Upgrading FM2 A10-5800K / DDR3 rig?

[VirtualLarry]

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.

I agree.

Having experienced the upgrade-often bug, I have often spent "small money" on upgrades, but have done it so often, that I might very well have been better served by waiting, on some bigger, longer-term upgrades, that would have been a lot more substantial. (I know some of you have been trying to tell me this.)

With the introduction of the desktop Ryzen CPUs, my perspective changed. Though the initial price was higher, I saw unmistakable value, that I had never seen with Intel's higher-end products. Therefore, I put my money where my mouth is, and now all of my bigger desktop PCs are Ryzen rigs.

Which, itself, may have been premature, with the soon-to-be-introduced ThreadRipper CPU lineup.

I see the Ryzen 5 1600 CPUs, as pretty-much the most entry-level CPUs than anyone should buy.

Dual-cores are dead. R.I.P.

My friend, though, seems to think he only needs / wants a dual-core, so he doesn't want to buy any higher on the product stack than that.

 

[kwalkingcraze]

Will there be a AM3+ and AM4 combo board in the future? I still have faith with FX-4300 than Ryzen yet, as it's now selling for $35 each fast now.

 

[Jan Olšan]

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.

If he doesn't care about gaming at all though, it might be better to use the money that would be spent on the card and actually switch the CPU+mobo+RAM. If the guy does singlethreaded things, Pentium G4560 (or G4600 etc) will be good for that and Kaby Lake pretty much does the improved multimedia playback thing just as well as the GeForce. I don't think the user will profit from the dedicated card much? And Intel has the bonus of having open source drivers that are upstreamed in the kernel, so OS updates are smoother.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If he doesn't care about gaming at all though, it might be better to use the money that would be spent on the card and actually switch the CPU+mobo+RAM. If the guy does singlethreaded things, Pentium G4560 (or G4600 etc) will be good for that and Kaby Lake pretty much does the improved multimedia playback thing just as well as the GeForce.

That was along the lines of what I was thinking.

 

[DrMrLordX]

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.

Probably. But if he wants to buy now and he wants the best bang/buck at a price point of ~$110 or lower right now, then the 2c/4t Kabylakes are pretty much it.

 

[NTMBK]

If he doesn't care about gaming at all though, it might be better to use the money that would be spent on the card and actually switch the CPU+mobo+RAM. If the guy does singlethreaded things, Pentium G4560 (or G4600 etc) will be good for that and Kaby Lake pretty much does the improved multimedia playback thing just as well as the GeForce. I don't think the user will profit from the dedicated card much? And Intel has the bonus of having open source drivers that are upstreamed in the kernel, so OS updates are smoother.

But that costs considerably more money. As in twice the price.

 

[VirtualLarry]

At this point, I'm going to recommend either a Ryzen 3, or a Coffee Lake i3, I think. He's not in any hurry to upgrade; his current rig is still working fine. He just feels that it's close to time to upgrade, and he wants some newer platform features.

It will be interesting, if Intel calls their CFL-S system mid-range chipset a B350 (B150 for Skylake, B250 for Kaby Lake, B350 or B450 for Coffee Lake?), since AMD is calling their mid-range chipset B350.

What would be even more impressive, is if Intel, taking a cue from AMD's playbook, made their B350 chipset capable of overclocking as well. Hopefully there will be an unlocked i3 SKU (4C/4T, remember?), for around or under $150. Intel will be FORCED to offer more value in their CPUs, versus AMD's amazing-value Ryzen CPUs, or their sales will slowly stagnate, especially in their enthusiast / DIY sales channel.

That might still be too expensive for my friend. I'll have to ping him, once more is known about Intel's CFL-S lineup.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

At this point, I'm going to recommend either a Ryzen 3, or a Coffee Lake i3, I think. He's not in any hurry to upgrade; his current rig is still working fine. He just feels that it's close to time to upgrade, and he wants some newer platform features.

Well, if can wait, he may as well see what Raven Ridge bring to the table. That's what I'm doing for the F&F segment, if they don't need something right now.

 

[ao_ika_red]

Well, if can wait, he may as well see what Raven Ridge bring to the table. That's what I'm doing for the F&F segment, if they don't need something right now.

2018 can't come soon enough.