CPU Upgrade Suggestion while Retaining Mobo/PSU

Wintergreen

Hello all,

A few years back I found great help here while looking for advice on building a new rig. I'd like to upgrade my CPU and hoped you guys might be able to help me out again with some advice!

Currently I have a "AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+" installed on a "MSI 760GA-P43 (FX), Sockel AM3+, ATX, PCIe" with a 450 W PSU (Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus). Ideally I'd to upgrade the CPU with something decent while retaining the other related components and am looking for a recommendation that meets this criteria. My budget would be around 250 and I mainly use the PC for gaming/browsing.

I've had a look online myself but there's a lot of options to choose from and I'm concerned I'd end up buying something that isn't compatible and then have to wait ages while the right gear arrives!

Appreciate any advice you guys might be able to provide, if its not possible I'll have a look at my budget and maybe consider upgrading the lot!

Thanks in advance,

Wintergreen.

K.O.Kiki

Upgrade on AM3 is not worth it.

The Ryzen 3-1200 outperforms the FX-8350 by a large margin, and costs less.

For €250 you can upgrade the CPU, motherboard & RAM:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 1200 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£84.95 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard (£75.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill - NT Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£56.46 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £217.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-17 15:45 BST+0100

Sell your current current CPU, RAM & motherboard (probably as a bundle) & get a GPU (didn't see one listed in your 1st post).

Wintergreen

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely have a look into that. My GPU is currently a "Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 OC, 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express" which has been holding up relatively well on the types of games I've been playing but it is something I'd also be open to upgrading down the line. If I were to buy a new Mobo and PSU I'd like to know they could handle a decent GPU in the future.

wotzgoingon

Wintergreen wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely have a look into that. My GPU is currently a "Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 OC, 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express" which has been holding up relatively well on the types of games I've been playing but it is something I'd also be open to upgrading down the line. If I were to buy a new Mobo and PSU I'd like to know they could handle a decent GPU in the future.

Yes, of course they would. That 1GB of VRAM would be holding you back a lot tbh. You must be playing some pretty old games.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah the FX-6300 isn't great and for certain types of games even the best FX processor is pretty poor so the best idea is to upgrade to Ryzen as outlined above.

That said though if you're rocking a HD7770 I would 100% replace that first. Anything that works reasonably well on that isn't likely to be that taxing on the FX-6300.

Wintergreen

Sorry the GPU is actually a GeForce GTX970 must have been looking at an older purchase I made, apologies! Lately it has still be meeting requirements when I used "Can You Run It?" to check if I could play a certain game while I noticed the CPU was consistently failing to meet even minimum requirements.

What sparked this design to upgrade is I'd been working through of back catalogue of games I had never gotten around to play and yesterday I stumbled upon Dying Light which I really want to check out!

wotzgoingon

The 970 is still decent if playing at 1080p 60Hz. I would upgrade the CPU, MOBO and RAM as in K.O.Kiki's post above.

Wintergreen

That's great guys appreciate all the help, one last question though!

Currently have 8 GB of RAM (2 x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws PC3-10667U CL9), is it ok to mix and match brands/types with whats recommended above and is my current RAM compatible with the suggested board?

Thanks again for all your help!

EDIT: Actually have one more question! Was just comparing the current CPU to the recommended one on cpubenchmark.net. The Ryzen beats the FX-6300 6829 to 6365 which isn't as big a leap as I'd be expecting given that the current CPU is pretty old. Am I going to notice a decent improvement when used in conjunction with the new Mobo? Sorry if that's a stupid question but I'm just trying to get a better understanding of whats going and if I'd be better off spending more money on a complete new machine etc. The same comparison site actually says the FX-6300 is substantially better value when you take price/performance into account.

wotzgoingon

Wintergreen wrote: »

That's great guys appreciate all the help, one last question though!

Currently have 8 GB of RAM (2 x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws PC3-10667U CL9), is it ok to mix and match brands/types with whats recommended above and is my current RAM compatible with the suggested board?

Thanks again for all your help!

No the new motherboard uses DDR4 while your old RAM was DDR3. Even if it was compatible with the new board I would recommend upgrading as that RAM you currently have is pretty slow.

K.O.Kiki

Wintergreen wrote: »

That's great guys appreciate all the help, one last question though!

Currently have 8 GB of RAM (2 x 4GB G.Skill RipJaws PC3-10667U CL9), is it ok to mix and match brands/types with whats recommended above and is my current RAM compatible with the suggested board?

Thanks again for all your help!

EDIT: Actually have one more question! Was just comparing the current CPU to the recommended one on cpubenchmark.net. The Ryzen beats the FX-6300 6829 to 6365 which isn't as big a leap as I'd be expecting given that the current CPU is pretty old. Am I going to notice a decent improvement when used in conjunction with the new Mobo? Sorry if that's a stupid question but I'm just trying to get a better understanding of whats going and if I'd be better off spending more money on a complete new machine etc. The same comparison site actually says the FX-6300 is substantially better value when you take price/performance into account.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azX4Qs7n2_Q&t=615s

Ryzen 1200 destroys the FX-8370, which would be an upgrade from your current CPU.

TerrorFirmer

The FX is reasonably OK in multi-threaded software so the scores on paper might seem similar, but in real world gaming the Ryzen 1200 is vastly superior to your FX6300, it will vary from 10% to 100% faster depending on the games being played. If you get a decent B350 motherboard, which aren't that expensive, you can also overclock it which pushes it even further ahead.

The actual cost won't be too high as you should get about €120 for the FX6300, board + ram.

Wintergreen

That's great guys, thanks for all your help really appreciate it!!

BloodBath

You will have a solid upgrade path on am4 as well. Up to 8 cores and the gen2 versions in 2019 will be at 7nm meaning they should be clocked higher while using less power and you can use the same board.

Stick with the Ryzen 1200 for now then go with a 6-8 core gen2 Ryzen in 2019.

Wintergreen

BloodBath wrote: »

You will have a solid upgrade path on am4 as well. Up to 8 cores and the gen2 versions in 2019 will be at 7nm meaning they should be clocked higher while using less power and you can use the same board.

Stick with the Ryzen 1200 for now then go with a 6-8 core gen2 Ryzen in 2019.

That'd be ideal, I actually wouldn't mind spending extra on the board for the sake of future proofing.