Little Help? Upgrade to get back to handling new games £300-£400

-Paul- · 14 Jun 2017 at 22:38

Hi, I'm new to the forum and hoping for some help as I'm looking to upgrade and whilst I can put them together, I'm out of my depth these days in terms of the best performance and value parts. I hope there's a kind soul who can offer advice.

I'm looking to take my older rig that can't really handle newer games and get it back to where it needs to be, but on a budget. I have already bought and installed a GTX1060 3gb but now find that the rest of my PC is bottlenecking, so I'm looking at bundles, CPU, motherboard &RAM along with an SSD.

Current Components:

Processor
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (Replacing)

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB (Keeping)

RAM
6.0 GB (Older DDR2, so will replace)

Motherboard Asus P5k (replacing)

2x Sata Hdd totalling Over 1TB (Hope to keep for storage but run OS and high performance games on a new SSD)

Cooling:

Coolermaster V8 (Hope to keep but will prob need to buy a chipset adapter cradle to fit a newer board)

Not sure about my PSU but understand it's fairly decent.

Would appreciate any help and hoping my budget is realistic.

Paul

Danny75 · 15 Jun 2017 at 09:42

Hi Paul, welcome to the forum.

Personally I would go with Ryzen 5 six-core and AM4 motherboard, and 16GB DDR4.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 1600 3.60GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £218.99
1 x Gigabyte GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £87.95
1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G30= £109.99

Total: £427.43
(includes shipping: £10.50)

Then get a nice SSD another time. £80-100 will get you a decent 250GB. £100-140 can get you a decent 500GB. Samsung 850 EVO or similar.

You won't get the general snappiness and faster boot/load times just yet with no SSD but your gaming experience should immediately improve.

The CPU comes with a cooler you can use, while you contact CoolerMaster about an AM4 bracket for your V8.

If you'd rather an SSD included and don't mind less CPU power and less RAM, then a Ryzen four-core and AM4 board, 8GB RAM and budget 250GB SSD.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £87.95
1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Quad Core 1400 3.40GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £158.99
1 x Kingston Savage Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX430C15SB2K2/8)= £74.99
1 x WD Blue 250GB 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (WDS250G1B0A)= £79.99

Total: £412.42
(includes shipping: £10.50)

-Paul- · 16 Jun 2017 at 19:47

Thanks Danny,

That looks great and definitely do-able on the budget.

-Paul- · 16 Jun 2017 at 20:04

Further question, is there any benefit to stretching the budget to try to get Intel board and chips? I'm willing to go over budget if there's a tangible benefit.

Danny75 · 16 Jun 2017 at 21:08

At the moment, the only mainstream Intel chips that make some sense in general (there may be exceptions for specific needs) are the KabyLake Pentiums (if you're on a smaller budget) and the KabyLake i7-K. The latter mainly for those who want best current gaming performance and don't care too much about longevity, streaming, multitasking etc, at which AMD Ryzen 6-cores and 8-cores are generally superior. Ryzen isn't exactly lacking in terms of gaming performance either, and can sometimes have higher minimum fps in games than their respective Intel chips.

Also, 16GB RAM is going to be good now and going into the future, and 16GB better value for money than 8GB currently (at least for 3000MHz kits). Similarly, a Ryzen 6-core will probably postpone the need to upgrade CPU/motherboard/possibly RAM (DDR5?) for a few more years than a Ryzen 4-core, so the extra expenditure now would be worth it, imo. That's why for £400 or so, I'd go with the first option and leave SSD for later.

You can get yourself an ATX motherboard instead if your case is ATX, it's just that the micro-ATX version of that board is a bit cheaper.

-Paul- · 16 Jun 2017 at 23:33

Thanks Danny,

Really appreciate the advice.

smogsy · 18 Jun 2017 at 11:50

get ryzen Intel is pointless right now for you

-Paul- · 19 Jun 2017 at 20:28

Thanks Smogsy. I'll be buying it this weekend.

-Paul- · 20 Jun 2017 at 17:41

Danny75 said:
You can get yourself an ATX motherboard instead if your case is ATX, it's just that the micro-ATX version of that board is a bit cheaper.

Hi Danny, I'm putting my basket together, and since I have a full size case I'm probably going for the ATX rather than the Micro. Would I be right in saying this is the guy I'm looking for?

Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard = 101.99

And is there any difference in performance?

Thanks again

Paul

-Paul- · 20 Jun 2017 at 17:52

My Basket

AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 1600 3.60GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail

Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard

Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G30

Crucial MX300 525GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 3D Nand 7mm Solid State Drive (CT525MX300SSD1)

Total 591.46 Blown the budget, but worth it.

Danny75 · 20 Jun 2017 at 17:53

There won't be any difference in performance, if anything the bigger may have more power phases (haven't checked). The bigger one has better audio so that's a plus too.

-Paul- · 20 Jun 2017 at 18:05

Good news. Thanks