Upragde to Intel or keep?

[BugtaDaPimp]

Allright so right now my pc is this:
CPU: AMD FX-8350
MOBO: MSI 760 ga-p43
GPU: Asus geforce 960 gtx 4gb
RAM: 16gb ddr3
Cooling: 500W

So i dont really know if i wanna upragde to intel or not, ive heard that my motherboard is really old and is draggin my cpu down. Im at a low budget so i dont know if i should upgrade to intel or buy a new motherboard. Please help, and thank you!

 

[Hlsgsz]

Definitely go for Intel. Don't sink any more money in that old and dead platform.
What's your budget?

 

[spat55]

I'd keep it for now. Wait for Kaby or Zen, it'll be a 6 month wait but the upgrade should be worth it.

 

[lakimens]

I am not sure Kaby will improve much over Skylake, ZEN on the other hand might be equal to Kaby and if it is I'd want to go AMD, because Intel has been conquering the world for 5-6 years and I don't want to give them any more than they deserve, both Intel and NVIDIA have dome some nasty stuff to force their products.

 

[burgessanthony]

Zen likely to match haswell by all accounts. You have a balanced system where by the cpu shouldn't hold the gpu Bsck. It's a mid range gaming rig.

Going to i5 skylake will be a good cpu jump for sure.

 

[spdragoo]

What, exactly, is making you think that your system is "dragging"? Your board has SATA III ports, USB 3.0 ports, & while its PCIe x16 slot may "only" be PCIe v2.0, I can't think of any cards that will be throttled by that. And not that I have experience with the board in particular, but it certainly seems to be set up to facilitate overclocking (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/760GA-P43-FX.html#hero-overview).

Will you see some performance gains by going to an Intel build? Yes, of course...as long as it's at least a Haswell Core i5/i7 or better. However, all too often in games (especially newer ones) you'll see the Intel system only get maybe a 10% leg up on the AMD systems, with the latter able to get at least 60FPS (given the right combination of GPU & resolution), which means you may not even notice the improvement. Whether or not you feel that's worth the expense to buy a new CPU, motherboard & RAM (since you'd most likely want a Skylake CPU, which means DDR memory) is up to you...but spending hundreds of dollars on those 3 items for a relatively small performance improvement is probably not a good idea.

That being said...there are some cost-effective steps you could take to pep up your system:

1. If you don't already have one, invest in an SSD for your primary disk. Actual game-performance won't increase (as you'll primarily see the changes when loading from the disk -- switching maps, initial load, etc.) but your system should see an improvement at the least in its boot-up & shut-down times. Best bet would be to at least get a 250GB SATA III model, & load your OS & most-used apps/games on it, with the other games & your data files kept on your old HDD...which, BTW, is more likely to be a reason that your system is "lagging" than the motherboard, so you may want to consider getting a replacement HDD as well.

2. Get a new GPU. Since you're using a GTX 960 right now, you're probably playing somewhere around 1080p resolutions (or even lower). At that resolution, an RX 480 or GTX 1060 is going to nearly double your average performance (http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060/page10.html), either by letting you turn up the detail levels or simply letting you get closer to your monitor's refresh rate.

 

[spat55]

What, exactly, is making you think that your system is "dragging"? Your board has SATA III ports, USB 3.0 ports, & while its PCIe x16 slot may "only" be PCIe v2.0, I can't think of any cards that will be throttled by that. And not that I have experience with the board in particular, but it certainly seems to be set up to facilitate overclocking (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/760GA-P43-FX.html#hero-overview).

Will you see some performance gains by going to an Intel build? Yes, of course...as long as it's at least a Haswell Core i5/i7 or better. However, all too often in games (especially newer ones) you'll see the Intel system only get maybe a 10% leg up on the AMD systems, with the latter able to get at least 60FPS (given the right combination of GPU & resolution), which means you may not even notice the improvement. Whether or not you feel that's worth the expense to buy a new CPU, motherboard & RAM (since you'd most likely want a Skylake CPU, which means DDR memory) is up to you...but spending hundreds of dollars on those 3 items for a relatively small performance improvement is probably not a good idea.

That being said...there are some cost-effective steps you could take to pep up your system:

1. If you don't already have one, invest in an SSD for your primary disk. Actual game-performance won't increase (as you'll primarily see the changes when loading from the disk -- switching maps, initial load, etc.) but your system should see an improvement at the least in its boot-up & shut-down times. Best bet would be to at least get a 250GB SATA III model, & load your OS & most-used apps/games on it, with the other games & your data files kept on your old HDD...which, BTW, is more likely to be a reason that your system is "lagging" than the motherboard, so you may want to consider getting a replacement HDD as well.

2. Get a new GPU. Since you're using a GTX 960 right now, you're probably playing somewhere around 1080p resolutions (or even lower). At that resolution, an RX 480 or GTX 1060 is going to nearly double your average performance (http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060/page10.html), either by letting you turn up the detail levels or simply letting you get closer to your monitor's refresh rate.

