Upgrading my lads rig

Vadersoul

Vadersoul

Vadersoul

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27 Nov 2011
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106
He has an old machine, for gaming and a bit of homework. Doesn’t play anything crazy demanding but I would like him to benefit from the 27in 1440p 144hz screen I am going to gift him soon. His is a hand hand me down from my partner. Stats are.

FX-4300 4-Core
8GB (1x8) DDR3 RAM (803mhz)
970A-DS3P Motherboard
2GB Radeon R7 370 GPU

I’d like to upgrade the CPU and the GPU, with a concern that the Mobo will only take so much for its socket and dont have the right advice to know what would work for an upgrade.

As far as I can tell, the bottleneck here is the CPU rather than GPU.

best upgrade I can see here is an fx-8370 (which should be best for the socket) at around £130 and then for the GPU, the most I reckon I could upgrade without having another cpu bottleneck would be an RX 590 at about £140


So the biggest questions I have would be
a) is there a better CPU to put on that mobo that beats a 8370?
b) assuming that is the best mobo, is the RX 590 a reasonable upgrade that won’t get bottlenecked by the CPU?
c) for the cost of a new case, ram, psu and such being negligible as far as budget goes (ie I wouldn’t factor it into my decision), would I be better finding a Ryzen option for £100-200 on a new mobo build that would be better for gaming for him rather than upgrading?

I am deciding if his old machine is just too old to upgrade any more and build him one from scratch, or if I can eek out some more life from it with a cpu upgrade. I don’t mind spending the money to build him a new machine if I need to, money isn’t as much of an issue as is if I am being wasteful by not taking advantage of the current option
 
I'd pick up a cheap B450 or A520 and a ryzen 3100/3600 although you would need some ram but you would be looking at about £220-280 for those parts

A 590 would do a job a 1440p but you would need to turn down the settings to get close to 144hz.

You might be able to use your existing parts like SSD/hdd case and psu to save on cash etc.
 
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As a cheaper alternative to the above.

I think throwing £130 on a FX 8370 is dead money its just not worth it. £50 maybe.
You can pickup a Ryzen 3 3200g for £95 if you shop around in stock just as an example which is a lot quicker and under your CPU budget!
Pickup something like a B350 board (OCUK have them for £50 b grade) for the 3200g thats £145 for a modern CPU with a GPU and a Motherboard!

8gb DDR4 about £40-50
16gb DDR4 RAM set you back about £50-£65

Then look for a graphics card, dont forget 2nd hand. eg 1060 6gb are going for around £100-£120 might even be able to get a GTX 1070 for £150 ish

Might get £50 back for selling your old kit 2nd hand too.

So as you can see makes the £130 for the FX 8370 poor value.
 
varkanoid said:
You can pickup a Ryzen 3 3200g for £95 b
Click to expand...
Why would you pay £95 for a 4/4 old Zen + cores APU when you can get the 3100 which is 4/8 zen 2 cores for 5 quid more especially when it's going to be used with a GPU.

Also with A520 boards starting at just over 60 quid and offering full warranty and a future upgrade path to zen 3 there is absolutely no point spending a tenner less on a 3 year old motherboard with just 3 months warranty.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £72.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​
 
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Joxeon said:
Why would you pay £95 for a 4/4 old Zen + cores APU when you can get blah
Click to expand...

You could have said why waste £130 on a 8370 ?


It was an example not a solution to show the £130 for a 8370 was a waste of money. You example said £220-£280. My example was about £145. I didn't look extensively. If the person only has £150 to spend on mb/CPU then your example is over budget. The 3100 is another alternative I've seen it for £90. Chill man.
 
Vadersoul said:
I am deciding if his old machine is just too old to upgrade any more and build him one from scratch,
Click to expand...

Yes, complete replacement of the CPU, motherboard, and RAM. And don't worry about bottlenecks: at your price point it's all good.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £510.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​


Do look at Intel CPUs: they're cheaper and faster for gaming.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £474.45 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​

(The AMD CPU comes with an adequate cooler; the Intel CPU does not.)
 
Thanks for the helpful advice. I agree that a fresh build is probably a better idea. Case is a bit ugly, old and I am sure the PSU is probably Bronze or similar so starting from scratch could be a good idea.
 
varkanoid said:
You could have said why waste £130 on a 8370 ?


It was an example not a solution to show the £130 for a 8370 was a waste of money. You example said £220-£280. My example was about £145. I didn't look extensively. If the person only has £150 to spend on mb/CPU then your example is over budget. The 3100 is another alternative I've seen it for £90. Chill man.
Click to expand...
It was nothing personal I was just merely pointing out that making a saving of £17 on a old B-grade board and the APU was not worth with it over the newer stuff.

Of course the the 8370 is terrible value and that's why I never suggested it as an option.
 
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