Hello,
Me and my father are considering updating our PC (mostly me, actually) and we're having a debate of sorts over wheter upgrading the motherboard should be necessary or, let's say, to be strongly considered.
One important premise: I had the, all in all, really rash idea of buying a Geforce GTX 970 (I still think buying it was worth it, per se) without double-checking the other PC parts.
As the GPU was underperforming, I took a look at the CPU specifications and, as it appears, the CPU was pretty low-tier for gaming purposes.
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Motherboard: ASUS A78M-A
CPU: AMD A4/A6 Athlon X2 340 Dual Core
4 GB RAM
Along with a pretty old HDD.
---------------------------------------
The situation right now is: my dad is adamant on keeping the motherboard. On the other hand, I think that to get a decent performance out of the brand-new GTX 970 it's mandatory to get an Intel i5 4460.
Problem is, the motherboard on-hand is no good to accomodate a quad-core.
After some research, my ideal setup would be:
-----------------------------------------------
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P (80 €)
CPU: Intel i5 4460 (200 €)
SSD 120GB 2,5 SATA3 KINGSTON (72 €)
GPU: Geforce GTX 970
RAM 8GB KIT KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY (2X4GB/DIMM/DDR3 1600) MODEL: HX316C10FBK2/8 (88 €)
-----------------------------------------------
While this is the cheaper setup suggested by our guy:
-----------------------------------------------
Motherboard: ASUS A78M-A
CPU: AMD A8 6600K BOX 3,9GHZ 4MB (115 €)
SSD 120GB 2,5 SATA3 KINGSTON (72 €)
GPU: Geforce GTX 970
RAM 8GB KIT KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY (2X4GB/DIMM/DDR3 1600) MODEL: HX316C10FBK2/8 (88 €)
-----------------------------------------------
Now, I'm no tech-hardware junkie, mostly a newbie when it comes to the "build your own PC" stuff, but I'm really worried about something: this setup was created with the intention of saving some money, but I fear that it will still bring the GTX 970 to the levels of a less-than-stellar card with too much bottlenecking. So, in the "dollar per performance" chart, the GTX 970 will perform like a cheaper card, defeating the purpose of buying it in the first place. In the bigger picture, i.e. I'd have paid a 300ish € card to make it perform like a 150/200ish one, losing 100 € and making the cheaper deal as a whole much less appealing (a measy 60 € saved for a dual-core setup).
It basically boils down to this: suggested setup is 165 € cheaper, but is it, purely from a price/performance ratio point of view, good enough to make it more appealing, adding a Geforce GTX 970 to the mix?
P.S. One quick question. I'm unsure about the RAM, I can't possibly re-use the one in the old PC, and possibly settle for another 4GB memory to get those 8GB?
Me and my father are considering updating our PC (mostly me, actually) and we're having a debate of sorts over wheter upgrading the motherboard should be necessary or, let's say, to be strongly considered.
One important premise: I had the, all in all, really rash idea of buying a Geforce GTX 970 (I still think buying it was worth it, per se) without double-checking the other PC parts.
As the GPU was underperforming, I took a look at the CPU specifications and, as it appears, the CPU was pretty low-tier for gaming purposes.
---------------------------------------
Motherboard: ASUS A78M-A
CPU: AMD A4/A6 Athlon X2 340 Dual Core
4 GB RAM
Along with a pretty old HDD.
---------------------------------------
The situation right now is: my dad is adamant on keeping the motherboard. On the other hand, I think that to get a decent performance out of the brand-new GTX 970 it's mandatory to get an Intel i5 4460.
Problem is, the motherboard on-hand is no good to accomodate a quad-core.
After some research, my ideal setup would be:
-----------------------------------------------
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P (80 €)
CPU: Intel i5 4460 (200 €)
SSD 120GB 2,5 SATA3 KINGSTON (72 €)
GPU: Geforce GTX 970
RAM 8GB KIT KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY (2X4GB/DIMM/DDR3 1600) MODEL: HX316C10FBK2/8 (88 €)
-----------------------------------------------
While this is the cheaper setup suggested by our guy:
-----------------------------------------------
Motherboard: ASUS A78M-A
CPU: AMD A8 6600K BOX 3,9GHZ 4MB (115 €)
SSD 120GB 2,5 SATA3 KINGSTON (72 €)
GPU: Geforce GTX 970
RAM 8GB KIT KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY (2X4GB/DIMM/DDR3 1600) MODEL: HX316C10FBK2/8 (88 €)
-----------------------------------------------
Now, I'm no tech-hardware junkie, mostly a newbie when it comes to the "build your own PC" stuff, but I'm really worried about something: this setup was created with the intention of saving some money, but I fear that it will still bring the GTX 970 to the levels of a less-than-stellar card with too much bottlenecking. So, in the "dollar per performance" chart, the GTX 970 will perform like a cheaper card, defeating the purpose of buying it in the first place. In the bigger picture, i.e. I'd have paid a 300ish € card to make it perform like a 150/200ish one, losing 100 € and making the cheaper deal as a whole much less appealing (a measy 60 € saved for a dual-core setup).
It basically boils down to this: suggested setup is 165 € cheaper, but is it, purely from a price/performance ratio point of view, good enough to make it more appealing, adding a Geforce GTX 970 to the mix?
P.S. One quick question. I'm unsure about the RAM, I can't possibly re-use the one in the old PC, and possibly settle for another 4GB memory to get those 8GB?
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