Upgrade ideas please...

Vince · 2026-01-19T17:47:59+0000

Gray2233 said:
It does look like there's something going on with the socket in those areas.

@Vince What does that look like to you? Sorry for the tag! I'm not sure if that's something that could be feasibly fixed in some way assuming it is a problem.

It certainly doesnt look right does it. Although im not 100% what im looking at as i thought the AM4 cpu had pins and im struggling to work out... is that the socket?

Interestingly I do have a whole bag of donor cpu pins and every now and then have replaced like 1 or 10 of em

Gray2233 · 2026-01-19T17:50:37+0000

Vince said:
It certainly doesnt look right does it. Although im not 100% what im looking at as i thought the AM4 cpu had pins and im struggling to work out... is that the socket?

Interestingly I do have a whole bag of donor cpu pins and every now and then have replaced like 1 or 10 of em

Aye, AM4 socket.

OP tried replacing the CPU after damaging the old one by accident but it didn't work so thinks the motherboard is at fault, the good old cement-esque thermal paste ripping the CPU out with the HSF trick unfortunately.

I would have assumed that if there were CPU pins leftover in the socket that a different CPU wouldn't have fit at all, but it just looks off.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T17:50:46+0000

Hi,
Yes that is the socket.
The CPU had several pins broke off...

I think I am just going to upgrade mobo, CPU and GPU...

I was looking to go amd5 but looking at price of ram, I am going to stick with amd4 for a while...

Thanks

Vince · 2026-01-19T18:00:10+0000

lucias666 said:
Hi,
Yes that is the socket.
The CPU had several pins broke off...

I think I am just going to upgrade mobo, CPU and GPU...

I was looking to go amd5 but looking at price of ram, I am going to stick with amd4 for a while...

Thanks

Want the cpu fixed? Id be happy to swap some pins over

Can you also give me a larger pic of the board so I can check the pinout against the socket? want to see what those 2 pins are.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T18:10:27+0000

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lucias666 · 2026-01-19T18:12:09+0000

Now I look at it, those holes don't look to be in the same place as the broken pin, but I am thinking I might of tried to put the CPU back in in the wrong position...

It's all a bit of a mess...

Vince · 2026-01-19T18:15:05+0000

ok so I worked it out one of those dodgey looking pins is a data line for mem channel b and the other is a vss pin of which there are a ton of them so loads of redundency the only one at might cause a no boot is memory channel b pin. My guess is the board will boot.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T18:16:21+0000

When I put a new (used) CPU in, it booted but no signal to monitors...
Also the blue power light on the on button wasn't coming on...

Gray2233 · 2026-01-19T18:17:36+0000

Vince said:
ok so I worked it out one of those dodgey looking pins is a data line for mem channel b and the other is a vss pin of which there are a ton of them so loads of redundency the only one at might cause a no boot is memory channel b pin. My guess is the board will boot.

Could be worth him just flat out buying a 5600 or 5700 if the board isn't physically damaged, I think he's looking for an upgrade anyway. Just a crying shame in the current climate to buy another motherboard when he's already on AM4.

Vince · 2026-01-19T18:19:12+0000

lucias666 said:
IMG 20260119 180809 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG 20260119 180809 hosted on ImgBB

ibb.co

IMG 20260119 180710 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG 20260119 180710 hosted on ImgBB

ibb.co

IMG 20260119 180724 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG 20260119 180724 hosted on ImgBB

ibb.co

IMG 20260119 180654 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG 20260119 180654 hosted on ImgBB

ibb.co

IMG 20260119 180646 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG 20260119 180646 hosted on ImgBB

ibb.co

That cpu is barely an issue

most of it bends back and a few new ones needed. I did a load of pins on somebodies 5950x at some point and that worked out fine.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T18:20:44+0000

The chip is only worth about £30 so I doubt it is worth getting fixed?

Vince · 2026-01-19T18:20:55+0000

lucias666 said:
Also the blue power light on the on button wasn't coming on...

yea looking at the bigger picture the socket is looking rough.

Vince · 2026-01-19T18:23:58+0000

It's got what appears to be quite a bit of damage in the socket in quite a few areas:

Sometimes you get away with it others the damage in the socket is just too much.

Gray2233 · 2026-01-19T19:38:59+0000

lucias666 said:
Hi,
Yes that is the socket.
The CPU had several pins broke off...

