Suggest CPU upgrade

[quang_]

Hi all,

I have an old gaming rig I put together in 2010. It contains a Gigabyte P55-UD3r mobo socket 1156 and last year I 'upgraded' the GPU to a Radeon r270.

Some games are running slow and I suspect it is because of the ancient CPU.

I'm not a hardcore gamer so am looking for a budget upgrade of the CPU. Did a quick search and I can afford a Intel Core i5 6400. But it has a LGA 1151 socket which I am not sure will be backward compatible with my mobo.

Does anyone know if it is? If not what's a good budget mobo upgrade?

 

[BadActor]

The i5 6400 won't work in and 1156 motherboard. To use it, you will have to use the appropriate 1151 socket motherboard and DDR4 RAM. There are some boards that work with DDR3, but Intell recommends only using DDR3L which I doubt you have. Even an i3 6100 would be worthy upgrade for gaming if budget is really tight.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($55.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($42.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $98.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 06:11 EDT-0400

 

[coozie7]

What CPU is currently installed?

Assuming a low end LGA1156 CPU is installed you'll have to look through sites like E-bay and Craiglist for a used part to upgrade with, it's possible, but very unlikely anyone now has an unused CPU of that generation in stock.

BadActor missed the CPU price in his listing, the actual total comes closer to $280.
Also be aware a big CPU/MB/RAM upgrade like this may require you to purchase a new Windows licence, and at the very least you should fully reformat and reinstall your HDD contents if you DO decide on the big upgrade, holding on to an existing, possibly old, install is frought with potential issues.