stopgap upgrade, upgrade

unit 1

Thanks to advice on here some time back I managed to set up my teenager with a beginners gaming setup cobbled together with old and new.

I now have a zalman z11 case, 550w corsair psu, and an rx460, attached to a H81Me mobo and intel g3220 cpu.

I'm thinking the next logical step is a mobo cpu ram bundle like those readily available on amazon/ overclockers etc, leaving the gpu upgradetill down the line.

For future proofing an i5 seems likely, but mobos really confuse me and I'm wondering is there a sweet spot i5 mobo combination at the moment. Overclocking or crossfire is not contemplated, but front usb 3 is supported by the case and maybe a typc c port would be nice, and of course I have no idea about the role of ddr4 with regards to gaming. At the moment he plays cs go and the like but I think his interest is expanding to more demanding games

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Digital Solitude

Just upgrade to a 4460, no need to go skylake

unit 1

Thanks for the reply, can you recommend a mid range mobo for this.

wotzgoingon

unit 1 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, can you recommend a mid range mobo for this.

I think he means keep your current motherboard and just upgrade the processor to a 4460.

Digital Solitude

Indeed, you'll probably need to upgrade your board bios so do that first, but no need in a new board

unit 1

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Indeed, you'll probably need to upgrade your board bios so do that first, but no need in a new board

Thanks, but I need to reclaim the g3220 and mobo to replace my old home pc, so I need a new mobo as well (windows 10 retail is the os, so I'm guessing a clean install if I upgrade both)

Digital Solitude

Ah fair enough, we're on the same page now.

i5 6400 with a H170M and 8gb DDR4 will run you about 300 and will tide him over for a few years, you can get a cheaper H110M either, same difference in most cases.

TerrorFirmer

2nd hand Haswell i5 (4440/4460) can be hand for around €100 on ebay, brand new H81M is around €50 and 8GB ram would be around €30, so if budget's a concern that's also a solid option for around €180.

Easier to just drop the i5 into his current machine and then build your home PC from scratch using the G3220.

pcuser

Im using the i5 4460 myself and its never struggled with anything I do. Its a great CPU

unit 1

Thanks for the input, just talked myself into going for a skylake (not sure which yet but i5 for sure) bundle on amazon. It seems prices are fairly similar across any of the sites I have tried so far so will wait for another little while and see if black friday/ cyber monday throw up any price drops.
Thank you all for your help.