CPU upgrade help

[levin.bramers]

So my pc is currently running on an AMD A8-7650k alongside a 1050ti. Of course the CPU has been bottlenecking the 1050ti in quite a few games and i want to upgrade and have mainly been looking at Ryzen. My main three options would be the 1200, 1400, or 1600 and i was wondering if it would be at all worth it going all the way up to a 1600. From what I've seen at that point the GPU becomes the bottleneck but since I'm planning on keeping the CPU for a good while and will the upgrading GPU at some point (though not too soon), should i go 1600 or would the 1200 do me (or even the 1400). I'm also aware that I'd need to get a new motherboard and ram which adds to me not being sure as to whether it would even be worth it or not. My wording is probably all over the place but hope ye can help!
tl;dr:
which ryzen would be best for 1050ti and would it be worth upgrading in the first place?

 

[Barty1884]

You'd definitely see performance gains upgrading from the A8 to Ryzen (even Ryzen3).

The A8 is relatively underwhelming as a CPU only (the onboard GPU is decent though, negated by the fact you have a discreet GPU).

Personally, I wouldn't upgrade to a Ryzen3. It's a solid budget option, but are still quad-cores.
The 1400 is somewhat appealing with the addition of SMT/HT, but at $150(ish), it's a tough sell when you don't even need to break the $200 barrier for an R5 1600..... which would get my vote.

The Ryzen5 1600 should see you through a few GPU upgrades - 6Core/12Thread, decent clock speeds (and can be OC'd a bit on the stock cooler) - that's a really strong foundation moving forward*.

*I'm not saying Ryzen3's aren't strong foundations...... but it does appear games are utilizing HT/SMT more & more - so can reasonably expect that to become more true over time....... Although, admittedly, people have been saying "games will start to use HT well in the lifespan of X/Y CPU" for years, and that's not strictly been true.

 

[levin.bramers]

You'd definitely see performance gains upgrading from the A8 to Ryzen (even Ryzen3).

The A8 is relatively underwhelming as a CPU only (the onboard GPU is decent though, negated by the fact you have a discreet GPU).

Personally, I wouldn't upgrade to a Ryzen3. It's a solid budget option, but are still quad-cores.
The 1400 is somewhat appealing with the addition of SMT/HT, but at $150(ish), it's a tough sell when you don't even need to break the $200 barrier for an R5 1600..... which would get my vote.

The Ryzen5 1600 should see you through a few GPU upgrades - 6Core/12Thread, decent clock speeds (and can be OC'd a bit on the stock cooler) - that's a really strong foundation moving forward*.

*I'm not saying Ryzen3's aren't strong foundations...... but it does appear games are utilizing HT/SMT more & more - so can reasonably expect that to become more true over time....... Although, admittedly, people have been saying "games will start to use HT well in the lifespan of X/Y CPU" for years, and that's not strictly been true.

Thanks a load for the answer! Yeah i originally had the A8 without a GPU and added that later, hence having that. Honestly what you've said pretty much sums up roughly what I was thinking aswell but Ill definitely ask around on other sites as well to see what general consensus is. Chances are I'll end up going for the 1600. Honestly I don't really know a huge amount SMT/HT (aka I hardly have any idea what it is) but I'll have a look into what it is anyway. Thanks again for the response!

 

[Barty1884]

SMT (simultaneous multi-threading) and HT (hyper-threading) are essentially the same thing, in principle. One is AMD (SMT), the other Intel (HT).

There's a pretty easy to follow video from TechQuickie that'll give you some more info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnS50lJicXc

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

I have the 1600 and it's great if you can afford it.

The 1200 is still ok, but I would recommend not going lower than the 1400. Just my opinion. But since you want to keep it a while you may go 1600.

Another option, word is that next spring Ryzen + will start being released, which those will likely perform better. I do think that things will start being not multithreaded. Especially since Intel made 6 cores available as a mainstream product in coffee lake. Now that that level of power is now widely available, you'll probably see developers taking more advantage of it.

 

[levin.bramers]

SMT (simultaneous multi-threading) and HT (hyper-threading) are essentially the same thing, in principle. One is AMD (SMT), the other Intel (HT).

There's a pretty easy to follow video from TechQuickie that'll give you some more info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnS50lJicXc

Aahhhhh okay thank you! Makes way more sense now.

 

[levin.bramers]

I have the 1600 and it's great if you can afford it.

The 1200 is still ok, but I would recommend not going lower than the 1400. Just my opinion. But since you want to keep it a while you may go 1600.

Another option, word is that next spring Ryzen + will start being released, which those will likely perform better. I do think that things will start being not multithreaded. Especially since Intel made 6 cores available as a mainstream product in coffee lake. Now that that level of power is now widely available, you'll probably see developers taking more advantage of it.

Yeah at this point I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go with the 1600. Waiting on the next gen mightn't be a bad idea but a) I want to do it soon enough, and b) once Ryzen ___ is out I'll say to myself that I might as well wait on the next release, and so on. So I think I'll go 1600, everyone seems to be loving it. Thanks!!

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

It is a good value. Single core performance is pretty much equivalent to to Intel's haswell CPUs. However multithreaded performance is great. Hard to go wrong for the money.