CPU for under 250 Euro?

arleitiss

Hey, currently got:
8 GB RAM,
GTX 560,
950W
and a god damn Intel Pentium G860 CPU,

All my games can handle graphics but they lag and take ages to load, even when I am downloading game from Steam, the file is being downloaded faster than my CPU can process it and write to HDD, and when it's downloading I can't do anything else on PC else it pretty much lags badly.
The socket is 1155,

Would prefer to buy from Elara since I can pick it up next day pretty much.

Any suggestions for CPU under +/-250 Euro?

5uspect

i5-2500K is probably the best bang for your buck CPU for that socket.
Just see if your motherboards supports it.

arleitiss

5uspect wrote: »

i5-2500K is probably the best bang for your buck CPU for that socket.
Just see if your motherboards supports it.

Well on intel website it says the socket for my current CPU is: FCLGA1155

yoyo

Do you have the motherboard spec? Just because it supports the socket does not mean that a CPU will work. Speccy will show you the motherboard model,

Nick

Khannie

I'm going to go out there and suggest the AMD FX-8320 + a new motherboard to support it (assuming your computer isn't a dell or whatever). It is a savage CPU for the money. All in should be under 250.

arleitiss

P8Z77-M PRO
That's my motherboard,

This says: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P8Z77-M_PRO.html

That 2500k is supported, so I guess that's ok?


Also I don't really want to switch to AMD, maybe when I have more money, but for 250 eur I want to get as best as it can get to that price.

Khannie

arleitiss wrote: »

Also I don't really want to switch to AMD, maybe when I have more money, but for 250 eur I want to get as best as it can get to that price.

I think that price / performance is strongly in favour of AMD at the moment (and has been for some time). At the higher end, Intel wipe the floor, but for compute power for your euro AMD is where it's at.

http://paulisageek.com/compare/cpu/

The AMD is nearly a third faster than the 2500K, at lower cost.

Overheal

If you can get 33% more performance from an Eight Core CPU from AMD, and still afford the motherboard and stay in that budget, Uhm, do it. Eight ****ing cores, not 2 cores with hyper threading. Eight ****ing cores. I've been following the multicore trend since dual cores were in their infancy and people on this forum thought I was a dummy. Now everything has some degree of Multithreading and that trend will only continue.

And I'm guessing he means 33% more clock speed? We aren't even mentioning the higher transistor count or core count. I'm guessing the amd would indeed wipe the floor with that second gen i5

Khannie

It's about a third total, so each core would be slower than the i5 core, but overall it would be faster. It's based of the score on cpubenchmark.net (and taken from that page I linked to).

Overheal

Depends on how they benchmark everything but yeah that sounds more reasonable

Still a better deal. Core-i's are great in the short term but long term performance is juiced out of maximizing multicore usage.

yawhat!

I would go with something like below.

I5 - 4440

and

this motherboard

If your budget is 250 or slightly higher you might be able to fit in a xeon processor.



The above are not overclockable. If overclocking the below three items would be good.

i5 4670 k

212 evo cooler

Z87 motherboard

arleitiss

Budget went up by tiny bit, now it's a max of 300 Euro.

Note: I also do some 3D rendering and game development.

yawhat!

arleitiss wrote: »

Budget went up by tiny bit, now it's a max of 300 Euro.

Note: I also do some 3D rendering and game development.

See if the programs you use can make use of hyperthreading with a xeon, its an I7 with no integrated graphics.

As in my previous post thats really what your looking at for around the 300 mark. Maybe get a I5 4570 instead of the I5 4440.

Your lucking at a new motherboard really as well as a processor.

yawhat!

Overheal wrote: »

If you can get 33% more performance from an Eight Core CPU from AMD, and still afford the motherboard and stay in that budget, Uhm, do it. Eight ****ing cores, not 2 cores with hyper threading. Eight ****ing cores. I've been following the multicore trend since dual cores were in their infancy and people on this forum thought I was a dummy. Now everything has some degree of Multithreading and that trend will only continue.

And I'm guessing he means 33% more clock speed? We aren't even mentioning the higher transistor count or core count. I'm guessing the amd would indeed wipe the floor with that second gen i5

No they don't whatsoever! Just because a processor has more cores does not make it a better processor!

arleitiss

Is this alright for games?
http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=ECE2374502

I use Vray renderer which requires a lot CPU power and I heard before that 3770k is very good for 3D modelling, but what about games? would it be alright?

yawhat!

Its perfect for gaming but you are paying quite a lot for it!

arleitiss

yawhat! wrote: »

Its perfect for gaming but you are paying quite a lot for it!