I think I am just going to upgrade mobo, CPU and GPU...

I was looking to go amd5 but looking at price of ram, I am going to stick with amd4 for a while...

Thanks

Thanks @Vince, damn shame about the motherboard.

If you've a fairly strict budget of £500 this would be functional:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £128.99
1 x Asus Prime H610M-A D4 CSM - Intel H610 DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASU-00910) = £79.99
1 x Sparkle Intel ARC B580 TITAN Nox 12GB GDDR6 Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-SPK-06830) = £259.99
1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Choose One Of Four Premium Games (SKU: DIG-INT-06664) = £0.00

Total: £476.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

I'm listing the above purely due to current stock levels on OCUK, there's not a lot of AM4 options, although I believe the 12400F edges out the 5600/5700 in games anyway and X3D options are ridiculously expensive assuming you can even find one. It's much faster than your old 2600 regardless, so you will at least see good uplift in whatever tasks you do including gaming.

The motherboard is a bit light weight but should be fine for a 12400F from checking some reviews, the biggest downside is that it only has two RAM slots, meaning if you wanted/needed to upgrade to 32gb you would need to source a 2x16gb set, although selling your old RAM would offset this.

The Intel B580 should be at least double the performance of the 1660, and of course there's the added benefit of the extra RAM and RT support for the odd game that requires it like the latest Doom.

Honestly, you'd probably be better off looking for a second hand AM4/LG1700 bundle, with some luck you'll save enough to push into 9060XT 16gb territory, and/or hopefully a bump in RAM to 32gb.

tamzzy · 2026-01-19T19:40:22+0000

Gray2233 said:
although I believe the 12400F edges out the 5600/5700 in games anyway

not anymore. this is old data
since 24h2, the ryzen 5600+ handily beats the 12400f

tamzzy · 2026-01-19T19:41:32+0000

@Gray2233

Gray2233 · 2026-01-19T19:41:35+0000

tamzzy said:
not anymore. this is old data
since 24h2, the ryzen 5600+ handily beats the 12400f

Ah, fair enough! Probably worth sourcing a 5600 + and another AM4 motherboard from somewhere if that's the case.

There's sweet FA on OCUK other than the models with reduced L3 from what I can see, which gimps gaming perf.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T19:44:19+0000

Gray2233 said:
Thanks @Vince, damn shame about the motherboard.

If you've a fairly strict budget of £500 this would be functional:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £128.99

1 x Asus Prime H610M-A D4 CSM - Intel H610 DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASU-00910) = £79.99

1 x Sparkle Intel ARC B580 TITAN Nox 12GB GDDR6 Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-SPK-06830) = £259.99

1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Choose One Of Four Premium Games (SKU: DIG-INT-06664) = £0.00

Total: £476.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

I'm listing the above purely due to current stock levels on OCUK, there's not a lot of AM4 options, although I believe the 12400F edges out the 5600/5700 in games anyway and X3D options are ridiculously expensive assuming you can even find one. It's much faster than your old 2600 regardless, so you will at least see good uplift in whatever tasks you do including gaming.

The motherboard is a bit light weight but should be fine for a 12400F from checking some reviews, the biggest downside is that it only has two RAM slots, meaning if you wanted/needed to upgrade to 32gb you would need to source a 2x16gb set, although selling your old RAM would offset this.

The Intel B580 should be at least double the performance of the 1660, and of course there's the added benefit of the extra RAM and RT support for the odd game that requires it like the latest Doom.

Honestly, you'd probably be better off looking for a second hand AM4/LG1700 bundle, with some luck you'll save enough to push into 9060XT 16gb territory, and/or hopefully a bump in RAM to 32gb.

Thanks for that, will have a look at all that...

Thanks Luke

Gray2233 · 2026-01-19T19:52:02+0000

lucias666 said:
Thanks for that, will have a look at all that...

Thanks Luke

You can actually get the AM4 5600 for £91 at the moment if you look, stay away from the 5600G and GT variants as they have half the L3 cache, it greatly diminishes their performance in games.

B550 motherboards are super easy to find and pretty much any of them will run fine with a 5600.

lucias666 · 2026-01-19T19:54:01+0000

Is the 5600x or xt better than the 5600??