[SOLVED] Is it still worth buying an FX Processor

[Szucs Stefan]

Hi,

I recently bought a new video card because it was more or less the only one at half the price for black Friday in our stores and i didn't really think of the CPU but had no money either way.

I got a Sapphire Pulse RX 570 with 4GB of VRAM and it runs well but my CPU is sort of a bottleneck every now and then. I'm not into games that much and i still play Battlefield 4 and eventually Fallout 4 or Space Engineers but i got Battlefield 1 with Premium DLC with all the expansions for 10Eur and i noticed my CPU can handle it.

I got an Athlon 740 X4 and it runs on an FM2 motherboard with x2 4GB DDR3 RAM so i was thinking.

I could get the FX 8350 or FX 8320 plus a mobo (GA-78LMT-USB3 R2) and keep the ram and i'd end up spending: 135$

Or i would have to do a full uprade but then if i would buy:
1x GIGABYTE A320M-S2H
1x Ryzen 3 1200
2x G.Skill XPM 2.0 4GB

And this would cost me: 243$

I was looking at the FX ones because i saw people playing the game and even BF5 with smooth FPS and i'm not really keen into gaming besides i'm color blind so i'm not into eye candy graphics.

I do have a Thermaltake 600W Smart RGB 80Plus but i am concerned about the power consumption, then again for how much i game, this is still 100 dollars cheaper.

Thank you for your time in advance.

 

[InvalidError]

Nothing pre-Ryzen is really worth spending good money on the AMD side. If you insist on saving your DDR3 memory, I'd recommend looking at Haswell i5/i7 instead, preferably the 4x90 refreshes, much better for most uses.

 

[DSzymborski]

It's better to wait a bit longer for when you can afford DDR4 RAM and go for a budget build there. Building a PC around a disappointing platform from 2012 with no upgrade path just to take advantage of old, out-of-date RAM will leave you unhappy in the long run. You shouldn't want to actually run a 125W CPU on a GA-78LMT-USB3 either, which means you'll either have to settle for an FX 6300/FX 8320E, even slower outdated CPUs or put some of your savings into getting a proper motherboard for a CPU that wasn't a good buy five years ago.

 

[Szucs Stefan]

Nothing pre-Ryzen is really worth spending good money on the AMD side. If you insist on saving your DDR3 memory, I'd recommend looking at Haswell i5/i7 instead, preferably the 4x90 refreshes, much better for most uses.

I would but i can't find any second and CPU's either that are like the 6th generation or so . Its not necessarily the RAM that i want to keep but it's just a cheaper setup for me.

 

[DSzymborski]

Nothing pre-Ryzen is really worth spending good money on the AMD side. If you insist on saving your DDR3 memory, I'd recommend looking at Haswell i5/i7 instead, preferably the 4x90 refreshes, much better for most uses.

I would but i can't find any second and CPU's either that are like the 6th generation or so . Its not necessarily the RAM that i want to keep but it's just a cheaper setup for me.

I'd argue that it's a more expensive setup; you'll still have a very out-of-date setup and now be even farther away from something modern.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($89.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($60.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $209.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-15 17:22 EST-0500

And even the $60 in savings for going with a 2012 platform isn't really $60 because you really don't want to run a 125W AM3+ CPU on a motherboard with a 4+1 power phase design, which is most budget AM3+ motherboard.

 

[Gadhar]

I would wait and save up some money to get a current gen set up. I have an FX 8350 paired with a 750ti that I use to watch youtube and netflix in my bedroom, but it creates a lot of heat, uses a lot more power and unlike wine will not get better with age. It worked ok when it was new, but it is not worth purchasing today. If you really are determined to upgrade now then InvalidError's suggestion would be better than the FX option.