Well if it's gonna let me play latest games without a bother, I don't mind tbh

yawhat!

arleitiss wrote: »

Well if it's gonna let me play latest games without a bother, I don't mind tbh

Its an excellent processor, just 50 euro dearer on the site you linked than other sites.

arleitiss

yawhat! wrote: »

Its an excellent processor, just 50 euro dearer on the site you linked than other sites.

Any shops perhaps that sell it cheaper? Where I could get it immediately?

Khannie

yawhat! wrote: »

No they don't whatsoever! Just because a processor has more cores does not make it a better processor!

Naturally. In this case though, it is a better processor.

TerrorFirmer

Depends really. For some applications the 8320 would be a good buy but from a games point of view, the i5 is superior.

What I'm surprised at though is that no-one has pointed out that clearly there is something else wrong with your PC.

The G860 is still a relatively fast CPU. You've said that when you're downloading games from Steam the whole PC becomes unusable? That's not the CPU. What you've described is a different problem - maybe there's an issue with your hard drive.

A G860 with a good video card would still run 90% of games at high/ultra settings fine. The major exceptions would be things like 64 player Battlefield 4 online, and other CPU heavy games.

In fact the G860 would benefit from a faster card than a GTX560, which is actually pretty medicore by standards now. If you're a games player, it's total insanity to drop €250 on a CPU and stick with an old GPU.

Rethink needed here to be honest.

arleitiss

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Depends really. For some applications the 8320 would be a good buy but from a games point of view, the i5 is superior.

What I'm surprised at though is that no-one has pointed out that clearly there is something else wrong with your PC.

The G860 is still a relatively fast CPU. You've said that when you're downloading games from Steam the whole PC becomes unusable? That's not the CPU. What you've described is a different problem - maybe there's an issue with your hard drive.

A G860 with a good video card would still run 90% of games at high/ultra settings fine. The major exceptions would be things like 64 player Battlefield 4 online, and other CPU heavy games.

In fact the G860 would benefit from a faster card than a GTX560, which is actually pretty medicore by standards now. If you're a games player, it's total insanity to drop €250 on a CPU and stick with an old GPU.

Rethink needed here to be honest.

I played Watch Dogs few days ago, and I quit it, I couldn't even play it.
I can even set to very low res, and worst video settings but game just simply lags.

For example I drive car in game and it freezes up for 5 seconds, then unfreezes, then again and this repeats a lot.

Games like Crysis 3:
Loads fine, mid settings but game is lagging and takes ages to load.

Battlefield 3 - 64 player server - Runs perfect on Mid settings.

When it comes to 3D rendering in modelling, this is where hell begins, it takes about 2 hours to render simple Vray scene with a very few caustics.

Most of my games are taking quite a while to load.

5uspect

Yeah, definitely check your system out properly first.
Look at CPU temperatures.
Do a few benchmarks of different components like the read/write speed of a large file transfer across SATA devices, memory tests etc.

I don't know what you mean by lagging, is the frame rate dropping or is there input lag? Could it be related to Vsync being force enabled in the GPU control panel?

GeForce Experience should detect playable settings for most modern games, if these settings lead to lag then you've got an issue.

arleitiss

5uspect wrote: »

Yeah, definitely check your system out properly first.
Look at CPU temperatures.
Do a few benchmarks of different components like the read/write speed of a large file transfer across SATA devices, memory tests etc.

I don't know what you mean by lagging, is the frame rate dropping or is there input lag? Could it be related to Vsync being force enabled in the GPU control panel?

GeForce Experience should detect playable settings for most modern games, if these settings lead to lag then you've got an issue.

I would even say it's not lag or frame drop, it's just literally Game pause and game unpause.

Game freezes/pauses

yawhat!

Even with an I3 processor Crysis 3 is pretty bad

http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

TerrorFirmer

There's a big difference though between medicore FPS and actually experiencing freezes. The G860 isn't that bad and close enough to a lower end i3 in most games. I've played loads of games on a G1610 Celeron and they all ran fine. Your whole system freezing up for several seconds during a game isn't anything CPU related.

Overheal

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Depends really. For some applications the 8320 would be a good buy but from a games point of view, the i5 is superior.

The same argument made against a Core2Duo vs a Pentium 4 in my thread of 2007. It made sense for games in 2007 to get a P4. By 2010 the oppossite was true, and in the latter half of my laptop's life cycle, the Core2Duo proved its value. It still functions today as a competent HTPC, whereas if I had gotten a single core I'd have recycled it a while ago. So come 2014 my stance is the same: Games might be optimized for 2-4 cores now, but as time progresses they will take advantage of more and more cores. You can either play, for analogy, Games at max settings for x years or play games at High settings for x+y years, which tends to be a derivative of worth.

arleitiss

Right, what's better: 3770k or 3770 + 60 GB SSD?
I assume there is no point in overclocking CPU if I am not getting some ****-ass-big cooler?

