Question Is it worth it to upgrade a PC with an A6-6400K ?

[Sokha_Khan]

So basically my laptop is broken and I got alot of schoolwork to do, I used to need to bring it to school but now i don't. But I still got alot of schoolwork that I gotta print.
I bought a prebuilt PC with an A6-6400k since i was on a budget, it haven't arrived yet but I do wanna game with it a bit.
I was thinking of buying a Gtx 1050 or maybe an rx 570. They're both about the same price in my country, even the rx580 actually being cheaper than the 1050.
I'm not that good around desktop since I've been using a laptop my whole life, my old laptop that is recently broken got an RX460, it runs alright on games that I play.

To add to this I was thinking of building my own PC later when I got the budget for it.
Maybe a Ryzen 5 5600G + Rtx3060. It's gonna take me like a year and a half to save up for it.

So . . . Any thoughts?

 

[Sokha_Khan]

To add to this I was thinking of building my own PC later when I got the budget for it.
Maybe a Ryzen 5 5600G + Rtx3060. It's gonna take me like a year and a half to save up for it.

 

[John Chesterfield]

Those cards would work. You wouldn't be getting the most out of them because of the weak CPU though, you'd be able to game with older titles albeit at very low settings and not triple A titles. If it was me, I wouldn't be adding a graphics card to that system. If I did, it'd be even lower than a 1050, maybe a 1030. Anything more would be a waste of money and graphics card power as the A6 can't push it.

But were there no other options than the A6-6400k? It's really a weak chip, but you still have time to return it. Even something with a Pentium might allow you to upgrade to an i3 further down the line.

 

[punkncat]

I echo the post above to say that if you can cancel or return that A6, do so. Even old Core i CPU will seriously outperform those generations of AMD.

 

[tennis2]

Do what you gotta do. Price is going to determine whether it was a smart choice or not.

What country?

Not sure what you paid for the pre-built, but it's worth nearly nothing, and is going to be worth even less in 1.5 years when you do your upgrade. Similar to the "throw-away" GPU you're talking about. PSU in the pre-built will determine what you're limited to on the GPU side.

 

[Sokha_Khan]

Those cards would work. You wouldn't be getting the most out of them because of the weak CPU though, you'd be able to game with older titles albeit at very low settings and not triple A titles. If it was me, I wouldn't be adding a graphics card to that system. If I did, it'd be even lower than a 1050, maybe a 1030. Anything more would be a waste of money and graphics card power as the A6 can't push it.

But were there no other options than the A6-6400k? It's really a weak chip, but you still have time to return it. Even something with a Pentium might allow you to upgrade to an i3 further down the line.

At first I was thinking of buying one with an i5-4590(cost about 100usd more if I convert it correctly) but I go with the A6 really just so I can save more money.
A PC with a Ryzen 5 5600g was in my range but Im not gonna be able to buy a monitor and a keyboard.

 

[Sokha_Khan]

Do what you gotta do. Price is going to determine whether it was a smart choice or not.

What country?

Not sure what you paid for the pre-built, but it's worth nearly nothing, and is going to be worth even less in 1.5 years when you do your upgrade. Similar to the "throw-away" GPU you're talking about. PSU in the pre-built will determine what you're limited to on the GPU side.

The PC and other stuff cost me like 220something dollars
Indonesia, kinda hard for me to get the components I want for an actually build since most computer stores in my city sells laptop and phones instead of desktop components.
I was thinking hardly of sticking with laptop or finally transitioning to a desktop

 

[Avro Arrow]

To add to this I was thinking of building my own PC later when I got the budget for it.
Maybe an rx 5600G + Rtx3060. It's gonna take me like a year and a half to save up for it.

I need to know what the make and model of the prebuilt is. I also need to know what power supply you have because it's probably not going to be good enough. Depending on the model, the case might not even support a standard ATX or mATX motherboard which would render the case useless. If the power supply isn't a standard ATX power supply, it might not be usable either.

Buying a "brand-in-a-box" desktop PC is never a good idea because these manufacturers go out of their way to make sure that you can't upgrade them because they don't want you to. They want you to have to buy a whole new PC.

The A6-6400K uses DDR3 which means that not even your RAM will be salvageable. The A6-6400K uses the FM2 socket which means that you couldn't even upgrade the CPU to an FX-8350.

It's very likely that the only things you'll be able to salvage from your PC are the hard drive, optical drive (if you have one) and SATA cables. You'll have to basically build a new PC almost from the ground up.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy anything right now and would just use the IGP in the A6-6400K. It won't run modern games but wasting money on a super low-end video card would end up being just that, a waste. Sure, the RX 580 could run some semi-modern games but I doubt that your PC's power supply is strong enough for it. If your pre-built came with the RX 460 (or nothing at all) then there's no chance that your power supply could handle even an RX 580. The RX 460 is a 75W card that doesn't need any extra power connectors while the RX 580 is a 185W card that does need an 8-pin connector, a connector that your power supply won't have.

This is what I think that you're going to need:

1. A 650W brand-name power supply that's at least 80+Bronze-certified.
2. An RX 6600
3. A Ryzen 5 7600
4. An mATX A620 or B650 motherboard
5. 16GB of DDR5-4800
6. A cheap mATX case

You should still be able to use the hard drive in your original PC because those are all standard-sized. Buying anything other than what I have listed would be a waste of money because this setup will last a long time and your next upgrade will just be changing the CPU.

Forget about the RTX 3060 because it's just not worth buying. It's a mere 7% faster than the RX 6600 but it costs 53% more than the RX 6600. It's also too slow to properly use ray-tracing so there's no point in buying it.

You didn't say what country you're in so I don't know what the pricing situation is on parts for you, I just used performance and price averages because those should be more or less universal.

