What should I upgrade next?

d31b0y

I've had an itch to upgrade something in my PC and was wondering what you thought I should upgrade next.

Current build;
GPU: Sapphire AMD R9 280
CPU: AMD FX-6100
RAM: Corsair 16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz CL9 DDR3
Mobo: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
HDD: Samsung SSD 830 256GB & 1TB HDD (not sure of model)
Monitor: Acer P235HBbd
Mouse: Logitech G500
Keyboard: Logitech G19

I was thinking CPU and motherboard. What would you hit next? Budget about €300.

TerrorFirmer

Yes, you're in that difficult situation where both could be upgraded but I think the processor would be a priority for me. H81M + i5-4460 will be about €220 and you can keep your old ram. Otherwise, H110M + i5-6500 with 8GB DDR4 will be almost €300.

Re-sale value of the old board and FX-6100 about €100...if you go Skylake, you can sell the bundle for around €140.

d31b0y

Good point, I never thought about compatibility for the RAM as well as motherboard / CPU.
I'd be inclined to go for the second option to keep the system slightly more future proofed.
And the €140 on all three could be put back into the system as well.

d31b0y

Went for H110M, i5-6500 and 16GB DDR4 HyperX Fury. About €320 delivered for everything (sourced through flubit). If I get €140 for the old board, cpu and ram, I'll be a very happy camper.

Thanks for the recommendations TerrorFirmer.

Canis Lupus

d31b0y wrote: »

Went for H110M, i5-6500 and 16GB DDR4 HyperX Fury. About €320 delivered for everything (sourced through flubit). If I get €140 for the old board, cpu and ram, I'll be a very happy camper.

Thanks for the recommendations TerrorFirmer.

Have you installed all this? Notice much of a difference in game? I'm sort of in the same boat with similar components. Been pondering a CPU/mobo overhaul but have held off as I'm not really sure what real world difference it would make as most of my games run perfectly fine as it is.

d31b0y

Still waiting for the mobo to arrive but I will do some comparison tests when it's up and running and let you know the outcome.

Was thinking framerate and loading time for a couple games. Anything in particular you want me to measure?

Canis Lupus

Nothing in particular. I play a range of anything from WoW to World of Tanks to GTA 5 to whatever FPS is flavour of the day (BF1 is on order). But yeah I'd like to just see your opinion on what improves.

TerrorFirmer

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Have you installed all this? Notice much of a difference in game? I'm sort of in the same boat with similar components. Been pondering a CPU/mobo overhaul but have held off as I'm not really sure what real world difference it would make as most of my games run perfectly fine as it is.

It depends on the games you're playing. Anything that's fairly CPU heavy will show a big difference once you have a decent GPU. Have a look at Fallout 4, for example. The i5-6500 is more or less on par with the stock 6600K featured here, the FX-6300 would be in between the 7870K and FX-8320E, leaning towards the latter obviously.

In pretty much all games it's noticably faster, and in more with increasing frequency from 2015 onwards, massively faster.

TerrorFirmer

Here's one for Battlefield 1. Fx-6300 - 61fps. i5-4670 (slower than i5-6500) - 91fps. 50% faster.

TerrorFirmer

The above Battlefield 1 benchmark is a bit misleading, it's obviously Rush mode or a very specific run of something, because there's no way an i3-2100 will pull 75fps avg on either Battlefield 4 or Battlefield 1 on 64 man conquest! But the point being to show the huge disparity between the FX line and Intel in general.

d31b0y

So after some very unscientific testing, it seems that I can back up TerrorFirmer's information above.
Boot time went from 44 seconds to 26 seconds.
Launching Fallout 4 (from steam overlay to loaded save) went from 57 seconds to 47 seconds.
FPS in Fallout 4 went from (approx) 40 to rarely dropping below 60.
Oh, and I just tested No man's sky and there was no lag. It was only barely playable on the old system. Hell, maybe I will even enjoy it a bit now!

Canis Lupus

d31b0y wrote: »

maybe I will even enjoy it a bit now!

Doubtful :P