TerrorFirmer

Overheal wrote: »

The same argument made against a Core2Duo vs a Pentium 4 in my thread of 2007.

I think you're a few years off there!

Firstly, because in 2007 Pentium 4 was a dreadful processor for any sort of new build, and secondly, because Core 2's single thread performance was twice as fast as P4 anyway, so multi-core didn't even really come into it, Core 2 was just astoundingly effective compared to both Intel and AMD's other CPU's. Even before Core 2 was released, gamers were mostly AMD because their CPU's were far better, I can't think of any time after 2003ish that Pentium 4's would have been a gamers choice.

The last gaming P4 I bought was in 2003, replaced by a Core 2 in 2006.

Core 2 is still very efficient - I've run Bioshock Infinite on a E6550 fine. There was a good article on one of the sites recently that ran modern games with a high end card and old launch Core 2's, including the 2.13Ghz E6400 - a lot of the games actually still ran OK, which really surprised me on low a low clocked older cpu. BF4 single player is another one that runs almost identical on old Core 2's as it does on i7's when paired with a strong card.

yoyo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think you're a few years off there!

Firstly, because in 2007 Pentium 4 was a dreadful processor for any sort of new build, and secondly, because Core 2's single thread performance was twice as fast as P4 anyway, so multi-core didn't even really come into it, Core 2 was just astoundingly effective compared to both Intel and AMD's other CPU's. Even before Core 2 was released, gamers were mostly AMD because their CPU's were far better, I can't think of any time after 2003ish that Pentium 4's would have been a gamers choice.

The last gaming P4 I bought was in 2003, replaced by a Core 2 in 2006.

Core 2 is still very efficient - I've run Bioshock Infinite on a E6550 fine. There was a good article on one of the sites recently that ran modern games with a high end card and old launch Core 2's, including the 2.13Ghz E6400 - a lot of the games actually still ran OK, which really surprised me on low a low clocked older cpu. BF4 single player is another one that runs almost identical on old Core 2's as it does on i7's when paired with a strong card.

I had a Pentium D CPU, this came before the Core2 ones iirc. It was rubbish. Remember upgrading to a Core2Quad and the difference was massive! The Pentium Ds were slower than the high end P4s from memory, even though they were dual core.

Nick

TerrorFirmer

The Pentium D's were available in high clocked variants but they were rare enough, most common was the ones clocked at 2.8Ghz and 3Ghz, which were pretty crappy, and power hungry and hot running. No-one in their right mind would have chosen one over an X2 processor. I went back from the E6400 (2.13Ghz) to the Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz), framerate in COD4 was cut in half.

Overheal

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think you're a few years off there!

Firstly, because in 2007 Pentium 4 was a dreadful processor for any sort of new build, and secondly, because Core 2's single thread performance was twice as fast as P4 anyway, so multi-core didn't even really come into it, Core 2 was just astoundingly effective compared to both Intel and AMD's other CPU's. Even before Core 2 was released, gamers were mostly AMD because their CPU's were far better, I can't think of any time after 2003ish that Pentium 4's would have been a gamers choice.

The last gaming P4 I bought was in 2003, replaced by a Core 2 in 2006.

Core 2 is still very efficient - I've run Bioshock Infinite on a E6550 fine. There was a good article on one of the sites recently that ran modern games with a high end card and old launch Core 2's, including the 2.13Ghz E6400 - a lot of the games actually still ran OK, which really surprised me on low a low clocked older cpu. BF4 single player is another one that runs almost identical on old Core 2's as it does on i7's when paired with a strong card.

Or whatever the leading single-core CPU was when I purchased the laptop. Might not have been P4.

My point is the same though, I've always had positive experience leaning within reason to going with more cores vs. less.

Right, what's better: 3770k or 3770 + 60 GB SSD?
I assume there is no point in overclocking CPU if I am not getting some ****-ass-big cooler?