If you give me the brand and model of your PC, I might have better news for you but for now, I'm afraid that this is all I can say.

 

[Sokha_Khan]

I need to know what the make and model of the prebuilt is. I also need to know what power supply you have because it's probably not going to be good enough. Depending on the model, the case might not even support a standard ATX or mATX motherboard which would render the case useless. If the power supply isn't a standard ATX power supply, it might not be usable either.

Buying a "brand-in-a-box" desktop PC is never a good idea because these manufacturers go out of their way to make sure that you can't upgrade them because they don't want you to. They want you to have to buy a whole new PC.

The A6-6400K uses DDR3 which means that not even your RAM will be salvageable. The A6-6400K uses the FM2 socket which means that you couldn't even upgrade the CPU to an FX-8350.

It's very likely that the only things you'll be able to salvage from your PC are the hard drive, optical drive (if you have one) and SATA cables. You'll have to basically build a new PC almost from the ground up.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy anything right now and would just use the IGP in the A6-6400K. It won't run modern games but wasting money on a super low-end video card would end up being just that, a waste. Sure, the RX 580 could run some semi-modern games but I doubt that your PC's power supply is strong enough for it. If your pre-built came with the RX 460 (or nothing at all) then there's no chance that your power supply could handle even an RX 580. The RX 460 is a 75W card that doesn't need any extra power connectors while the RX 580 is a 185W card that does need an 8-pin connector, a connector that your power supply won't have.

This is what I think that you're going to need:

1. A 650W brand-name power supply that's at least 80+Bronze-certified.
2. An RX 6600
3. A Ryzen 5 7600
4. An mATX A620 or B650 motherboard
5. 16GB of DDR5-4800
6. A cheap mATX case

You should still be able to use the hard drive in your original PC because those are all standard-sized. Buying anything other than what I have listed would be a waste of money because this setup will last a long time and your next upgrade will just be changing the CPU.

Forget about the RTX 3060 because it's just not worth buying. It's a mere 7% faster than the RX 6600 but it costs 53% more than the RX 6600. It's also too slow to properly use ray-tracing so there's no point in buying it.

You didn't say what country you're in so I don't know what the pricing situation is on parts for you, I just used performance and price averages because those should be more or less universal.

If you give me the brand and model of your PC, I might have better news for you but for now, I'm afraid that this is all I can say.

I'm gonna save this for my future build, thanks for the info and advice man.

 

[Tac 25]

@Sokha_Khan

that cpu is approximately on the level of strength of an intel core 2 quad.

get a GT 1030, and that should be good.

just be sure to get the GDDR5 version of the 1030.

View: https://youtu.be/a80mtoQklSo

 

[Sokha_Khan]

@Sokha_Khan

that cpu is approximately on the level of strength of an intel core 2 quad.

get a GT 1030, and that should be good.

just be sure to get the GDDR5 version of the 1030.

View: https://youtu.be/a80mtoQklSo

Noted.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I'm gonna save this for my future build, thanks for the info and advice man.

My pleasure. I hope it helps you.

 

[sonofjesse]

Return that ASAP. Get something modern.

You can find a budget laptop or desktop that will be much better!!

Go to Costco

 

[Tac 25]

Noted.

out of curiosity, what games do you actually want to play? If it's just CSGO and Rocket League kind of games, your 6400K could still work at low settings. But even at low, be mentally prepared for a little lag every once in awhile. And if you will be using a spinning drive, then also be prepared for long loading times.

 

[Sokha_Khan]

out of curiosity, what games do you actually want to play? If it's just CSGO and Rocket League kind of games, your 6400K could still work at low settings. But even at low, be mentally prepared for a little lag every once in awhile. And if you will be using a spinning drive, then also be prepared for long loading times.

Csgo and GTA V, but I mostly play Roblox. I also play some simple games like streamer life simulator.
I'm not really looking to play anything that's hard to run, just some low end games, even when I get a medium-high end build PC, I prob won't even play the High ends games. I'ma just play the games I played on higher graphics.

 

[logainofhades]

To be perfectly honest, even a 2nd gen Intel office refurb, with a gpu thrown in, will run circles around that A6. I would definitely return it.

 

[Tac 25]

Csgo and GTA V, but I mostly play Roblox. I also play some simple games like streamer life simulator.
I'm not really looking to play anything that's hard to run, just some low end games, even when I get a medium-high end build PC, I prob won't even play the High ends games. I'ma just play the games I played on higher graphics.

ok, if it's just those games. Then your 6400K would be fine. But you absolutely must get a gpu. Also try to have as much ram as you can.

__

@logainofhades

yeah, agreed. Second gen intel would be so much stronger than 6400K
and the pc would probably cost almost the same, or just a little higher.

as an example..

A4-6400K vs. i5-2500

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500-vs-AMD-A6-6400K-APU/m517vsm3048

anyway, OP seems to be adamant on getting a 6400K, so I told him what he could expect.
perhaps the 6400K has been already paid, so it's a done deal by now.

 

[Sokha_Khan]

ok, if it's just those games. Then your 6400K would be fine. But you absolutely must get a gpu. Also try to have as much ram as you can.

__

@logainofhades

yeah, agreed. Second gen intel would be so much stronger than 6400K
and the pc would probably cost almost the same, or just a little higher.

as an example..

A4-6400K vs. i5-2500

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500-vs-AMD-A6-6400K-APU/m517vsm3048

anyway, OP seems to be adamant on getting a 6400K, so I told him what he could expect.
perhaps the 6400K has been already paid, so it's a done deal by now.

Yeh I already paid for the thing, it's gonna arrive tomorrow. Next thing I'ma do is to buy a pair or rams and a gt 1030.
After that I'ma save ma money to buy all individual components I need to build a PC. I really wanna build one myself. Gonna do more research on these stuff for now.