New Budget Gaming Build

[BW86]

Hey guys,

I built my last pc about 5 years ago and I've decided I want to upgrade it a little bit to play the latest games that are coming out. (doesn't need to be maxed out - I play on a 1080p monitor btw)

Right now I have the following:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series Radeon HD 6850 GV-R685OC-1GD
ZALMAN CNPS9700
Antec Sonata III


This is what I've been looking at to upgrade to:

AMD FX 6300 Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3
-Bundled together they're $169.98
Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB DDR3-1866
-$46.99
Sapphire Technology Radeon R9 280X
-$179.99

TOTAL: $396.96

I figured I'd reuse my Case/PSU/CPU Cooler & HDDs(not listed)
-Would the 500w psu that comes with the Sonata be sufficient?

Lemme know what you guys think. I don't really want to spend more than $450.

 

[Yuriman]

Frankly, I would not buy an FX CPU right now unless you're able to reuse your motherboard. The FX-6300 came out in 2012. Intel CPUs at the time were faster, and there have been 4 generations of improvements since then.

It might be a good idea to get low voltage (1.25v or 1.35v) RAM, since 1.5v can't be used with Skylake CPUs.

 

[lehtv]

FX-6300 is a slight bottleneck to a 280X, and not much of an upgrade over your 955. Better get an i5 which will not only allow you to get the most out of the 280X, but will also last much longer before needing an upgrade. And it consumes less power and has an integrated GPU for backup. Edit: see bench vs FX-6300.

i5-4690K + MSI Z97 Gaming $315 @ microcenter. Overclockable so you'll be able to easily upgrade the GPU in the next few years without having to worry about CPU bottlenecking

If that's too expensive (or you're not willing to OC), then:
i5-4460 $185 @ newegg
Asrock B85M Pro4 $65 @ newegg
= $250

+ Sapphire 280X 3GB $180 AR @ microcenter or XFX 280X 3GB $190 AR @ newegg (lifetime warranty) or MSI R9 380 2GB $179 AR @ newegg (free mouse)
+ 2x4GB DDR3-1600 for $37 @ newegg

-Would the 500w psu that comes with the Sonata be sufficient?

How old is it? Technically it's big enough but if it's old, better buy a new unit. E.g. Antec EA-550 Green $40 AR @ newegg, XFX TS550 Gold $45 AR @ NCIX (not sure about shipping) or $71 AR @ newegg.

 

[BW86]

Frankly, I would not buy an FX CPU right now unless you're able to reuse your motherboard. The FX-6300 came out in 2012. Intel CPUs at the time were faster, and there have been 4 generations of improvements since then.

It might be a good idea to get low voltage (1.25v or 1.35v) RAM, since 1.5v can't be used with Skylake CPUs.

Any intel bundle you can recommend that's better and in the same price range?

I've been going off https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ - Not really sure how accurate it is but the 6300 still has the best CPU Value (CPU Mark / $Price )

 

[Yuriman]

As far as I'm aware, Skylake i3's haven't hit the market yet, but I expect they will within the next few weeks. In your price range, I would strongly consider a (yet to hit the market) Skylake i3 6100, and a cheap H110-chipset motherboard to go with it.

For a little more money, you can get a Haswell i5 4460, as lehtv suggested. The i5 is faster, but from an older generation. Pair it with an H81 based motherboard if you only need 2 RAM slots, or H97 if you'd like 4.

Raising the budget a bit more, you can get a Skylake i5 6600K and Z170 based motherboard which should last you a very long time. Cheaper i5's should be coming out soon as well; I expect them to market within a few weeks, if you don't mind waiting.

Skylake = gen 6 Intel, currently being released
Haswell = gen 4 Intel, ~2 years old

ASRock is usually a good choice in cheap, reliable motherboards.

 

[Homerboy]

Cripes... almost the exact same PC as the OP. Bookmarking for curiosity sake

 

[Donanza]

I have somewhat the same build with nearly same CPU (B50).
How did your 6850 perform with the CPU? Did it bottleneck?

 

[BW86]

I have somewhat the same build with nearly same CPU (B50).
How did your 6850 perform with the CPU? Did it bottleneck?

Performed great - I haven't really used it for a few months as its been in storage but the 6850 may have been bottlenecking the 955 as I had it at around 4ghz

 

[Yuriman]

Some games will run poorly on the FX-6300, since its single-threaded performance is essentially the same as what AMD had in 2009. You're just getting 2 more cores. Not all games will use all 6 cores, but as time goes on, more and more games are able to use more cores.

Intel CPUs are more rounded. An Intel dual core with HT (i3) has around the same multithreaded performance as an FX-6300, but significantly more single-threaded performance. An i5 will have significantly better multithreaded performance too.

 

[BW86]

Instead of spending $169 for the FX-6300 w/ the Gigabyte 990fx - I could spend $110 more and get the i5-4690k with the ASRock z97 pro4. I'm guessing that would be the better choice?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Instead of spending $169 for the FX-6300 w/ the Gigabyte 990fx - I could spend $110 more and get the i5-4690k with the ASRock z97 pro4. I'm guessing that would be the better choice?

If you intend to overclock then yes.

If not a 4460 will save you $40.- and a decent H81 mobo will save another $40.-

 

[BW86]

If you intend to overclock then yes.

If not a 4460 will save you $40.- and a decent H81 mobo will save another $40.-

I'll definitely be overclocking it.

 

[Ketchup]

Yuriman touched on this, but the bad thing about PassMark is that many/most of the parts of its test love cores. So, as long as you are running a lot of things that use 4-18 cores, you will do well with AMD in it's price range. If you do a lot of gaming, for example, a Passmark score will not give you the best idea as to how a CPU will perform.

 

[lehtv]

I'll definitely be overclocking it.

Z97 Pro4 isn't a very good OC board. True phase count is only 3, and VRM component quality is average at best. In fact, the Gaming-3 board I recommended earlier isn't much better in this respect, it just happened to be part of the combo. Both of these are fine for light OC'ing where voltage isn't increased much.

If you want a really good OC board, buy Gigabyte Z97X Gaming-5 - true digital 8-phase VRM with excellent components.

If that's outside your budget, better settle for an i5-4460 with a cheap board like the B85M Pro4 linked - or maybe swap the CPU for a Xeon E3 1231 V3 and enjoy hyperthreading.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

If you want a really good OC board, buy Gigabyte Z97X Gaming-5 - true digital 8-phase VRM with excellent components.

Solid advice but I think the Gaming 5 is actually a digital 4 phase. You can get a true digital 8 phase Gigabyte Z97X Gaming-7 for about the same price after rebate though.

Starting to get up there in the OC stratosphere though. 4690k doesn't seem to be much of a power hog and OC's about the same on most boards unless you are into extreme cooling scenarios.

 

[lehtv]

Solid advice but I think the Gaming 5 is actually a digital 4 phase.

Says it's 8-phase in that very link, look again