Looking to switch from AMD to Intel

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
C

chadbunderwood

Distinguished
Dec 9, 2009
26
0
18,530
I have and old (6 years) AMD rig that I am wanting to upgrade as it is starting to drag. I am able to spend a little more on the CPU/MoBo this time around (~$300) and would like to get some quality. So I am going with and Intel. I don't know much about the Intel line, which is why I am looking for some guidance. I would assume I would land in the i3 or i5 range, but I don't know if these are the best ones for me.

Can someone reccomend a CPU/motherboard combo that would fit in that budget and be serviceable for another 6 years? No gaming, just a home PC that I do some photo/video editing on. I have a SSD for the OS and will put 8 or 16 GB of RAM.

Thanks.
 
Solution
Karsten75



Would you consider a 1960 4-cylinder Ford automobile engine at 3,400 rpm being similar to a 2015 4-cylinder Honda engine at 4,300rpm? 😀

Or could you imagine that there might be a huge number of differences?

If ymoney's an issue, we can drop back one generation so you can re-use your DDR3 RAM.

I don't build or recommend Gigabyte motherboards. But that's your choice, it is after all your money.

Sort by date Sort by votes
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($232.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($67.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $300.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-16 00:06 EST-0500

Probably not much better than the one above but will edit a bit better and 8 threads probably future proofs itself a bit better.... I'd say it's $12 better
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Only problem is the Xeon 1231 V3 does not have integrated graphics and OP will have to buy a video card... That's a bit more than $12. :) The integrated graphics on Skylake is more than adequate for the purported usage of the processor.

Although I will give you that the throughput on the 1231 V3 would be about 1/3rd better. Then we'd have to argue the relative merits of locking OP in to the older motherboard vs a motherboard that might last for this and the next generation processors.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I mean specs as far as number of cores, GHZ, etc.

Just playing around it looks like Skylake is the latest and greatest set of processors.

Just playing around I also found this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128869 - probably similar to what was posted above.

The only problem is that I would have to buy new memory as I have DDR3 sticks. But the SSD and Hard Dives should work the same, right?

And it would give me the chance to do a clean install and get up to Windows 10.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote



Would you consider a 1960 4-cylinder Ford automobile engine at 3,400 rpm being similar to a 2015 4-cylinder Honda engine at 4,300rpm? 😀

Or could you imagine that there might be a huge number of differences?

If ymoney's an issue, we can drop back one generation so you can re-use your DDR3 RAM.

I don't build or recommend Gigabyte motherboards. But that's your choice, it is after all your money.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
And is ASRock that much better of a mother board?

Also, thanks a ton for answering my questions. It sill blows me away that random people on the internet are nice enough to help out goobs like myself trying to slap together a home pc. What a world we live in.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote



The link to the MSI motherboard you posted is $114. That's $21 MORE than the ASRock motherboard I suggested. So how much better does the ASRock have to be to justify its lower price?

Most thing like motherboards are pretty much alike. It's like automobiles. Rarely are there stinkers. If you buy something in the $100 range, then it's within a few % of one another. The most important thing is the user interface and customer support. I like ASRock. Others here like MSI or Asus or Gigabyte, etc.

Ultimately it's your money. You ask for advice, but at the end of the day you end up carrying the can for meeting your objectives.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


So what would the advantage be of using the Xeon chip instead of the Skylake chip?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


The Xeon is a powerful, 4-core 8-thread hyper-threading core on a par with an i7 for the price of the i5. But it has no integrated video, so you are looking at spending another $100 or thereabouts for a video card..

If you want to stay with your DDR3 RAM, then consider the i5-4690

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($213.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($83.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $297.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 13:50 EST-0500

Now you don't need an integrated GPU. You can, if you want, replace the cpu with an i5-4460 and you'd hardly notice it and save a few bucks.

Overall the first (Skylake) recommendation is the one I'd favor.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I appreciate it. It seems like the Skylake CPU is the one I will go with. With an ASRock mother board and a new 8GB of RAM that is DDR4.

More than I wanted to spend, but it sounds like it will be a huge upgrade over the old AMD Athlon II X4 620 processor that I am running now.

I really appreciate the guidance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hang in there. What exactly do you need? If you want to build your PC with a new mobo and new processor (reusing case, DDR3 RAM and existing hard drive, then that is still better than spending more than you can afford.

I've been meaning to ask you what you have in the line of existing processor (now I know, the Athlon II X4 620) and power supply.

Note that some all new Intel, since Haswell, has a "deep sleep" state that uses extremely low power, and if you have an older power supply that does not understand that sleep state, you have to disable it in the BIOS, or your PC will not be able to wake from sleep.

Just so you know, here is the performance comparison (benchmark-wise). Copy and paste, don't click, since Tom's truncate the link...
=166&cmp[]=2599]https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=166&cmp[]=2599

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Here is the power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371033

I have a SSD and a few disk drives that I will use with the new CPU/Mobo.

I bought that AMD because it was seemingly powerful and cheap, but that was 6 years ago. It is starting to drag, so I want to upgrade it. I was hoping $300 would get me a nice Intel CPU and mobo, but it seems like I will have to get some new RAM as well, which is fine.

It seems like the Skylake processor series is the newest and should provide plenty for a home PC that I use to browse the internet and edit some photos/videos.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I don't want to poor-mouth that PSU, but if it is as old as the processor, it's past its sell-by date. And is so happens to be one of the few PSUs I've ever used that took out a motherboard when it went bad. Not that that is a general case but still. On the plus side, I think it is a tier Two PSU, which makes it a good 'un.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Can you confirm if your processor comes with DDR2 or DDR3 ram? That model supported both types. If you don't know, download Speccy from Piriform to tell you. Make sure you don't also download or install any additional stuff they push
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Here's a Z170 motherboard that will use your DDR3 RAM and a Skylake cpu:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132572

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
$300usd. Budget, is too small... An iPad 4, 5 or 6 would be better for just editing photos & browsing Internet.
iOS has Photoshop Express "free".

Anyway...
I did the opposite, i "switched" from Intel to AMD...
I still have 2x Intel, but instad of "upgrade" to another Intel, purchased a Tyan S8232GM4NR board, very similar to Asus Rampage 3 Extreme, "But dual AMD."
I love those boards, 4x pcie x16 double space + 1x pci 32-bit.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom