Questions about budget upgrade

[Da3m0na]

Hello everyone. My current system is

AMD FX 8320 OC at 4.2
Hyper EVO 212
Gigabyte GA970A UD3P
2 x 4GB Kingston HyperX Fury 1866
120GB Samsung evo 850
Corsair CX600
XFX R9 280X 3GB

I mostly play strategy games like the total war sequence, Hearts of Iron IV, and some other games like CS GO, Battlefield 1 etc. I was going to build a Ryzen system, but the price of the DDR4 doubled for the last year and a half and i don't want to spend so much money on ram. So i'm going to buy second hand parts to build an intel rig. I'm definitely going to buy another 2 x 4GB 1866 fury ram for 50$. (for 16 gigs total).
What would you advice me to do?
Should i go for
i5 3570 (90$) + some cheap MB
OR
3570K (120$) + some better motherboard for OC
OR
4690K (180$) + Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 7(120$)

My budget is around 300$ for CPU + MB.
Is it worth it to go for the 4690K? Am I going to see a noticeable difference between 3570 -3570K, and 3570K - 4690K?
Thanks in advance.

 

[bjornl]

The 4690k is around 6-10% faster than the 3570k (depending on what you are doing). When it comes to gaming all three would be close to equal because so few games are cpu bound. So it is up to you to decide what is worth it to you.

 

[TheDoog]

To be honest I don't think you will get gains large enough to justify spending the money on what is in many respects going to be a side grade going from the 8320 to a i5 that is a few years old. However it is your money and if you really want to get some used hardware go with the 4690k it is the most recent of your choices and will overclock just a bit better then the 3570k and has a slight ipc gain.
If you are not going to be overclocking at all then you would probably be served better with a non K part as they usually carry a premium even used.

In my opinion I would stay with what you have and save a bit more money and get the ryzen system down the road.

 

[bjornl]

To be honest I don't think you will get gains large enough to justify spending the money on what is in many respects going to be a side grade going from the 8320 to a i5 that is a few years old. However it is your money and if you really want to get some used hardware go with the 4690k it is the most recent of your choices and will overclock just a bit better then the 3570k and has a slight ipc gain.
If you are not going to be overclocking at all then you would probably be served better with a non K part as they usually carry a premium even used.

In my opinion I would stay with what you have and save a bit more money and get the ryzen system down the road.

The 8320 and those i5's are NOT equal.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-vs-AMD-FX-8320
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-vs-AMD-FX-8320/2432vs1983
The Intel is around 50-60% faster. Not even close.

 

[ARICH5]

To be honest I don't think you will get gains large enough to justify spending the money on what is in many respects going to be a side grade going from the 8320 to a i5 that is a few years old. However it is your money and if you really want to get some used hardware go with the 4690k it is the most recent of your choices and will overclock just a bit better then the 3570k and has a slight ipc gain.
If you are not going to be overclocking at all then you would probably be served better with a non K part as they usually carry a premium even used.

In my opinion I would stay with what you have and save a bit more money and get the ryzen system down the road.

no, no ,no. do you know how many questions we get about the FX and its varients? lots. it is a poor cpu in all aspects. extreme budget performance. a new i5 8xxx coffeelake with a 1050ti would run circles around a 8320 with a 1070.

 

[rhysiam]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

 

[ARICH5]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

i agree, and years of upgradeabltiyiyltiyiylyityyiyity.

 

[TheDoog]

To be honest I don't think you will get gains large enough to justify spending the money on what is in many respects going to be a side grade going from the 8320 to a i5 that is a few years old. However it is your money and if you really want to get some used hardware go with the 4690k it is the most recent of your choices and will overclock just a bit better then the 3570k and has a slight ipc gain.
If you are not going to be overclocking at all then you would probably be served better with a non K part as they usually carry a premium even used.

In my opinion I would stay with what you have and save a bit more money and get the ryzen system down the road.

The 8320 and those i5's are NOT equal.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-vs-AMD-FX-8320
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-vs-AMD-FX-8320/2432vs1983
The Intel is around 50-60% faster. Not even close.

Sure they are faster that's not up for debate or the point I'm making what I am saying that for the parts he is looking to buy and at at the prices he is looking to pay the gains he will see in gaming will not be worth spending the money on a dead platform. He may get somewhere around 5 to 10 FPS in games going from the AMD to the used Intel stuff that's not really worth it. He would be better served by saving his money and going to a new platform be it AMD or Intel.

 

[Da3m0na]

I would not hesitate at all if the prices were the same in my country. The build you mentioned is like $ 500 here, not worth it.

