Upgrade cpu or new platform?

apsoul

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Hi everybody, it's been a few years since I've paid attention to the hardware scene so I'm a bit behind. Do you think it is worth it for me to upgrade my am3+ rig to an fx 8xxx series cpu? I recently got a gtx-760 super cheap from a friend, which is a nice jump from my gtx-460 but I believe I have bottlenecked my cpu.

Current rig:
Gigabyte 990fxa ud3 Rev 1
Amd phenom X2 555be (oc'd to 4.2ghz)
Reference gtx-760
Corsair tx650 psu
4gb gskill 1600 ram

I hate to see the X2 go as I got a gem (oc'd to about 4.7ghz on air for superpi runs I was in second place here for a while) but my fps in newer games hasn't changed much from the 460 to the 760. Do you think I could get a few more years out of an fx-8xxx or should I just take the hit and wait til I can save for an Intel based rig? (I don't see that happening anytime soon).
 
Question, why wouldn't it happen anytime soon? For the price of an 8350 you can get an i5 4460. All you'd need to do is get yourself an H81 board for about 50 bucks more.
 
My thoughts were that switching platforms would be way more expensive as Intel mobos were more expensive when I was last looking at hardware. Im not really up to speed on all the different Intel chipsets or their sockets even. I have some more reading to do I guess as things seem to have changed more than I expected.

While I may, depending on prices and performance comparisons, be ok going with a non OC-able platform, but I really enjoy tinkering around with my new hardware as much as possible. Also I need 6+ sata connections, decent onboard audio, 4 ram slots (or budget to upgrade ram)... all of which my current board supports. I probably sound like I am knocking your idea or the switch to Intel but I'm not. I would love to switch to Intel but doing so with the features I'm looking for seems like it will run me about $300 min (somewhat of a wild guess) and I will be pinching pennies just to get the amd cpu.

Also my pc usage will include lots of audio transcoding along with gaming. Current game titles are bf3, ac4 black flag, skyrim (hoping for more mods), and looking to get a new game or 2 for Xmas

Thank you for your thoughts and all future ideas will be appreciated :)
 
Few more bucks on the board then.
ASRock B85 Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

Not that hard to meet your requirements and still less than 300. Also, for newer games you'll want 8GB of RAM anyways so you'll need to spend either way. Great thing about the i5 is, it doesn't need to be overclocked.

That's why I asked specifically why would it take you a while because you can go with something now that is upgradable or side grade to an 8350 which has been dead for years now.

Edit: I'm not saying the 8350 wouldn't be a good upgrade for you, or even the 8320. Thing is I'm looking a bit further ahead. Currently even overclocked they run into overhead issues because single threaded performance isn't on par. This won't be too much of an issue now with a 760, but later when you upgrade it will. The newer cards coming out with HBM will IMO start to saturate the PCI-E 2.0 bus which is what AMD is limited to. Don't expect an upgrade to Zen, it's DDR4 and will be a new socket. I'm running a 4 year old Sandy Bridge 3960x that runs circles around my buddies 5GHz 8320 on the same board you have and that's not even pushing it. Just something to think about. (We used to run the exact same GPU setup for perfect comparison)
 
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Thank you Mguire, as always your input is informative and very helpful (as opposed to "buy x cpu and y mobo because it's better" without any info as to why it's better). You and a few others are why I always come back here for my questions. You have given me enough of an info base to get started in the right direction. I'm going to take a good look at Intel's options and see what I can come up with. Maybe I'll save up for another month or two and make the switch... new hardware is always more fun than old hardware anyway ;)

Thanks again,
Apsoul
 
It sure is, also a lot of ASRock's boards in particular should have a better Realtek chip on them than your current. I know the one above I linked does.
 
The Intel option would make for a very nice upgrade but you can get an AM3+ chip that will work in your board for much cheaper. Then you can save up for the Skylake cpu and board (with DDR4 memory) If your wanting to do a major upgrade, then that Intel is a great option, but for cheap you can still use an 8350 for $150.
 
Yea, already went over that. DDR4 isn't worth the wait.

Sorry PP, not understanding this.
Is DDR 3 just as good as DDR 4?
I was thinking in the near future that when the OP saves enough cash to get an Intel set up, that DDR 4 might be more common, eventually all manufacture's will be making DDR 4 boards won't they?
 
Skylake uses DDR3 or DDR4 and DDR4 brings no performance advantages to the table. Sure he could get an i5 6600k and a cheap DDR3 compatible board but he'd be spending more money for unperceivable increase in performance. I suppose it's more future proof....ish, but the guy has been rocking a dual core Phenom 2 all the way to 2015. Either platform will last him at least 5 years.

Look at it like this, when DDR3 came with Yorkfield CPUs and X48/790i how maybe people made the claim that it's so much better? The only real difference was size advantage, but back then I had an 8GB kit of DDR2 and right now the norm is still 8GB. I can still grab an 8GB kit of DDR2 if I needed to, and I'd be willing to bet DDR3 isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

So all that being said, if he has the cash for an 8350 now why not get an i5 4460 and toss another 50 bucks for a superior setup while reusing his current RAM? It only makes more sense to me.
 
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