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Doing a full pc upgrade, need advice


Nade

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Good day, all. I've noticed for the past couple years my PC is getting slower and slower when it comes to gaming. Even in TF2 my framerate is getting worse, to the point that sitting in a trade server can net me an average of 30fps-40fps, no matter my GFX settings (When I light someone with my flamethrower frames can drop to 15-20, which is awful for a pyro main. Don't get me started on trying to deflect rockets).

 

Here's my current PC specs (try not to laugh too hard)

 

Mobo: Asus M4A785-m AM3/AM2+/AM2 https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131595

 

Cpu: Amd Athlon ii x4 640 3.0 GHz (Almost 10 years outdated, this is the cause of all of my problems) https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871

 

RAM: Two sets of 2GB DDR2 800 sticks totaling 8Gb, from two different companies, I think Kingston and something Bytes company (same speeds), gross but gets the job done for now

 

Video Card: Refurbished Sapphire Radeon R9 270 https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202131&_ga=1.26647421.1198615988.1484716790Just upgraded last year but noticed no improvement over my previous GTS 450. ofc the CPU is bottlenecking everything, so I'm gonna keep using for now

 

HDD: idk came with the PC 10 years ago. 300GB, piece of crap can't hold more than 10 games

 

Case: Stock HP case that came prebuilt 10 years ago. Piece of garbage and falling apart

 

 

Okay, so now I've been working out my budget and trying to find a good cost v. performance, and this is what I came up with. I have to upgrade my mobo since nobody makes AM2-3 CPUs anymore, only AM3+

 

Switching to Intel, I feel it's worth the extra money.

 

http://imgur.com/a/OvdBM

 

So my question is, is everything compatible here? I feel like the Mobo will be the trickiest to buy, since I see a lot of DOA reviews on many of the boards. I want to save as much money as possible, so I don't wanna spend 200+ on a new board. The CPU is the only thing I'm really looking to spend most of my budget on. After taxes and shipping that whole order comes to $854.91, Which is about the maximum I can spend on it.

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AMD is coming out with a whole new lineup of processors in probably the next couple months. If you can hold off that long pretty much everyone out there recommends waiting.

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Basically any Z170 board will be good and is unlikely to have an issue -- remember it's always those are upset are the most vocal. Everything is compatible, however, what games do you actually play? Even a Pentium G3258 can push over 500fps in TF2 with a good enough GPU. 

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If your budget is $2000, I would definitely recommend a 6600k, GTX 1070 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P. I would for memory for fast speeds do 2 256GB SSD and run it in RAID 0. For cooling, I would use a Corsair Hydro Series 240mm AIO and a NZXT S340. For Memory I would use HyperX Fury ram. You could always upgrade the 1070 to a 1080 if you want to

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If your budget is $2000, I would definitely recommend a 6600k, GTX 1070 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P. I would for memory for fast speeds do 2 256GB SSD and run it in RAID 0. For cooling, I would use a Corsair Hydro Series 240mm AIO and a NZXT S340. For Memory I would use HyperX Fury ram. You could always upgrade the 1070 to a 1080 if you want to

 

After taxes and shipping that whole order comes to $854.91, Which is about the maximum I can spend on it.

 

Derp

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If your budget is $2000, I would definitely recommend a 6600k, GTX 1070 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P. I would for memory for fast speeds do 2 256GB SSD and run it in RAID 0. For cooling, I would use a Corsair Hydro Series 240mm AIO and a NZXT S340. For Memory I would use HyperX Fury ram. You could always upgrade the 1070 to a 1080 if you want to

 

Would be amazing if life allowed me to spend 2000 on a computer lol. This is a budget build, so I'm getting the best for the least amount of money possible. I can't even think about investing in SSD at the moment. Way too expensive for very little storage, even if I were to just put my OS on it.

 

In which case logically I should just stick with AMD, but from what I hear Intel is far superior in almost every way (And also 2-3x the price). I was originally planning on upgrading my CPU to an FX-6300 or even an 8350 but since they're mainly virtual cores, a true quad core would be far more efficient.