 

[TheDoog]

To be honest I don't think you will get gains large enough to justify spending the money on what is in many respects going to be a side grade going from the 8320 to a i5 that is a few years old. However it is your money and if you really want to get some used hardware go with the 4690k it is the most recent of your choices and will overclock just a bit better then the 3570k and has a slight ipc gain.
If you are not going to be overclocking at all then you would probably be served better with a non K part as they usually carry a premium even used.

In my opinion I would stay with what you have and save a bit more money and get the ryzen system down the road.

no, no ,no. do you know how many questions we get about the FX and its varients? lots. it is a poor cpu in all aspects. extreme budget performance. a new i5 8xxx coffeelake with a 1050ti would run circles around a 8320 with a 1070.

Exactly that is what I am saying, for gaming going from the FX to the older i5's you wont see the gains to justify going that route. That's why I'm saying save your money and buy into one of the new platforms be it AMD or Intel you will get far more for your money if you spend just a little more and get the new hardware.

 

[bjornl]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

Just a wash. No advantage to this over what he is already considering. The Intel is a little faster per core (and therefore better at gaming) while the AMD offers more cores for better multi-tasking and things like multi-media work.

 

[TheDoog]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

Just a wash. No advantage to this over what he is already considering. The Intel is a little faster per core (and therefore better at gaming) while the AMD offers more cores for better multi-tasking and things like multi-media work.

Not really a wash if you consider that all the platforms he is looking at are dead the best he could upgrade to would be an i7 4770k or 4790k to get hyper threading or if his board supports it an 5775k. With games continually needing more cores to run at good frame rates it would be better to get into a current gen system for just a little bit more money so he can get past that 4 core limitation he would have with the route he is going and future cpu upgrades.

 

[bjornl]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

Just a wash. No advantage to this over what he is already considering. The Intel is a little faster per core (and therefore better at gaming) while the AMD offers more cores for better multi-tasking and things like multi-media work.

Not really a wash if you consider that all the platforms he is looking at are dead the best he could upgrade to would be an i7 4770k or 4790k to get hyper threading or if his board supports it an 5775k. With games continually needing more cores to run at good frame rates it would be better to get into a current gen system for just a little bit more money so he can get past that 4 core limitation he would have with the route he is going and future cpu upgrades.

Except games are not requiring more and more cores. There has been speculation that they might start using more cores given coffeelake & ryzen some day in the future, but NOTHING does this yet. In some cases you have to run utilities to cut the number of cores down to get some games to run. For now almost all games run only on 1 core. Those few who run on more than 1 core do not need more than 4. They need a fast video card.
Also there is no such thing as a 5775k there is a 5775c and it is slower than a 4790k.
The 'dead' idea is just poorly thought out. It will be a long time before anyone needs something faster than the i5 4790k,
and when they do they will likely upgrade to whatever is current then rather than whatever is current today. That he could drop a new CPU in b350 board in 2018 won't matter because he won't be doing that. What matters more is which one gets the job done today in the best way within budget.

 

[TheDoog]

Just FYI, if you're starting to look at $300 for CPU + mobo, you can actually do a Ryzen 5 1600 and OC-able mobo for like $265. Obviously as you rightly point out, the new DDR4 purchase is an issue cost-wise. But it gets you onto a modern platform with a 6 core/12 thread CPU which should hold up much better in the long term.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-30 18:31 EDT-0400

Obviously that's more expensive even than the 4690K + mobo because of the RAM (and only 8GB). But just worth bearing that in mind before you go spending 80% of the money on a slower, older and second hand platform.

Just a wash. No advantage to this over what he is already considering. The Intel is a little faster per core (and therefore better at gaming) while the AMD offers more cores for better multi-tasking and things like multi-media work.

Not really a wash if you consider that all the platforms he is looking at are dead the best he could upgrade to would be an i7 4770k or 4790k to get hyper threading or if his board supports it an 5775k. With games continually needing more cores to run at good frame rates it would be better to get into a current gen system for just a little bit more money so he can get past that 4 core limitation he would have with the route he is going and future cpu upgrades.

Except games are not requiring more and more cores. There has been speculation that they might start using more cores given coffeelake & ryzen some day in the future, but NOTHING does this yet. In some cases you have to run utilities to cut the number of cores down to get some games to run. For now almost all games run only on 1 core. Those few who run on more than 1 core do not need more than 4. They need a fast video card.
Also there is no such thing as a 5775k there is a 5775c and it is slower than a 4790k.
The 'dead' idea is just poorly thought out. It will be a long time before anyone needs something faster than the i5 4790k,
and when they do they will likely upgrade to whatever is current then rather than whatever is current today. That he could drop a new CPU in b350 board in 2018 won't matter because he won't be doing that. What matters more is which one gets the job done today in the best way within budget.

