Should I go with Haswell i5?

[MRresoMC]

Hi, I plan to upgrade from FX-4100 sometime in a few months range. That means that I already have DDR3 RAM (8 GB).
My budget is around 350€, the lower, the better obviously.
I really can't decide whether I should go with i5 4590, some H97 mobo and no additional ram and spare some cash - also could I mix RAM in the future (my RAM is not being produced anymore - HyperX Blu)
2nd option is something like i5 6500 with 16 GB of RAM (better for future than 8 GB), that would be, however, a bit too much of money for me.

I don't plan to upgrade the CPU for at least 4 years if possible and I also don't plan to overclock, because that would be even more expensive, and I don't think it gives that much of a boost.

 

[lodders]

The CPU and motherboard combo in my signature is about the best value for money you can get at the moment. Should last 5-7 years based on past experience. A mild overclock for free!!

 

[MRresoMC]

Well I didn't know that you can overclock with stock cooler, let alone that you dont have Z97 motherboard. How is that possible?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

You don't overclock on a stock cooler.

 

[lodders]

My motherboard has enough VRM power phases to run a stock i7 at 3.9Ghz so can also run less power hungry i5 slightly faster. Not all budget motherboards can do this, but mine can.
Stock cooler is a standard part with all intel CPU, so again, it will work on a i7, or a slightly overclocked i5
Finally, since 2015 many Haswell motherboards have basic overclocking enabled to allow Pentium G3250 overclock to 4.5Ghz. Overclocking works on all k series CPU

Main thing is not to get greedy. 4.6GHz is possible with 4690k - but for this you must have aftermarket cooler and Z97 mobo. My overclock is with Vcore at only 1.15V. More would cause overheating.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Best thing to do is get a better cooler if doing any overclocking mild or not , don't put your components at risk.

 

[lodders]

You don't overclock on a stock cooler.

Or, you limit your Vcore voltage and CPU frequency to the capacity of the cooler.

Anyway, I need the stock cooler, because the airflow from the cooler keeps the VRM on my motherboard cool (no heatsink on the motherboard)

 

[MRresoMC]

If I would overclock, I'd rather go with Z97 and some decent cooler + 4690k, that would be basically the same price as the 6500 version I've mentioned above (with 8GB of ram, however). I really can't decide, even though I know there is no real way to "futureproof" your rig, I just don't want to make a mistake and be hitting my head with a stone later

 

[lodders]

Well, when I was building my PC a few months ago, my second choice was a i5 4460, which is also excellent value for money.
Other people on Toms Hardware say that a 4460 works well with any GPU, even a GTX 980Ti !!!!

A Skylake is a bit better of course, but future proofing doesn't really apply, as both Haswell and Skylake CPU will be obsolete by the time either of them need an upgrade.

I think overclocking is mostly a waste of time, as you pay a lot of extra money for basically 20% extra performance (which most of the time you don't need). I only did it as an experiment. When you consider that my CPU turbos to 3.9Ghz at stock settings, you can see that 4.2Ghz on slightly below stock voltage has not overloaded anything. (But I can understand why SR71 is being cautious - some people might not be as careful as me....)

Z97 motherboards have other advantages, such as support of faster SSD and faster memory.
Sklake also supports faster SSD, and memory up to 3200Mhz
My mobo only has 2 memory slots, and limits me to 16GB and 1600Mhz
I read some benchmark reviews, and decided I wouldn't need more memory than this, and that real world performance gain from or even faster SSD or memory were very small, so I kept the money instead...

 

[MRresoMC]

Thanks for all the answers. I'm going to go with i5 6500, some cheaper mobo like H110 or B150 and 16 gigs of ram.