 

In any case, I would have to definitely upgrade my MOBO since it only supports AM3 or lower. I basically have the "best" CPU that my MOBO allows me. Which would also mean I'd have to get new RAM, and then everything else.

 

AMD is coming out with a whole new lineup of processors in probably the next couple months. If you can hold off that long pretty much everyone out there recommends waiting.

 

 

I would love to wait, but I know nothing about them or how much they cost. It would be nice to get the upgrade out of the way before I have to pay for anything else

 

Basically any Z170 board will be good and is unlikely to have an issue -- remember it's always those are upset are the most vocal. Everything is compatible, however, what games do you actually play? Even a Pentium G3258 can push over 500fps in TF2 with a good enough GPU. 

 

 

The pentium is far superior to an athlon ii x4 640. I mostly play TF2 and use my PS4 for games such as Battlefield and GTA 5, but I've always been a true PC gamer at heart, so I want to be able to play BF1 and Titanfall 2 etc. with decent frames. I don't need to go ultra, I just need a decent framerate. Ark would be nice to play also but my framerate makes it difficult to really enjoy it without turning everything into pastel drawings 

Edited by Nade
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Sorry for double post, but if I did AMD I could switch over to FM2+ and do this:

 

AMD A10-7860K https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113404

 

 

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16813128763

 

Seems to have decent performance while staying cheap

Definitely don't go AMD. Intel is the way to go, unless you're willing to wait one month until the rumored announcement of RyZen. Which could push CPU prices down a bit....probably not enough to make a significant difference, but at this point AMD's pricing for RyZen is anyones guess. 

 

If you want to play AAA titles like BF1, then you definitely do want a quad core. You can either go with something like this and upgrade the GPU in the future: 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270P-D3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($144.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($109.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $867.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-28 22:54 EST-0500
 
Or you could go with a locked i5, 8gb of RAM, and no SSD in order to get much more GPU performance immediately: 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($63.98 @ DirectCanada) 
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($59.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 480 8GB ARMOR 8G OC Video Card  ($308.00 @ Vuugo) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $865.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-28 22:57 EST-0500
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Definitely don't go AMD. Intel is the way to go, unless you're willing to wait one month until the rumored announcement of RyZen. Which could push CPU prices down a bit....probably not enough to make a significant difference, but at this point AMD's pricing for RyZen is anyones guess. 

 

If you want to play AAA titles like BF1, then you definitely do want a quad core. You can either go with something like this and upgrade the GPU in the future: 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270P-D3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($144.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($109.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $867.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-28 22:54 EST-0500
 
Or you could go with a locked i5, 8gb of RAM, and no SSD in order to get much more GPU performance immediately: 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($63.98 @ DirectCanada) 
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($59.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 480 8GB ARMOR 8G OC Video Card  ($308.00 @ Vuugo) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $865.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-28 22:57 EST-0500

 

 

Thanks for the list bro, checking out both right now. I was hoping to stick with overclocking but it's not a necessity as long as I can play some AAA titles with decent graphics

 

The R9 270 isn't the greatest for sure, but it's about on par with a GTX 950 afaik

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I would personally wait on ryzen, its not too far away.

 

Have you done a clean install of windows recently? That might help significantly with performance in the mean time.

 

Edit:

 

Video Card: Refurbished Sapphire Radeon R9 270 https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202131&_ga=1.26647421.1198615988.1484716790Just upgraded last year but noticed no improvement over my previous GTS 450. ofc the CPU is bottlenecking everything, so I'm gonna keep using for now

 

This throws up a whole lot of red flags, I noticed that motherboard has integrated graphics, are you sure that you are plugging your monitor into the ports on your graphics card and not the motherboard? 

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I would personally wait on ryzen, its not too far away.

 

Have you done a clean install of windows recently? That might help significantly with performance in the mean time.

 

Edit:

 

 

This throws up a whole lot of red flags, I noticed that motherboard has integrated graphics, are you sure that you are plugging your monitor into the ports on your graphics card and not the motherboard? 

