Trying to help my old man with his second build. God help us he's turn into a gamer at 55!

[maikalwolf]

First: What he has available at the moment:

Asus Sabertooth 990Xfx R2.0
up to 32 gb ram- G.Skill Trident PC3-14900 32 GB DIMM 1866 MHz DDR3 SDRAM Memory
MSI AMD Radeon R7 270 2gb DDR5 OC
Thermaltakes Tough Power 750W 80 Plus Gold PSU
Fx 8250 CPU
Thermaltakes Water Cooler 3.0 240m Riiding RGB Edition PWM
A huge Smilodon PC case he got at a pawn shop with several fans for $15...lol That's my dad! Can't pass a pawn shop without trying to get the better of the pawnshop dealer

So i am trying to surprise him. I got him the 990fx & the 32gb gskill ram today as well as the Thermaltakes Water Cooler for $220. He wants to upgrade what he currently has because he wants to game beyond World of Warships/Tanks, Homeworld Remastered, Both Xcoms now and Fractured Space. He is thinking of the new Doom and a few others.

So i got an opinion from a builder/seller and was told he definitely needs a new 4gb GPU if he wants to go beyond what he is currently playing. Also that his current CPU is good but again if he wants to get into better games he needs to move up to the CPU to FX8350. I was thinking all he needs is a better GPU. The R9 380 was the recommendation. I was trying to get my siblings to chip in between them to buy it for him but the cheep a-holes are pleading poverty. So i may have to do it for him or help Dad get it by throwing some more cash his way.

Right now he claims a problem with the current rig, a GA 970A-ds3p mobo, FX8250, 16gb Kingston 1600mhz ram and the same psu, and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus cooler. Frankly I don't see the problem when i sit and watch him Play World of warships. The water looks as real as i see on any waterway! But i went ahead and paid the $220 for the Sabertooth 990X and the 32Gb Gskils and the new water-cooler, the dealers was really great I think on the deal

So the question is. In your opinion does he have a decent gpu for now? or with the other components, will it bottleneck his game playing? Does cutting from 32gb to say 16 gb on the ram help the bottleneck? Is there a more conservative 4gb GPU I can recommend to him. Does he need to go FX 8350 And the 4gb R9 380 GPU?

 

[Hlsgsz]

If you can return teh aprts you just bought, do it ASAP. Don't sink any more money in that dead platform. Even the FX 8350 will bottleneck games if not everclocked through the roof. Also, no need for more tha 16 gigs of ram as that won't help at all.
This is what you should have gotten him for that money, and the CPU problem would be solved aswell:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: *ASRock B150M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($45.59 @ Amazon)
Total: $226.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-20 21:02 EDT-0400

As fort teh GPU, wait until the end of the month and get the RX 480 coming out for $200 US(4gig version) with close to GTX 980 level performance. Actually get him the 8 gig version if you can for $229. If that's too much, the RX 470 should be around 150 and provide ALOT better performance than anything from the old gen in that price range.

All this and your dad will be in gaming nirvana

 

[maikalwolf]

Really? I've read nothing but good reviews about those parts! Did some research on several sites including here. The same Sabertooth 990 is still supposed to be a very good mobo and the 8350 is a step up from his current cpu. He's not ocing and really I see no problems with his current rig to Teel the truth. All the games he is currently on don't even require that much. I'll take your answer under consideration but will how fully see what others say. I can't return the parts as I bought them from a friend who only had them a few month and he upgraded because am did not meet his needs for cad work. But I will look up the parts you mentioned however. Dad mostly plays on steam and a few non steam sites like the ones I mentioned. Really I think he got the build bug.

Other than what you said above, what can you tell me about what I asked performance wise keeping in mind my original questions though? And thank you for the initial input!

 

[Hlsgsz]

That MB is indeed excellent, but it's for 2012 techlogy that was behind even then. The i3 6100 has about 70% more single threaded perfromance than the 8350 and that matters in most games ALOT. So the i3 games from teh same to alot better depending on the game, and for the money you payd for the MB and ram you can get the mb, ram AND cpu aswell. Also, you should consider that the Intel platform can be upgraded to an i5 or i7 in the future(not that you would need to for a couple of years) and then it would wipe the floor with th 8350, whitch is about the best you can do on that platform.
Also, there is the newer platform wiht up to date features, very low power usage(aka noise and heat) etc.

I'm sorry to inform you, but if you feel that you made something anywhere near a good decision, you are suffering from what is known as buyer's stockholm syndrome.

As for your question, i already answered it: Not only is atleast 4GB or VRAM merited, you should also wait for the next gen and get an RX 470 or, even better, RX 480 8 gig.

 

[maikalwolf]

I respect what you had to say, really. It's not buyers remorse or anything like that. I'm really not a fan of Intel to begin with and my dad is on a budget lifestyle since retirement. His previous build, stated above, I think gives him some things he can still use. In the. End it w I ll be up to him. He can sell the parts on ebay if he likes or use them. I will be pointing him to this thread for sure. But I would like others input regarding what he has in hand and what he can or maybe should think about doing. I just don't want him spending crazy money he may need for other things. He lives 900 miles or so from me and I won't know he's doing without just to get a new PC fix

 

[Hlsgsz]

I respect what you had to say, really. It's not buyers remorse or anything like that. I'm really not a fan of Intel to begin with and my dad is on a budget lifestyle since retirement. His previous build, stated above, I think gives him some things he can still use. In the. End it w I ll be up to him. He can sell the parts on ebay if he likes or use them. I will be pointing him to this thread for sure. But I would like others input regarding what he has in hand and what he can or maybe should think about doing. I just don't want him spending crazy money he may need for other things. He lives 900 miles or so from me and I won't know he's doing without just to get a new PC fix

What crazy money?
I linked you a MB + CPU + ram fro the cash you paid for teh MB and ram alone. While it's fair assuption that at the very low end AMD deliveres better price/performance, when we start talking about $200+ CPU + MB, Intel delivers a way better proposition.

 

[maikalwolf]

Thank you Hlsgsz. I already took your answer into consideration and pased the post thread to my dad.