At this point a 60gb SSD is hardly worth the effort. It will hold the OS and not much else. As an example if you wanted to play Titanfall, the game is 40GB in size on disk. You'd have to install it to a seperate drive anyway and wouldn't see any performance benefit from the SSD. Whereas an unlocked processor, that again is a great way to expand CPU longevity. Cooling isn't that big of a problem either, it's quite easy (and preferred) to get a nice cooler regardless. I happily run my CPUs at stock settings with watercooling because its far quieter (unless you get some batsh!t HVAC sized radiator like my cousin, who was a plonk about researching before he bought that thing it sounds like a hoover). Even with a locked multiplier my 1055t can be clocked from 2.8 up to about 3.8 comfortably. Things start to get less stable at 4.0 but usually only in benchmarks like Prime95, gaming was relatively straightforward. The only reason I don't run like that all the time comes very simply down to fan noise, I'm practically OCD about it. I wouldn't mind if it would just jump into those settings when I load a game though and clock itself down on the desktop. What a life that would be.

arleitiss

Overheal wrote: »

Or whatever the leading single-core CPU was when I purchased the laptop. Might not have been P4.

My point is the same though, I've always had positive experience leaning within reason to going with more cores vs. less.

At this point a 60gb SSD is hardly worth the effort. It will hold the OS and not much else. As an example if you wanted to play Titanfall, the game is 40GB in size on disk. You'd have to install it to a seperate drive anyway and wouldn't see any performance benefit from the SSD. Whereas an unlocked processor, that again is a great way to expand CPU longevity. Cooling isn't that big of a problem either, it's quite easy (and preferred) to get a nice cooler regardless. I happily run my CPUs at stock settings with watercooling because its far quieter (unless you get some batsh!t HVAC sized radiator like my cousin, who was a plonk about researching before he bought that thing it sounds like a hoover). Even with a locked multiplier my 1055t can be clocked from 2.8 up to about 3.8 comfortably. Things start to get less stable at 4.0 but usually only in benchmarks like Prime95, gaming was relatively straightforward. The only reason I don't run like that all the time comes very simply down to fan noise, I'm practically OCD about it. I wouldn't mind if it would just jump into those settings when I load a game though and clock itself down on the desktop. What a life that would be.

Right, I decided to went ahead with 3770k then, getting it from komplett, the prices are like 10-15% cheaper, don't mind waiting 3 days.

P.S - also the thrill of waiting for UPS at your house

TerrorFirmer

I would totally disagree on the 60Gb SSD comment, it's pretty common to have an SSD for your OS and apps, and a regular drive for games. The biggest advantage of an SSD is the fantastic boot times and instant usability of apps upon boot. I have a 240GB SSD I use for both but given the choice I would always go for the SSD option, even if it was for OS only. I also have a 20GB SSD+500GB regular drive in my laptop for the same reason.

Khannie

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I would totally disagree on the 60Gb SSD comment, it's pretty common to have an SSD for your OS and apps, and a regular drive for games. The biggest advantage of an SSD is the fantastic boot times and instant usability of apps upon boot. I have a 240GB SSD I use for both but given the choice I would always go for the SSD option, even if it was for OS only. I also have a 20GB SSD+500GB regular drive in my laptop for the same reason.

Agreed. I'd rather have a small SSD + medium hard drive than a large hard drive. The difference an SSD makes is phenomenal.

yoyo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The Pentium D's were available in high clocked variants but they were rare enough, most common was the ones clocked at 2.8Ghz and 3Ghz, which were pretty crappy, and power hungry and hot running. No-one in their right mind would have chosen one over an X2 processor. I went back from the E6400 (2.13Ghz) to the Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz), framerate in COD4 was cut in half.

I had a 2.6GHz one from memory. Still have it somewhere around the flat. I got it as I was reluctant to change to AMD at the time (don't ask me why now, it was a good few years back!).
I did change from a Nvidia to a AMD video card recently however and have slightly regretted it. Drivers do seem to be poorer and less stable.

Nick

Overheal

I'd save up for a larger SSD to be fair. My assertion not being it's a useless thing but a 60gb wouldn't interest me much at this stage. That said something that small is getting cheaper and cheaper, keep an eye out for a sale where you can probably get it for $30. There was a deal on tiger direct the other week for a 400gb SSD for $250 as an example. The prices on SSD is coming down

arleitiss

My budget is now 340 Euro.
I forgot to mention, I currently have 2.5" hard drive as main, 500 GB and it handles both: OS and games (one partition).

I was considering today: Just getting 3770k and some proper 3.5" Hard Drive, would that be better option?

Hate when I have such choices :L

5uspect

I'd go with the bigger SSD myself. It'll have the biggest impact on performance you've ever seen.

Have you checked your system out? How are the things I mentioned earlier?

stevenmu

Because you have specific software that you use for rendering and modelling, your best bet would be to investigate those and see how well they work with Intel vs AMD. Some software will work much better on an AMD 8 core, and some will work much better on an i5.

Gyck

I forgot to mention, I currently have 2.5" hard drive as main, 500 GB and it handles both: OS and games (one partition).

