Building a new PC

[IvakaS]

Hello,

I recently got a GTX 1060 6GB and planning to upgrade all my parts in near future. I have two options and I wanted to discuss them here with you

I want to get the i5-8400 with Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming and 16GB of RAM at 2400MHz, but with the new and cheap H370 motherboards I'd be able to get an i7-8700K, but with 8GB RAM. What do you think would be better? If you have any other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear.

I'll be using the PC mostly for gaming (more casual) and everyday stuff.

 

[WildCard999]

What about 8700/B360/16gb DDR4?

 

[IvakaS]

What about 8700/B360/16gb DDR4?

That sounds great. The non-k comes with a cooling fan, right? Also, what's the difference between H370 and B360?

 

[WildCard999]

It does but you may want a budget aftermarket one as it runs pretty warm. The differences between the H370 & B360 boards are minimal IMO but here's a list that shows a bit more.
https://techreport.com/review/33420/exploring-intel-h370-b360-and-h310-chipsets
There's also the H310 but I feel there the most basic boards with little features so I'd go for something a bit better.

 

[terry4536]

If you don't plan on overclocking, there isn't much use in getting the more expensive Z370 motherboard.

 

[terry4536]

But if you do plan on overclocking, then the Z370 motherboard is the way to go. And although it isn't the best policy, you can add more RAM later (or a new matched set).

 

[IvakaS]

Well, I don't really plan on overclocking. The i7-8700 is more powerful, but I think both processors won't reach their full potential with the GTX 1060 and i7's power would go to a waste. I might just get the i5-8400 and a $100 H370 mobo. I'll even save some money.

 

[terry4536]

Well, I don't really plan on overclocking. The i7-8700 is more powerful, but I think both processors won't reach their full potential with the GTX 1060 and i7's power would go to a waste. I might just get the i5-8400 and a $100 H370 mobo. I'll even save some money.

The I5-8400 is a good value. If you are buying it relatively soon, I see that Amazon has the I5-8500 on sale practically the same price.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-8500-Desktop-Processor-BX80684i58500/dp/B07938SNBB/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1523776775&sr=1-3&keywords=Intel+Core+i5-8500

 

[IvakaS]

Well, I don't really plan on overclocking. The i7-8700 is more powerful, but I think both processors won't reach their full potential with the GTX 1060 and i7's power would go to a waste. I might just get the i5-8400 and a $100 H370 mobo. I'll even save some money.

The I5-8400 is a good value. If you are buying it relatively soon, I see that Amazon has the I5-8500 on sale practically the same price.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-8500-Desktop-Processor-BX80684i58500/dp/B07938SNBB/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1523776775&sr=1-3&keywords=Intel+Core+i5-8500

Where I live, the 8500 costs $20 more and I don't think it's worth it. There's almost no difference in these CPUs.

 

[terry4536]

Well, I don't really plan on overclocking. The i7-8700 is more powerful, but I think both processors won't reach their full potential with the GTX 1060 and i7's power would go to a waste. I might just get the i5-8400 and a $100 H370 mobo. I'll even save some money.

The I5-8400 is a good value. If you are buying it relatively soon, I see that Amazon has the I5-8500 on sale practically the same price.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-8500-Desktop-Processor-BX80684i58500/dp/B07938SNBB/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1523776775&sr=1-3&keywords=Intel+Core+i5-8500

Where I live, the 8500 costs $20 more and I don't think it's worth it. There's almost no difference in these CPUs.

Here in the US, there is a $7 difference with the sale price.

 

[IvakaS]

Wow, would be worth it if it was the same here.
So, with the i5-8400 and the GTX 1060, would I be able to run this year's games with 60FPS at 1080p?

 

[terry4536]

Wow, would be worth it if it was the same here.
So, with the i5-8400 and the GTX 1060, would I be able to run this year's games with 60FPS at 1080p?

Where are you from? Most of the time, I have no idea where the people are from in this forum. It really is global. You should have an idea of the GTX 1060's performance already.

The FPS will depend upon the individual game and the settings. But I think you will probably be happy with the performance.

 

[IvakaS]

Wow, would be worth it if it was the same here.
So, with the i5-8400 and the GTX 1060, would I be able to run this year's games with 60FPS at 1080p?

Where are you from? Most of the time, I have no idea where the people are from in this forum. It really is global. You should have an idea of the GTX 1060's performance already.

The FPS will depend upon the individual game and the settings. But I think you will probably be happy with the performance.

I'm from Bulgaria. I've seen videos of different game benchmarks for this configuration and I can tell it runs the games at 60+ FPS on High (sometimes Medium/High). But I read somewhere that I shouldn't fully trust those videos and that's pretty much why I'm asking that. I'm just not sure if what I'm seeing on those youtube vids is true.