 

I'd love to wait for ryzen but I know nothing about it, what mobo I would need, how much it is, etc. It could be like 500 dollars for all I know

 

I just did a clean install of windows last summer, I used that free Windows 10 upgrade to do it. Formatted everything and started completely fresh

 

I'm positive it's plugged into the graphics card lmao I'd be surprised I could run TF2 at all if I didn't

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I'd love to wait for ryzen but I know nothing about it, what mobo I would need, how much it is, etc. It could be like 500 dollars for all I know

 

I just did a clean install of windows last summer, I used that free Windows 10 upgrade to do it. Formatted everything and started completely fresh

 

I'm positive it's plugged into the graphics card lmao I'd be surprised I could run TF2 at all if I didn't

The "hope" for Ryzen is that it will perform similarly to Intel and thus push Intel's prices down a tier or so -- so instead of a 6600k/7600k costing $240, it would cost $190. Thus enabling you to go either AMD or Intel -- whichever you prefer (since presumably, the two won't be entirely equal -- one will likely have a price advantage and the other a performance advantage). I'd expect the price point (after Ryzen) to either be similar, but give you better CPU performance, or a bit less for the same/similar CPU performance. 

 

I don't expect RyZen to drop prices 50% or anything crazy, but it's still worth waiting for to see what it offers (as it's rumored to launch in a month or so).

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The "hope" for Ryzen is that it will perform similarly to Intel and thus push Intel's prices down a tier or so -- so instead of a 6600k/7600k costing $240, it would cost $190. Thus enabling you to go either AMD or Intel -- whichever you prefer (since presumably, the two won't be entirely equal -- one will likely have a price advantage and the other a performance advantage). I'd expect the price point (after Ryzen) to either be similar, but give you better CPU performance, or a bit less for the same/similar CPU performance. 

 

I don't expect RyZen to drop prices 50% or anything crazy, but it's still worth waiting for to see what it offers (as it's rumored to launch in a month or so).

 

Alright I'll hold off until then. Sounds promising enough. Thanks for the help

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well with an Budget for 500 Bucks you could get an nice build using intels new Pentium G4560, which seems more like a i3, because it has Hyperthreading. For 60 Bucks its delivering an awesome performance and a Motherboard supporting it is about 80 bucks, so you still have a lot left for components like GPU, RAM, SSD, etc.

 

Heres a benchmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G4560+%40+3.50GHz

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Well with an Budget for 500 Bucks you could get an nice build using intels new Pentium G4560, which seems more like a i3, because it has Hyperthreading. For 60 Bucks its delivering an awesome performance and a Motherboard supporting it is about 80 bucks, so you still have a lot left for components like GPU, RAM, SSD, etc.

 

Heres a benchmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G4560+%40+3.50GHz

Wouldn't recommend a lower end cpu tbh, i got an i3-6100 paired with an rx 470 because a lot of people recommended it but as well as the card performs the cpu isn't that great.

Wait for ryzen for prices to drop still.

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So far it's looking like Ryzen performs only slightly below Intel's latest lineup (per core) and pricing appears to be such that you could get an i7 competitor for less than the price of an i5, as well as overclocking capable motherboards for as low as under $100.

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I've had my eye on the i5 6600k. It seems midrange but if I get a case that supports water-cooling I can probably OC the shit out of it. Any experience with the 6600k? Or is an i7 worth the extra $100-200?

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I've had my eye on the i5 6600k. It seems midrange but if I get a case that supports water-cooling I can probably OC the shit out of it. Any experience with the 6600k? Or is an i7 worth the extra $100-200?

Wait for Ryzen's octacore to launch (in a week or so) and the i7 price might drop. 

 

Otherwise, the 6600k is great, although, I would personally spend the money toward getting an i7+cheap cooler rather than an AIO + 6600k. 

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(When I light someone with my flamethrower frames can drop to 15-20, which is awful for a pyro main. Don't get me started on trying to deflect rockets).

 

I think you may have this problem here: https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/57760o/cause_and_fix_for_serious_fpsdrop_issue_involving/

Basically every time you do damage, especially pyro since there are so many particles flying around, your hud causes fps drops.

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