The thing that makes his system drag is a terrible AMD CPU that was obsolete back 5 years ago, when a sandy i7 would smash the granny out of it.

 

[spdragoo]

I would really hesitate to use the word "smash", as the comparisons can vary wildly from game to game...

http://www.techspot.com/review/1096-star-wars-battlefront-benchmarks/page3.html: A Sandy Bridge i5 "beating" the FX-8350 by only 1 FPS is far from a "smashing" victory, especially when they both fall at 90% of the performance of a Skylake i7.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1148-tom-clancys-the-division-benchmarks/page5.html: Not only does the Sandy Bridge i5 lose out to the FX-8370, the FX chip matched the Skylake i7's performance.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1128-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benchmarks/page5.html: If you considered a 1-FPS advantage to be "smashing", then the FX-8350 not only "smashes" the Sandy Bridge i5, it 'smashes' the Ivy Bridge and Haswell i5 (beating them by 7, 5 & 2 FPS), & apparently it required a Haswell i7 to match it & a Skylake i7 to beat it. But again, those aren't significant differences, as even the Sandy Bridge i5 hits 85% of the Skylake i7's performance.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1173-doom-benchmarks/page5.html: A 13FPS lead on the FX-8370 is a 'win' for the i5...but since the FX chip is already hitting 120+ FPS, the gap isn't as impressive as you might think. Again, the FX chip manages to hit 85% of the leader's performance (Skylake i7).

http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html: Again, only a 4FPS lead for the Sandy Lake CPU over the FX-8350, but that's only a 5% difference between them. And the FX chip is only about 10% behind the Haswell i7 leader.

http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html: They didn't even bother testing with an Ivy Bridge i5, but the FX-8350 still managed to provide 90% of the Ivy Bridge i7's performance.

http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html: Again, hard to call a 1FPS difference a "smashing" victory for the i5 over the FX chip, especially when not only is the FX chip only 2FPS behind the i7 leader, but both the FX-4100 & A10-5700 are only 4FPS behind that same leader.

http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/page6.html: Another game where their tested performance was only separated by 1 FPS, & again both manage to get 85% of the top-dog's performance.

But lest you think I'm being selective...

http://www.techspot.com/review/1180-overwatch-benchmarks/page5.html: The Sandy Bridge i5 does provide a handy win here, getting 16% more performance compared to the FX-8370. The caveat, however, is that you would need a 120Hz or 144Hz monitor @ 1080p to even notice the difference. Of course, the Sandy Bridge wasn't exactly "stellar"; although the Ivy Bridge & Haswell i5s didn't provide a whole lot more performance, going from an Ivy Bridge i5 to an Ivy Bridge i7 added 33% more performance. Guess it's one of those few games where the i7's Hyper-Threading actually makes a difference in game play.

By and large, though, Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge (& in some cases even Haswell) Core i5 chips provide little or no improvement over the performance of an FX chip, and that's looking at games that a) have been released within the past year, b) are used to benchmark the most recent mid- and high-range GPUs released within the past 5 months, or c) are known to be games that are extremely taxing for even high-end systems (i.e. Crysis 3).

What's perhaps more telling, though, is how well both the Sandy Bridge & FX architectures are holding up after 5 years, with their gaming performance right on the heels of Intel's newest offerings. Which is probably why Tom's Hardware still lists Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge & FX chips as being 2nd-tier CPUs, right behind the Haswell & Skylake chips (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html)...

 

[burgessanthony]

It does come down to what you play. For most games, the fps fall off os almost always around a 6300 level. Above that (fx8, i5+) its generally quite level.

Pick some games, whether u will stream, what else you will be doing then decide.

Of course in terms of fps/watt the fx can't hold a candle, but then $/fps they probably win out.

I'd certainly be overclocking any fx chip and pairing it with fast ram to make the most of it.

 

[BugtaDaPimp]

What, exactly, is making you think that your system is "dragging"? Your board has SATA III ports, USB 3.0 ports, & while its PCIe x16 slot may "only" be PCIe v2.0, I can't think of any cards that will be throttled by that. And not that I have experience with the board in particular, but it certainly seems to be set up to facilitate overclocking (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/760GA-P43-FX.html#hero-overview).

Will you see some performance gains by going to an Intel build? Yes, of course...as long as it's at least a Haswell Core i5/i7 or better. However, all too often in games (especially newer ones) you'll see the Intel system only get maybe a 10% leg up on the AMD systems, with the latter able to get at least 60FPS (given the right combination of GPU & resolution), which means you may not even notice the improvement. Whether or not you feel that's worth the expense to buy a new CPU, motherboard & RAM (since you'd most likely want a Skylake CPU, which means DDR memory) is up to you...but spending hundreds of dollars on those 3 items for a relatively small performance improvement is probably not a good idea.

