Torn On Upgrades - What would be more worthwhile?

JCMsergox

Commendable
Jun 12, 2016
60
0
1,640
Hello everyone! I recently finished a nice budget gaming rig, but it's never to early to start thinking about the future. My specs are solidly mid ranged, and I plan to upgrade in the spring, so what should I upgrade first? My CPU/MOBO or my Graphics Card? I currently have an FX8320 and an M5A78L as my CPU and MOBO, and an XFX RX470 as my GPU. If I were to upgrade it would be something like this:
CPU/MOBO - Intel Core i5 6600k/MSI Z97 Gaming 5
GPU - EVGA GTX 1070 Founders Edition
 
Solution
There are new cpus and motherboards available in the spring, and propably gpus aswell so it would be better to look what is available when you are closer to actually upgrading. AMD Zen should be on the market by then and also Intels Kaby Lake, so if going for a cpu upgrade you'd be looking at one of those most likely.

For 6600K you would need a Z170 series board, Z97 has a different socket and Skylake cpus don't fit it. There will be a new chipset series for Kaby Lake, although 1xx series motherboards should be able to support it with a bios update.

It doesn't hurt to keep an eye on hardware development, but you can't really make a decision on what to buy/upgrade half a year before since tech moves forward with such a pace.
 
First of all, you need a Z170 motherboard for that CPU, not Z97.
Second, if you plan on playing at 1080p that GPU is an overkill, rather go for a good 1060.
Third, If you're not planning on overclocking you don't need a K CPU and a Z motherboard, rather go for i5 6600 and H170 motherboard
Fourth, If you are going to overclock, which power supply do you have? Overclocking requires high quality PSUs..
 


1. Oops, youre right. just googled Intel motherboard. Jet didnt make the chipset very obvious.
2. Yes, it would be overkill, but that'd save me a few (3 or 4) years on upgrades if I stuck with 1080p, right?
3. I plan on overclocking down the road. Plus the K has a higher clock rate that was appealing to me.
4. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XCjG3C/evga-power-supply-100w10500kr
 


Don't think I'm going to go with Zen on this one, as I've been wanting an Intel CPU for it's much better single-threaded performance over AMD. Since I do play a lot of CPU-intense games such as Minecraft, having better single thread performance will give me a boost in frames over my 8320. And I'm pry just going to stick with Skylake. I know Haswell still performs very well even today, and Kaby Lake is going to be expensive since it's still new.

 


There will propably be slight difference in price, currently there's around from 0€ to 20€ price difference between 4690K and 6600K depending on from where you buy from. I'd expect that you can get Kaby Lake cpus at around the same prices points you get current SKUs as soon as the market stabilises (cpus are actually available in stores). But like I said, you are better off making the decision on what specific part to get around the time you actually buying. Not saying that it isn't good to plan ahead though.
 
Solution

TRENDING THREADS