Advice for used upgrade from Intel i7-870 (Lynnfield)

[geordiejc]

A friend of mine has an old Intel i7-870 LGA 1156 system with 8GB ddr3 ram and an RX 560.

He believes the CPU is holding him back. Can you guys recommend a CPU/motherboard from the used market ? perhaps a cheap overclockable xeon + m/b? sorry i have limited info just hoping some of you chaps are in the know.

cheers

 

[easyrider]

Budget ?

 

[Armageus]

I'd be surprised if there is much of a bottleneck with the i7. A rx560 is only around the performance of a 7870/gtx660 that people used to run with similar era processors

 

[koooowweeee]

Need a full upgrade really.

You could find a cheap x58 motherboard and put a 5650x into it.

 

[Phixsator]

can't help without a budget.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I'd be surprised if there is much of a bottleneck with the i7. A rx560 is only around the performance of a 7870/gtx660 that people used to run with similar era processors

This.

If he REALLY wants to upgrade NOW, something like a cheap but decent B450 mobo, and an 1600/2600 Ryzen chip would be a nice upgrade (Ryzen 1/2 arent quite as fast at gaming as modern I7s but they'll certainly beat a first gen one, whilst having more cores and threads, and likely higher clock speed also), and he could then put one of the new Ryzen 3000 series in with a BIOS flash when they appear. This would probably be more economical than an Intel upgrade right now, and if the Ryzen 3000 series rumours are anywhere near on point, probably makes more financial sense. DDR4 prices are starting to fall now too so he could pick up some DDR3200 for a not ridiculous price unlike a year ago.

THe RX560 is not all that fast, so being able to focus on core at a not ridiculous price would then allow him to upgrade the GPU from something off the second hand market. An RX580 or 570 on one of the offers at the moment would be a SUBSTANTIAL improvement from the RX560.

Ultimately, as said above, budget is going to decide what he can do, but with the AM4 upgrade path, and the rumoured Ryzen 3000 series improvements, I feel he will get better value there, as Intel has been staggeringly expensive for its top end chips for a while.

 

[MartinPrince]

As Armageus has alluded to and according to this site https://thebottlenecker.com/calculator there is no bottleneck with that CPU and GPU. He should upgrade his GPU first.

 

[MartinPrince]

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