What should I upgrade?

rbissett1999

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I have a GeForce gtx 960 SC partnered with an Athlon x4 860k, it runs the likes of fortnite fine on low settings but i would like to have the choice to bump some settings up without loosing the fps, what should I upgrade?
 
Solution
I've seen a lot of people who didn't know better, snip the tops off the heat pipes to make them fit a case. Nothing like that was done right? Because if the ends/tops of the heat pipes have been altered in any way, the cooler is trash now. The pipes are filled with a chemical fluid that allows for heat transfer through evaporation/condensation processes from one end of the pipe to the other.

Maybe it's a newer revision of the case than what I'm familiar with and they've increased the clearance to fit a 160mm cooler.

I'm working on a basic overclocking tutorial for beginners, you can start reading on that here if you like. There are tons of resources for overclocking out there...
Are you playing at 1080p or a different resolution?

Likely, the CPU, motherboard and memory is where you need to start. There is nowhere for you to go as far as upgrades on that platform. It already has about the best CPU you can put into that platform, which was pretty weak even when it was new.

The least expensive upgrade option is likely moving up to a Ryzen 3, which would be miles better than what you have now.

This is about the least expensive upgrade that makes any sense at all. Upgrading your GPU card, with your currrent platform, still leaves it severely unbalanced as that 860k is going to bottleneck even a GTX 1050. This way, when you do eventually upgrade the GPU card, you will have a platform that can utilize it, plus you can eventually upgrade to a much higher performance CPU on this platform and add another 8GB of RAM for a total of 16GB at some point. Even if you don't do either of those things, this would still get you a lot closer to where you want to be if you upgrade the GPU at some point, and for use with the GPU card you already have in the meantime.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($98.89 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $238.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-14 14:34 EDT-0400
 
I'd probably go with an 8100 over a 2200g. The 2200g is a good CPU, but you already have a 960, and the best part about the 2200g is the iGPU which you wont be using. While the 2200g has more threads, the 8100 has better single core performance which is more impactful in gaming than multi thread performance.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2BpsZR
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2BpsZR/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i3-8100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($65.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $245.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-14 14:44 EDT-0400
 
Both darkbreeze and feelingfroggy make really valid points about two different architectures.

In fact, both CPU's, gaming wise are very close, with the 8100 winning out in pure FPS, but the 2200/2400g winning out in game smoothness (attributable to the extra threads in games that can take advantage of that.) But on an FPS level are really close too.

This a comparison of both CPU's but alongside a GTX1060 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWqoFnSlMR0

You will see in some games the 8100 wins out (maybe the majority) and others the 2200g will win out. Games like BF1, CODWW2 make use of more cores/threads, so if those games are important it's worth considering the 2200g. The 4c/4t 8100 'can' max out in those games and you can experience stuttering while playing.

Both builds, are a great starting point and and have pros and cons. But they are so close.

For the purpose of upgrade-ability, I'd choose the Ryzen platform as it will be supported untill 2020. For pure gaming FPS, the 8100 is on average slightly better.

Of course you can always OC the Ryzen too, but not the I3-8100.

All things considered, and IMO I'd go for the Ryzen system for what it can offer in the future.
 
That depends HIGHLY on what game we're talking about. There are a LOT more games now that are a lot more optimized for multithreading than there were two years ago. In a year, there will be a lot more than there are now. There is a reason why Intel is doing a fast turn around on releasing 9th gen CPUs with MOAR cores. It's because even though the IPC and clock speeds on AMD Ryzen CPUs are not as advanced as those found on Coffee Lake skus, AMD is still beginning to win the battle as more and more games become optimized to take advantage of those additional cores. Plus, even when the game itself is not optimized well for increased threading, Windows is, so if you plan to record, or stream, or do any other form of heavy multitasking alongside your gaming, you will find that that strong single core performance is not nearly as advantageous as you believe it to be.

Plus, the i3 is more expensive. Only by a few bucks, but I don't think any kind of platform upgrade is what the OP was really hoping to hear about, regardless that it's the only thing that's going to be helpful for what they want to do.
 


What are your full system specs, currently? How much RAM do you have? Are you using an SSD or a mechanical hard drive?

What are your motherboard and power supply model numbers? Are you currently overclocking the CPU?

These are all things that are relevant, and to some degree might be affecting performance. Again, it's worth noting that the performance on the FM2+ A series and Athlon skus was never very exceptional to begin with, but there might be a few things that can be done to improve performance if upgrading the whole platform is not an option.

Obviously, all of them cost money and for the most part are not going to give you anywhere near the return for your dollars that an upgrade would, but perhaps you may be able to, for example, source some additional RAM and an aftermarket CPU cooler, to increase your memory capacity and overclock the CPU a bit. Those will help, but they certainly aren't going to "cure" your problems.
 

rbissett1999

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Sep 14, 2018
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Hi Darkbreeze,

I am currently playing on 1080p.

Current Parts list:
Athlon X4 860k - Tried OC'ing yesterday in overdrive and it would not allow me to bump it up 100mhz without crashing.
Hyper Evo 212 CPU Cooler
EVGA Geforce GTX 960 SC 2GB - Currently overclocked using Afterburner
2 No. 8GB-DDR3 - 2400 Hyper x RAM Sticks
Corsair CX500M Power Supply
Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H motherboard
Seagate ST1000DX001 1TB Hybrid SSHD

I could probably justify paying £200-£300 to upgrade as this was a budget build back in 2015 so i know its lacking alot to keep up with any of todays titles.Any help on this is much appreciated.



 
NEVER use any utility or automatic features when overclocking. If you are going to overclock, take the time to learn what you are doing and make the appropriate changes in the bios. Also, NEVER try to overclock using the stock cooler.

You have a 212 EVO, so ok, that's fine for a mild overclock. Even a halfway decent overclock if you don't mind the increase in noise level from the CPU cooler fan, and there will be.

What is your case model?


 

rbissett1999

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Sep 14, 2018
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Darkbreeze,

I have a Corsair spec-01,can you provide a link on how to properly overclock my CPU through the bios?



 
I've seen a lot of people who didn't know better, snip the tops off the heat pipes to make them fit a case. Nothing like that was done right? Because if the ends/tops of the heat pipes have been altered in any way, the cooler is trash now. The pipes are filled with a chemical fluid that allows for heat transfer through evaporation/condensation processes from one end of the pipe to the other.

Maybe it's a newer revision of the case than what I'm familiar with and they've increased the clearance to fit a 160mm cooler.

I'm working on a basic overclocking tutorial for beginners, you can start reading on that here if you like. There are tons of resources for overclocking out there.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3761568/cpu-overclocking-guide-tutorial-beginners-work-progress.html


This would be a really decent upgrade. If you wanted to swing about another 50 pounds, we might be able to go with faster memory and possibly move up to a Ryzen 5 instead of a Ryzen 3, but overall, this would greatly outperform your current configuration. Either way, you'll probably want to upgrade the GPU card as well at some point, but it's pointless to upgrade the GPU card with your current platform.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£84.98 @ PC World Business)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME B450M-A Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£73.82 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£129.59 @ Aria PC)
Total: £288.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-15 18:07 BST+0100
 
Solution

rbissett1999

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Sep 14, 2018
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Yes the recess with the glass panel allows for the height of the hyper 212 evo