[SOLVED] MSI gaming3 z97 best CPU

[gimpchop]

Hi all looking for some advice. I have a MSI gaming 3 z97 mobo and would like to upgrade the CPU but I'm struggling to find reliable advice on what the best CPU this board can take. I believe it can take gen5 intel CPUs with a bios update bit not sure. Thanks.

 

[rgd1101]

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z97-GAMING-3#support-cpu

 

[bignastyid]

The 4790k is the best cpu for that board. 5 gen(broadwell) only had a very limited desktop release(2 desktop models) and besides being very rare were not as fast as the 4790k.

 

[gimpchop]

Ok thanks for the reply. It might be time to upgrade to a ryzen. Any advice on a good ryzen 7 2700 mobo combo looking at spending £200 - £300. With ram

 

[gtarayan]

i7 5775c gets routinely dismissed mostly because synthetic benchmarks don't show any improvement over 4790k, it cannot be overclocked to the same degree as the latter, and on the used market it will set you back $250 and up - pretty expensive as by comparison you can buy a much newer CPU. But the route of newer CPU also requires a new motherboard and DDR4 ram (and a new Windows install, possibly new W10 license if yours is OEM). All perfectly fine if you are ready for a new system which will be much faster overall, and have a path to newer, faster CPUs.

If you are able to overclock 5775c to 4.2 to 4.3 Ghz, and your objective is decent frame rates in games - it is a viable upgrade. Disable the internal GPU and that 128MB L4 cache which does not do much for synthetic benchmarks will do wonders for in-game performance. I'd say in games you would have slightly better than stock i7 7700k performance (still though only 4 cores/8 threads). If you need your system to last another couple of years, it might be a good-enough upgrade.