Upgrade Advice

Tunnix · 30 Mar 2020 at 22:49

Hey,

My buddy is looking to upgrade his setup, and currently has a Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3 Mobo, with an i5 4460 @ 3.2Ghz. Firstly, he wants to find out if a new Mobo will be essential for upgrading to a newer CPU or if there is anything on the market that will work with his current board and provide a significant boost.

Also, will his existing board support an upgrade from DDR3 to DDR4?

Looking to upgrade CPU, Mobo (if necessary) and install 32gb DDR4 with limited budget @ £250.

LiE · 31 Mar 2020 at 09:03

My recommendation would be to increase the budget and upgrade the motherboard. A decent CPU is going to cost 200. 100 for a motherboard and 80-100 for RAM.

thedandyp · 31 Mar 2020 at 12:13

The only real option if he wants to stick with the current motherboard is to put a used 4770k or 4790k in there. Decent performance increase, especially if he overclocks them. However he'd be investing money in a dead platform, which is typically not recommended.

If going new, even the ryzen 3600 would be a massive leap over a 4460, for around £160. A decent b450 motherboard for around £70-80 would be more than enough, then it just leaves the ram...
Why does your friend need 32GB of ram? The only everyday use would be rendering and video encoding, if this is what he aims to do, then his budget needs to be stepped up, going for a much higher end cpu and motherboard too.

EsaT · 31 Mar 2020 at 15:50

Tunnix said:
if there is anything on the market that will work with his current board and provide a significant boost.

No and no.
Unless you consider half the CPU power of coming next-gen consoles as upgrade.

Also 32GB of RAM won't help any in any games if CPU is hamster with anemia and COPD.