That being said...there are some cost-effective steps you could take to pep up your system:

1. If you don't already have one, invest in an SSD for your primary disk. Actual game-performance won't increase (as you'll primarily see the changes when loading from the disk -- switching maps, initial load, etc.) but your system should see an improvement at the least in its boot-up & shut-down times. Best bet would be to at least get a 250GB SATA III model, & load your OS & most-used apps/games on it, with the other games & your data files kept on your old HDD...which, BTW, is more likely to be a reason that your system is "lagging" than the motherboard, so you may want to consider getting a replacement HDD as well.

2. Get a new GPU. Since you're using a GTX 960 right now, you're probably playing somewhere around 1080p resolutions (or even lower). At that resolution, an RX 480 or GTX 1060 is going to nearly double your average performance (http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060/page10.html), either by letting you turn up the detail levels or simply letting you get closer to your monitor's refresh rate.

My budget is around 350$ the next 4-6 months

 

[BugtaDaPimp]

Definitely go for Intel. Don't sink any more money in that old and dead platform.
What's your budget?

My budget is around 350$ the next 4-6 months

 

[BugtaDaPimp]

It does come down to what you play. For most games, the fps fall off os almost always around a 6300 level. Above that (fx8, i5+) its generally quite level.

Pick some games, whether u will stream, what else you will be doing then decide.

Of course in terms of fps/watt the fx can't hold a candle, but then $/fps they probably win out.

I'd certainly be overclocking any fx chip and pairing it with fast ram to make the most of it.

The thing is my MOBO is for some reason not overclockable and it crashes my pc everytime i try to do it (and yes, a prof has tried on it aswell) so i dont know if i wanna buy a new MOBO and overclock or buy a whole new cpu, mobo and ram

 

[Hlsgsz]

Provided your PSU is of good quality(what make/model is it, btw?), this is what you should get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: *GeIL EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($53.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $316.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-16 10:25 EDT-0400

 

[BugtaDaPimp]

Provided your PSU is of good quality(what make/model is it, btw?), this is what you should get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: *GeIL EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($53.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $316.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-16 10:25 EDT-0400

Im unsure about my PSU i know its 500W and im pretty sure its from Cooler Master

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

The motherboard needs to be on the latest BIOS version before it will support an FX-8350, so if you haven't already, upgrade that first.

What do you use the PC for? If it's gaming, then what games do you play and at what resolution and frame rate?

Your PSU sounds like it's some generic 500W piece of junk, so my first thought is to replace it. What's the make and model of the PSU? If you can't find out, then tell us how many amps it delivers on the +12V rail(s); check the side of the PSU to find out.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Provided your PSU is of good quality(what make/model is it, btw?), this is what you should get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: *GeIL EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($53.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $316.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-16 10:25 EDT-0400

Im unsure about my PSU i know its 500W and im pretty sure its from Cooler Master

Post a picture of it's label.

 

[Melonious]

Wait for zen, then you won't have to throw out the motherboard every 2 years.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Wait for zen, then you won't have to throw out the motherboard every 2 years.

This is pure genius.
You mean like how if you want an AMD system now you can buy a MB with a chipset from 2012 that doesn;t support PCIE 3.0?

 

[burgessanthony]

Whilst I would imagine given his profile he might be looking for a response, I did have to laugh. Of all the things to attack Intel for, they far outdo AMD on longevity.

 

[lakimens]

He did say to wait for ZEN. He didn't say anything about the current AMD.
Although, all FX CPUs use an AM3+ socket.
More than two years.

 

[Silvy2]

Thats actually a VERY fast and good PC. Budget? Thats no budget PC!
Your graphics card is bottlenecking your CPU, thats the problem. The GTX 960 is a great card, but when you have an crazy fast 8 core AMD CPU the GPU is going to bottleneck it. Just get a new graphics card.

 

[Tradesman1]

A 960 will not bottleneck an 8350, even with the CPU OCed. Single core performance (most looked at when gaming) isn't all that great with AMD CPUs, but neither should bottleneck the other

 

[Melonious]

Wait for zen, then you won't have to throw out the motherboard every 2 years.

This is pure genius.
You mean like how if you want an AMD system now you can buy a MB with a chipset from 2012 that doesn;t support PCIE 3.0?

What do you want it for? It's useless today.

A MB with ddr4 and pcie 3 could last you ten years though.

With intel you will have to throw that POS out and get a new one for 400 bucks every time you upgrade.

 

[burgessanthony]

My z77d3h went through 4 gpus, 2 processors, 2 lots of ram, ssd upgrades and transferred between 2 cases.....since 2012. Was still plenty supportive in 2016.

As would am equivalent am3+ mobo from that era. Not sure why you are focussing on motherboards?

 

[burgessanthony]

Oh and it cost equivalent of 120$....not 400.