Upgrade path from I5 2500k

DaaveMB

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Jun 6, 2015
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Hi all, just bought a cheap PC from my cousin who had basically thrown a few of his old parts into it to get rid of them.

Specs.
Gigabyte GA Z77 DS3H
I5 2500k @ 4.4Ghz
GTX 1060 6GB
EVGA 500w PSU

I'm a bit out of the loop with PC specs having been mainly a console gamer for a few years. And as I only paid £250 for the PC from a budget of £500 I have £250 left to play with. (already have a monitor, KB+M etc).

I realise (I think) that upgrading my GFX card beyond the 1060 is probably pointless with the 2500k so I was wondering if it was worth upgrading the CPU and what my best choice would be for this motherboard?.

I do not wish to change the motherboard as my performance in games is already more than good enough for me but but would be willing to upgrade the CPU if it would give me any appreciable gains in performance.

Or would I be better off just as I am and keep the £250?

Thanks for any help.
 
Solution
Not really worth upgrading the CPU on that Motherboard mate. The I5-2500 still sells for about $150 used now so you got a decent deal for what you have but the issue is that it isnt really upgradable without a new Motherboard and RAM, you havent listed the RAM you have but it takes DDR3 RAM so you may be able to upgrade the motherboard to a DDR3 compatible model to get more from your CPU and GPU.

jay.wooster

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Sep 27, 2018
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Not really worth upgrading the CPU on that Motherboard mate. The I5-2500 still sells for about $150 used now so you got a decent deal for what you have but the issue is that it isnt really upgradable without a new Motherboard and RAM, you havent listed the RAM you have but it takes DDR3 RAM so you may be able to upgrade the motherboard to a DDR3 compatible model to get more from your CPU and GPU.
 
Solution

jay.wooster

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Sep 27, 2018
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I don't think you'll find a compatible motherboard though mate so perhaps just stay with what you have... !!! The i5-2500 has limited options so your stuck with the PC but the $250 you paid for it was a decent price as its capable of playing most games, just not at high settings.
 

DaaveMB

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Jun 6, 2015
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Hi thanks for the reply,

From my cousin "16 gigs DDR3 1333 ram (4 sticks of 4 gigs) two of the sticks are 1866 speed."

To be honest your reply is pretty much what I was expecting to hear and as my gaming performance is decent enough I think I'll keep the money and maybe upgrade the motherboard at a later date.
 
An I5 2500@4.4 is still a strong gamer.
To upgrade to anything better would require a new motherboard unless you got lucky with an I7 3770K that overclocked good.
then you would get 10% better IPC and 4core/8 thread instead of 4core/4 thread which gives about 30% improvement in some games but not most, and helps with streaming.
But unless it overclocks good it could be a downgrade, because most games need 4 cores or less and prefer clockspeed over cores.

Summary
If you are gaming @1080p or less it is money unwisely spent upgrading the processor.
If gaming @1440p or above A video card upgrade would be nice.
1070 or 1070 ti would be my considerations.
 


I would just stick with what you have now considering it's quite a balanced build. If you one day come across a really cheap i7 2600k, 2700k or 3770k I would get it since even the 2600k at stock settings runs every game of today still fine at 60fps+. This is more to allow you to run games that want more than 4 cores than anything else really.