HW accelerate codecs in Linux?

It should. nVidia Linux Driver talk

 

[NTMBK]

His primary OS is Mint. Would a GT1030 be able to HW accelerate codecs in Linux?

If he's using Mint, why does he care that the driver is unsupported in Windows?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If he's using Mint, why does he care that the driver is unsupported in Windows?

It's more-or-less "unsupported" in Linux too. He can't get the proprietary drivers for it, AMD has stopped supporting their VLIW4 GPUs in Linux.

 

[NTMBK]

It's more-or-less "unsupported" in Linux too. He can't get the proprietary drivers for it, AMD has stopped supporting their VLIW4 GPUs in Linux.

Ah right. In that case I would definitely recommend getting a 1030, NVidia tend to be very good with Linux drivers.

 

[Jan Olšan]

When you consider the sum totality of the upgrade - improving the platform, reducing power usage, and the needs of the individual in question - then the answer is an unhesitating "yes".

My view is that it's better to keep old PC, wait for more funds, then update to something that will be more substantial upgrade. It's better to upgrade every 4 years with good result than every 2 years with meh results that won't add up to the effect of that less frequent investment. Upgrading with small sum of money tends to not be effective, while with double the money, you get more than 2x the improvement.

That "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things" saying is often just bullshit ploy to convince somebody to spend needlessly, but in this case it matches IMHO. Better wait and do it seriously once than frequent barely-upgrades (speaking about those sub-20% MT speedups to be clear).

 

[kwalkingcraze]

My view is that it's better to keep old PC, wait for more funds, then update to something that will be more substantial upgrade.

Agree. The difference between A10-5800K and A10-7890K is too small to notice and a big joke I think, when the A10-5800K can safely overclock at 4.8GHz with 1.475V setting.