I was considering today: Just getting 3770k and some proper 3.5" Hard Drive, would that be better option?

I switched to 2.5" (7200rpm) drives for my various PCs OS's a while back - I couldn't take the noise/vibration from fast 3.5" disks. Then I switched to SSDs for the OS and migrated the 2.5" disks to hold games and slower 3.5" disks for data. Unless modern 3.5" disks run quietly and vibration free I'd steer clear of them. If you can stretch to a large SSD I'd go for that for everything, or a smaller one for the OS and recycle the 500GB for games.

IMO, of course.

Are you planning on reinstalling the OS?

Wossack

Sorry, just swinging back to your initial issues. I doubt it, but is the CPU hitting 100% when downloading via steam? If it aint, the problem most likely aint with your CPU (imo)

Any SMART errors coming from your hard drive? Ive a sneaking suspicion..

arleitiss

There seems to be no errors on HDD, could it be fault of slow reading/writing that it only has 5 gb usually free out of 500 GB? and that it was never de-fragmented (last time it was done like 2.5 years ago).

I know I am starting to get on everyones nerves with me being unable to decide but:


I've checked AMD cpu's, and I had this set in mind:
http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80009251/amd-fx-8350-black-edition-4ghz-socket-am3/details.aspx

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80008127/asus-m5a97-evo-r2-0-socket-am3-atx/details.aspx


Even then it's 40 Euro cheaper than just an 3770k alone.

Overheal

Yep, thats the AMD difference.

5uspect

arleitiss wrote: »

There seems to be no errors on HDD, could it be fault of slow reading/writing that it only has 5 gb usually free out of 500 GB? and that it was never de-fragmented (last time it was done like 2.5 years ago).

I know I am starting to get on everyones nerves with me being unable to decide but:


I've checked AMD cpu's, and I had this set in mind:
http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80009251/amd-fx-8350-black-edition-4ghz-socket-am3/details.aspx

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80008127/asus-m5a97-evo-r2-0-socket-am3-atx/details.aspx


Even then it's 40 Euro cheaper than just an 3770k alone.

No, you're getting on our nerves for not answering our questions about your system's health.

arleitiss

5uspect wrote: »

No, you're getting on our nerves for not answering our questions about your system's health.

Well as I said, there is no errors coming up.
Write speeds are usually average of 26 mb/s only. So when I copy big files across system it takes quite a while.

I decided to go ahead and get AMD, as I read some feedbacks online, it seems that 8 Cores are giving advantage in editing, rendering software.

Wossack

Could be a massively fragmented disk

They can slow down as they're near capacity I believe

/edit 26mb/s is very slow imo. Should be multiples of that

arleitiss

Wossack wrote: »

Could be a massively fragmented disk

They can slow down as they're near capacity I believe

/edit 26mb/s is very slow imo. Should be multiples of that

I know that it should be a lot more, but I can't run defrag right now as it will take pretty much life time, I was once away for 3 days, I ran disk defrag, 3 days later when I came back it was still only analyzing it, I can imagine defrag going on for lifetime.


P.S - When OS is re installed and disc is fully formatted, does it automatically defrag it and clean up and bring to fresh condition?

arleitiss

I got this PC by swapping my laptop, I had alienware laptop but then decided to switch to PC.
I swapped it to one guy, he had this built and I never opened it up yet, just did here are the extra details:

Motherboard: P8Z77-M PRO
RAM: HyperX Predator Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
PSU: OCZ ZT Series 750 W (for some reason I always thought I had 950W)

stevenmu

Tbh even the lowest end CPU you could find should be orders of magnitude quicker than what you would need for copying/downloading files. I'd agree with the others that there would seem to be some other issue. My best guess would be a problem with your motherboard/sata drivers, it could be worth trying to track down the latest version and installing them. Other than that, it may a bad BIOS setting (you could try resetting to defaults) or possibly some kind of funny drive configuration in Windows.

Wossack

arleitiss wrote: »

I know that it should be a lot more, but I can't run defrag right now as it will take pretty much life time, I was once away for 3 days, I ran disk defrag, 3 days later when I came back it was still only analyzing it, I can imagine defrag going on for lifetime.


P.S - When OS is re installed and disc is fully formatted, does it automatically defrag it and clean up and bring to fresh condition?

Well not so much automatically defrag it, the disk will be blank when writing to it, so it can write contiguously to it (no gaps) on install. There'll be some fragmentation still (just always is), but it'll be much much reduced. Also, since there will be a whole lot more free space, defrag should be quicker - as it wont have to do so many 'moves' to create continuous files

If its an option for you, it could be worth trying imo. Could also tidy up potential drivers issues as mentioned.