Can I get better MB/CPU for £300?

Soldato
Joined
23 Aug 2007
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Looking to upgrade my motherboard/CPU for better gaming performance.
I'm not sure if can get much better performance with my limited budget.
Maybe I can still use my motherboard and just get a better CPU?


My current system.
GPU - Gigabyte RTX 2070.
MB - GA-Z170XP-SLI.
CPU - i5-6600k @4.2 - This was a pre-OC bundle from OCuk.
CPU - Cooler - Phanteks PH-TC12D.
RAM - Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit.
PSU - EVGA 850 80+ GOLD.
HD - Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD.
SSD - 230GB.

Thanks for any advice.
 
You could go for a Ryzen 3600x and a good motherboard for £300, the 3600x is better than the 6600k. More cores and threads and faster, if that is worth is up to you.
What problems are you having at the moment? a 2070 is a good graphics card so should be getting good performance already.
 
You could probably sell your CPU/Mobo/RAM as a bundle and get a decent price for it.

Put that toward your budget and get a 3600/3700X, B450, and 16GB of 3000-3600MHz RAM.

It could be waiting a couple of weeks to see what the B550's have to offer.
 
You could go for a Ryzen 3600x and a good motherboard for £300, the 3600x is better than the 6600k. More cores and threads and faster, if that is worth is up to you.
What problems are you having at the moment? a 2070 is a good graphics card so should be getting good performance already.

I think I am limited on my CPU in some games, I was not sure if the 6000k is keeping up.
Mostly in VR games and things like Ark.
Thanks.
 
I think I am limited on my CPU in some games, I was not sure if the 6000k is keeping up.
Mostly in VR games and things like Ark.
Thanks.
A 3600 would definitely be a nice boost, unfortunately your RAM is a little slow for Ryzen. I would look for a 3200mhz kit as a minimum.
 
If it were me I'd first check if the RAM you have can run at a faster-than-rated speed. I would use Thaiphoon Burner free edition and Ryzen DRAM Calculator to get an idea of what my RAM is capable of before I invested in a new kit.
 
I have a 3600 in my current system but I have to say I've been very impressed with the newer 3300X it looks an absolute killer of a bargain to me. I've seen it beating the 3600 in games although I'm not sure how much of that is down to ram tuning or the fact it uses single ccx. And it's cheap as, seriously considering getting one and upgrading my old Intel I54670 system I use as secondary.
 
If it were me I'd first check if the RAM you have can run at a faster-than-rated speed. I would use Thaiphoon Burner free edition and Ryzen DRAM Calculator to get an idea of what my RAM is capable of before I invested in a new kit.

This is good advice, some RAM can overclock really well. I'd definitely try for a B550 motherboard though if you can wait, you'll get many years out of one of those.
 
+1 for ryzen 5 3600 for the CPU, intel counterparts may be faster for gaming for now but the ryzen will age better over time. More cores and threads will be used by games as time progresses and thats where you will you get most of your money from AMD. Ryzen is known for liking high speed memory and also memory tunings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84OkOLzRPxY check this video out.

If you really need to get a motherboard get the msi b450 tomahawk if not wait for b550. you can always put in 4000/maybe 5000 ryzen into the newer b550 later on. With intel your upgrade paths is not as flexibl and their motherboards are significantly more expensive for similar specs.
 
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