Oh but they are especially as games start coming out in Direct X 12 and Vulcan. There are games that require a minimum of 4 cores to run. I know that Doom the new Wolfenstein games for a fact will use more then 4 cores when running. For direct x 9-11 games yeah two cores is ally they really needed but going forward games will start requiring 4 cores or more to run. Why do you think Intel's i3's are no longer dual core hyper-threaded cpu's? It's not because Intel wants to give you more for the same money it's because games and programs are starting to need 4 real cores to run correctly. If you are referring to Threadripper and turning off one of the complexes to run correctly much of that is due to the way the cpu is designed and latency's, with programs not being optimized for that architecture. I watch a lot of reviews and I have never heard of any Intel cpu needing to have cores disabled to run games before, not saying it's not done but I have never seen it happen.
And you are right there is no 5775k only the c my bad. It stil makes absolutly no sense in getting the older platforms at all the gains wont justify the investment in something that is 2 years old (at best) and will not get any new cpu's ever. It's far better to wait, save and buy into the new hardware. He will see better gains and far more long term support in doing that.

 

[Da3m0na]

About that games are going to require more and more cores, i've received the same answers a few years ago, when I was building my FX system. Well, my system is now old and the the day when "games are going to require more and more cores" never came (except a few titles). I will not make the same mistake, building system that may benefit from something someday. Selling my parts and buying the 3570K system will cost my about 90$, the 4690K system will be about 130$. For that amount of money, I don't really care if it's "dead" platform or anything. Since it can handle all the latest games, I don't see a problem. Yes, I will have to go to another socket again after some time, but at least I will be good for the moment. I have the money for the ryzen system, but I don't want to waste it. Since the major difference is in multi threaded applications, I cant really see the benefit of spending hundreds of $ for a system that only advantage is that its the "latest" and I will be able to upgrade only the CPU one day. Thanks for the answers, I will probably go for the 3690K/3570K build, depending on which components i find closer to me.

 

[bjornl]

Another buying option is to check prices on used parts on amazon. It is a great resource because unlike Craigslist, Amazon sales have the possibility of returns if the part turns out to be bad. My thinking on used parts is I will roll the dice on Craigslist if I need it THAT day or if the part is sufficiently discounted. I have never been burned on CL; I am just a little cautious and prefer Amazon when the price is close.

 

[rhysiam]

Just for those saying that "more cores" are not required for gaming... any objective analysis will clearly show that things are changing. It's not like games are suddenly going to "need" 6 cores. But things have been steadily changing over the last few years.

Three years ago all the Tomshardware "Best Gaming CPUs for your money" articles had the core i3 (2C/4T) CPUs as capable entry level gamers, and i5s as the "sweet spot". I7s were overkill for gamers because "games don't use more than 4 threads." If you wanted to stream or do content creation you'd get an i7, but for pure gaming the i5 was all you needed. You simply didn't get better frame rates from an i7 if you were just gaming (outside of an edge case here or there). That was generally true 3 years ago and was reflected in the recommendations on the top tech-sites. It's objectively and demonstrably untrue today. Many modern games will run significantly better on an i7 than a similarly clocked i5. That's true of average FPS and especially true of 1% and 0.1% lows. That was simply not the case 3 years ago.

4-5 years ago the 2C2T Pentiums were generally capable entry level gaming CPUs. They're basically useless now for the majority of modern titles.

Things are changing. Slower than some people predicted - absolutely - but they are moving.

Now does it matter right now for a mid-range gaming rig? Nope, not really. Especially not if you're only gaming on a 60hz display anyway. But to suggest that there has been no increase in core requirements for gaming over the last few years in demonstrably incorrect.

Back to the question: I do think that FX -> gen 3 or 4 i5 is still a decent upgrade. If you can get that on the cheap from a reputable source then I think it's a good option. Unfortunately FX is (and really always has been) a pretty terrible architecture for gaming. The point I made above - and I stand by 100% - is that if a second hand i5 rig starts approaching the price of a new Ryzen 5 1600, then you should seriously consider stepping up to the Ryzen. It's new, under warranty, on a more modern platform with future upgrade options. I would argue strongly as well that a mid to high end GPU upgrade in 3 years time is going to look a whole lot more respectable on a Ryzen 5 1600 than a 3570K or 4690K. Naturally, predicting future requirements always involves speculation, but I think if you asked 100 experts which CPU will look better in 3 years time, a Ryzen 5 1600 or an i5 4690K, most would back the Ryzen by a tangible margin.

Just to be clear - a cheap i5 is a good choice IMHO. Just not once it starts to approach the price of a new platform. If you could get the Intel 8400 on a cheap mobo - that would likely be a better choice again. But that's not really an option right now.