upgrade advice - current system specs listed

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grrmisfit

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Feb 23, 2010
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Current specs



mobo - GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 AMD 790FX
cpu - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb Quad-Core 3.4 GHz
ram - 2x 4GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 ECO Series (9-9-9-24, 1.35V)
main HD - 120gb ssd
PSU - Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W
GPU - RX460 x2

Approximate Purchase Date: week or 2

Budget Range: 3-400

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming - I play mostly eve and 7 days to die but i want to be able to load any game up and not worry about video settings being to high
Are you buying a monitor: No


Parts to Upgrade: looking at cpu/mobo/ram
Do you need to buy OS: No


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: amazon but newegg will work
Location: st. louis, mo.
Parts Preferences: for cpu ive always been an AMD fan and wish to stay that route, mobo im not tied to anything but asus and gigabyte have never done me wrong but im open
Overclocking: NO

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe- currently doing so

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 ( currently running 2 )



system is 7 years old and ive added some parts here and there like all sata or ssd drives and other various parts. figured it was time to upgrade the core ones.
 
Solution
raisonjohn
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Your budget will buy a 2 x 4gb DDR4 kit of ram, est. $55
For Intel, I5-7600K est. $240
Z270 motherboard est. $140.
You will need a cooler, if the one you have is not ok, then budget $35 for something like a scythe kotetsu or cryorig H7.
I5-7600K is the strongest gamer around when overclocked.
Most will do 4.8.
That is particularly important for eve which seems to be single threaded.

On the ryzen side, it can be considered if you do lots of multithreading and can use the many threads.
Motherboard B250 est.$120.
1600X $250.

Neither of the two motherboards will include cf/sli capability.
You will pay more for that.

A good single card gpu upgrade might serve you better anyway.

consider a different approach, planning on upgrades in the future.
A G4620 is only $95 or so.
Buy a Z270 motherboard and see how you do.

Use the difference plus the sale of two RX460 cards to buy a strong single gamer like a GTX1060.

Here is my stock approach to the cpu vs. gpu question:

Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer with many participants tend to like many threads.

You need to find out which.
------------------------------------------------------------
To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one or more cores. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.



It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system,
and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
-------------------------------------------------------------


 
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Here is my suggested upgrade based on your listed preferences:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($117.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $401.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-29 12:50 EDT-0400

As you prefer AMD, the CPU suggested is a 4-core 3.5GHz Ryzen 5 1500X. Single-core performance matters in gaming as few games take advantage of higher core/thread count. As far as AMD CPUs are concerned, all the Ryzen CPUs as of this date have multi-threading (hyperthreading), such that the Ryzen 5 1500X's 4 cores work on 8 threads. Selecting a higher core-count such as the Ryzen 5 1600/1600X or Ryzen 7 would not be beneficial for gaming. Thus, the Ryzen 5 1500X was selected. Note also that all Ryzen CPUs can be overclocked (even though you prefer not to). The Ryzen 5 1500X comes with a stock CPU cooler already that can take care of the CPUs low 65W TDP, so, cost-wise, you don't need to purchase an aftermarket cooler.

The motherboard suggested is the MSI B350 Tomahawk. It supports your current CrossFire setup (2x RX 460). Though you prefer Asus and Gigabyte (but mentioned you are open to other brands), the MSI, as far as the AM4 platform is concerned, has the most BIOS update support that I know of - continuously developing to minimize incompatibility issues due to the new Ryzen platform (unlike Asus and Gigabyte that only has a couple of BIOS updates as of this date).

The RAM selected is the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8GB) 2666MHz. For gaming, 8GB is considered bare minimum this days. 16GB is recommended is most games. The 2666MHz selected is the maximum speed that Ryzen supports (as of this date) that can use more than 1 DIMM (module) per channel.

Amazon and Newegg prices were selected (though you can get lower prices in other sellers/stores). Total is ~$400 as per your budget.

Rest of the specs (SSD, PSU, and GPU) are left as is.
 
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Solution
Raisonjon, appreciate the amd suggestions, one thing I forgot to mention is I'm a little adhd and thus while gaming in mmos and such I'll have Netflix and lots of other stuff going. Does this really make a difference in cpu or is just more stuff eating at the ram
 
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Mixed considerations.

MMO games usually depend most on the performance of the single master thread.
Intel is good for that.

Multitasking, first of all requires that you be able to keep most of what you are using in ram.
I suspect that 8gb will be insufficient.
Plan on at least a 2 x 8gb kit.

If your other than gaming tasks are very cpu intensive, then the 1500x with 8 threads might be good.

1500X has a nice total passmark number of 10936; that is the rating when you can fully occupy all 8 threads. The single thread rating is 1893.
The i5-7600K has a rating of 9295 with 4 threads, and a single thread rating of 2405.

Each can be overclocked; the 1500x perhaps by 10%, the 7600k likely by 30%.
Either would be a massive improvement over your X4-965 with a rating of 4219 and 1185.
 
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