Planning an upgrade from aging FX-8150, Looking for advice

Owen2410

Owen2410

Owen2410

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I'm currently planing a skylake upgrade next month due to gaming getting a bit on the rubbish side, at the moment mainly just The Witcher 3 im struggling to keep 60 FPS on medium settings but have similiar issues in most newer games now

I'm pretty sure some of this may have been answered before but I have a few questions.

Current specs are as follows:

FX-8150 OC'd @ 4Ghz
Noctua NH-D14 cooler
Asus Sabertooth 990fx (the first one)
16gb Crucial Ballistix Tactical 1600Mhz (2x8gb)
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970
CM Storm Trooper (couple of extra fans)
WD Black 1tb
Samsung 850 Evo 250gb
Corsair CX750

And I'm Planning to upgrade with:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/intel-core-i5-6600k-3.9ghz-skylake-socket-lga1151-processor-retail-cp-579-in.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/kingston-fury-black-16gb-2x8gb-ddr4-pc4-19200c15-2400mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-hx424c15fb2k2-1-my-229-ks.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-z170-a-intel-z170-socket-1151-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-647-as.html

what I was wondering was with the CPU, how future proof will it be just for gaming will it keep me going for a few years or is it worth trying to stretch to the i7 (also is the socket footprint still the same ie. can i use my noctua cooler i still have the intel bracket)
with the ram is there any point even getting 16gb purely for gaming or should i just go for 8gb even if its just for the time being (I currently have 16gb DDR3 and don't think I've ever done anything to max it out)
with the motherboard I'm looking at having the possibility to overclock and this seemed like an ok choice around the mid range point with decent features just wanted opinions of the board really, overkill/perfect.

thanks very much in advance:), would just like a few opinions as this is my first Intel build and wanted to get the right balance of budget and futureproofing (budget is hopefully aroung £450 would obviously try and stretch that if I went for an i7)

sorry if i missed out any info just let me know and I will add it :)
 
i5 vs i7 is hyper-threading, which is pointless for most games. If you don't do anything else intensive on your machine then don't bother with bumping up to an i7, keep the i5.

I'd expect you'd see a good increase in performance for gaming, at least 8-10%, but everything else is likely to be very similar. When my FX 8350 died I pondered an upgrade but decided to get a good FX 8320E deal instead because I use CAD software which Intel can't compete with AMD on a price parity level, it simply wasn't worth it despite the gains in gaming.

I've spent my money on a new GFX, gone from a GTX 670 to RX 480 and am pleased with the results.
 
when my 8350 died and I went with the I5 4690k I was really chuffed with the increase in performance and my games ran so much smoother. at the time I used my old 7950 3gb card and 16gb of ddr3 ram and moved it all over to the new board.

I had a few folk say I wouldnt notice a difference but yea on a few games I gained about 10-15 fps but the main thing was it was so much smoother.

since then ive dropped in an I7 4770k as I got offered it cheap and it was there. on the hole I think my system is more responsive with the I7 it has helped in a few games ( mainly gta v ) and really has made a difference. it also doesnt slow down now if im doing a few tasks at the same time.
 
thanks for the fast replies guys

I am fairly certain my 8150 is pretty majorly bottlenecking my 970 (always have problems with draw distance/ foilage/ crowds etc) should be a considerable bump by upgrading to the i5?

I didn't really want to outright upgrade my GPU already i only got the 970 last year and its been performing fantastic in everything but the latest stuff is it really that "bad" already ? :(

would dropping another 970 in give me more benefit than CPU, if so how is SLI these days in terms of microstutter and stuff I had a crossfire setup with 2 6850s and thought it was rubbish ended up getting rid of the second one
 
I would use youre 970 for the moment the i5 should give it a nice boost. save up after upgrading the board and CPU and go for a 1070 or 1080.

Im currently still running a 970 as well and yea it runs fine with the Intel CPU so you should be good to go.
 
That's what I thought originally just noxvayl made me doubt for a second that the cpu was a bottleneck

Could I ask for some clarification what you mean by smoother in your original post you mentioned fps increase but said also smoother, like more stable fps?

Also my ram question in original post, do you see any point in 16gb purely for gaming as I said I don't think I've ever actually used all 16gb while gaming, could always add another stick later just thinking I could save some cash on the initial upgrade
 
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Look at the difference in price between 16GB and 8GB, I doubt it is actually 2x the price. Games are starting to use more resources, which is why I have 16GB (it also helps with CAD and having loads of stuff running like I do).

High single core performance will mean higher minimum frames more than anything else, the average and max frames will benefit less. That is why I suspect jbh finds his experience "smoother". I don't find the games I am playing jerky, and I don't play games that would benefit from smoother play anyway...
 
yes as Noxvayl has said the i5 will have a stronger single core performance over the FX CPU so the minimum frame rates are higher. I would say the average and max run higher also though. at least in the games Ive played they have been.

most games only use 1 or 2 cores at the very most some games will use more the only ones ive seen benefit from putting the i7 4770k in is GTA v and mad max.

as for RAM Ive got 16gb ive seen my ram usage on some games go up to around 6 or 7 in GTA v it can creep over the 8 on the odd occasion.

again though I think newer games will use more ram so 16gb is worth going to
 
OK thanks for all the replies guys:)

Sounds like I was pretty much right with what I spec'd up gonna go with the parts I linked, hopefully the 970 will last me a good while yet

One last thing, the question about the Intel socket, is it still the same physical size as the older ones (can I still use my d14)
 
Cool it should be fine, being fairly new to Intel I didn't realise the socket layout has been the same for years, and apparently my cooler supports everything in the main series from 775 to 1151 (only other Intel system I have is a q6600 build I deliberately gave old hardware for compatibility with old games:D)
 
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