 

[terry4536]

It is a good idea to be a little skeptical. I don't know what your previous system was like, but either of the processors that we were just talking about are 6 core processors with turbo boost at 4 GHZ (or above). You can be confident that it will not bottleneck the GTX 1060 in any way.

 

[IvakaS]

My current CPU is APU A10-5800K. It used to bottleneck my R9 270, now bottlenecking my GTX 1060, but not for long I hope. 😀

 

[terry4536]

The APU A10-5800K is a quad core processor. It has an operating frequency of 3.8 GHz and turbo boost of 4.2 GHz.

The i5-8400 is a six core processor. It has an operating frequency of 2.8 GHz and turbo boost of 4.0 GHz.

Apart from the fact that it has two more cores, I would not expect a big performance improvement. To make things worse, you old processor isn't locked (meaning that you can overclock it).

 

[terry4536]

For an improvement in performance, I would go back to your original question.

The APU A10-5800K is a quad core processor. It has an operating frequency of 3.8 GHz and turbo boost of 4.2 GHz.

The i7-8700K is a six core processor. It has an operating frequency of 3.7 GHz and turbo boost of 4.7 GHz.
Plus it has hyper threading, 12 threads, and can be overclocked.

If you are looking for performance above what you have now, I would recommend this route.

 

[terry4536]

A less expensive option would be the i5-8600k. It has an operating frequency of 3.6 GHz and turbo boost of 4.3 GHz. Again it is a six core processor. But it is overclockable.

 

[IvakaS]

Well my APU's characteristics look/sound very promising but I can't really run anything. I even drop FPS on League now. I5-8400's frequency and number of cores is almost no different, but it's hell of a lot better. That's how intel and amd have always been, except for the new Ryzens I guess.

 

[terry4536]

Well my APU's characteristics look/sound very promising but I can't really run anything. I even drop FPS on League now. I5-8400's frequency and number of cores is almost no different, but it's hell of a lot better. That's how intel and amd have always been, except for the new Ryzens I guess.

I wanted you to be aware of the operating frequency comparisons before your purchase. And in general I agree your statement. I'm not completely sold on the Ryzen processors yet either.

My suggestion was to just revisit the original question. The I7-8700K would be a noticeable increase in performance, but the i5-8400 will be much less noticeable.

 

[IvakaS]

I would need the Z370 for the i7-8700K, which makes it sort of difficult to me right now. Also, the 8700K needs a cooler, that doesn't help.
I could push my budget a bit and get the 8700 non-k, with the cheapest B360 available and 8GB of RAM. But not sure about that either. My best option now is to get the i5-8400. Of all I've seen on youtube and game-debate, I think it's able to run games perfectly at 60FPS on 1080p.

Maybe I'd be able to get the 8700K with Z370 on the next Black Friday, if they put all parts on sale 😀

 

[terry4536]

I would need the Z370 for the i7-8700K, which makes it sort of difficult to me right now. Also, the 8700K needs a cooler, that doesn't help.
I could push my budget a bit and get the 8700 non-k, with the cheapest B360 available and 8GB of RAM. But not sure about that either. My best option now is to get the i5-8400. Of all I've seen on youtube and game-debate, I think it's able to run games perfectly at 60FPS on 1080p.

Maybe I'd be able to get the 8700K with Z370 on the next Black Friday, if they put all parts on sale 😀

Saving up some extra money is a good idea. Also, there are good Z370 motherboards like the Asrock Z370 Pro4 and Extreme4 that are very reasonably priced. I wouldn't recommend the I5-8700 motherboard (it is way overpriced in my opinion). Even the i5--8600K using the motherboards auto -overclock is going to exceed the performance of the i7-8700 (with the exception of the hyper threads). There is always a possibility that the processor will not overclock well.

While you are making up your mind, give overclocking your present processor a try. It isn't as difficult as it may seem.

 

[IvakaS]

I would give it a try, but a thing to consider is my current PSU. I can't really trust it. It's a $20 chinese crap PSU which came with the case. I can't even find information about it online. It says that it's 600W, but I doubt that.
Together with the GPU, I got a new PSU (!be quiet System Power 600W) and I'm waiting to get my other parts so I can install everything.

 

[terry4536]

The increased voltage applied to the CPU for overclocking is small (1.2 -1.4 volts typically). The only thing to consider really is the cooling of your processor. So keep an eye on that (and simply stop if it gets too hot.

And resetting the BIOS to the defaults will remove the overclock, if you want to start over.

Here are two videos on overclocking. The second one is more centered on AMD processors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxAiyET_MrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MckeAmnDeTk

 

[IvakaS]

Thank you! Once I get my new parts I might play with it a bit just for learning purposes.
I'm more worried about building the PC more than overclocking it. The only part I've ever changed is GPU. I saw Bitwit's detailed guide on how to build a PC and I'm gonna follow whatever he does. Hopefully I won't burn anything.