TR Forums

Hey people,
i come here to seek some advice on upgrading my current system. Mostly for gaming at 1080p if possible. I don’t go for ultra settings but trying to get more than 30 fps on this first part of a full system update.
What I current have:

AMD Phenom II X3 710 (triple core @ 2.6GHz)
GTX 560 with 1GB GDDR5
Kingston 8GB 1333 MHz (dual channel)
Corsair 650W power supply

On this first update i’m aiming the motherboard and CPU, and so far this is what I manage to pick based on price here (Brazil):
Core i5-4460 - US$ 237,79*
GA-H97M-D3H - US$ 166,67*
*These prices are a direct conversion from Brazilian Real to US Dollars.

As you guys can see, prices down here are a little iffy compared to what you can get from online retailers.

I wonder if this AMD parts are “better” spending a little less:
M5A97 R2.0 - US$ 151,12
FX-8320 - US$ 195,56

Going previous gen i5 CPUs aren't cost effective, the prices are pretty similar.

Any suggestions are welcome. If this version of i5 is kinda weak to last as much as my current Phenom is lasting, I could try to squeeze a little more to get a faster i5 (locked version).

I can't really offer suggestions given i don't know the pricing options for ya. It should prove to be a decent upgrade in CPU performance, but given you wanted higher FPS your GPU is the main thing you should upgrade for that.

If you choose to upgrade then double check to see if your current system is using DDR3 memory and not DDR2... if it is DDR2 then you'll have to factor in new DDR3 RAM into the cost as well.

You're looking at roughly identical CPUs so it seems you've done your homework. My suggestion would be to the i5 since it offers the same (or slightly better) performance with less power usage. Also the Intel 9-series chipset is leaps and bounds more advanced/up-to-date than the AMD chipset.

Thanks a lot guys for the input.

@Kougar:
My current memory sticks are DDR3 1333MHz (2x 4GB).
My GTX 560 is the 2nd GPU i use with this computer (as far as I remember..). And I'm starting to feel that the CPU is holding back in some games.

I gather the prices for the available core i5:
Core i5-4430 - US$ 236,09 | Core i5 4440 - US$ 236,54 | Core i5-4460 - US$ 236,99 | Core i5-4570 - US$ 263,82 | Core i5-4590 - US$ 267,84 | Core i5-4670 - US$ 290,65 | Core i5-4690 - US$ 304,06

@DPete27:
You said pretty much the reasons why I'm considering an Intel build this time around. AMD chipset are "too old" near what Intel is offering, AMD mobos here for AM3+ is almost disappearing, Intel CPU power consumption and heat generation is lower than the 125W FX CPU (I doubt the newer 95W FX8xxx will appear around here).
I never upgraded a CPU on a mobo before, always replacing both of them when time comes, but yeah, having an option for a future i7 is nice.

If you don't already have an SSD, I would suggest getting one. There are some Intel 9-series mobos with "M.2" slots. These are the new form factor for SSDs and is likely to quickly gain in popularity due to it's size, lack of wires, and improved speed. There may not be many M.2 SSDs on the market quite yet, but if I were you, I'd get a mobo with an M.2 slot/port and look into an M.2 SSD in the near future.

**Pay attention to the "interface type" on the SSD as well as the M.2 slot/port on the mobo. They need to match. PCIe is faster and will be the interface moving forward.**

I know the SSD is the way to go to improve the system response and feel, but they are too expensive here.
Maybe if I got someone, in the future, that can bring one for me from U.S. or another place that is cheaper than here, be sure I'll grab one.

Perhaps a different motherboard is more future proof, like the Asus H97-Plus: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H97PLUS/
And there's more than one type of internal SSD... oh boy.

My Thermaltake V3 supports ATX motherboards, would be just the size of my current AM3 mobo.

Thanks for your assistance DPete!

hakron wrote:

I know the SSD is the way to go to improve the system response and feel, but they are too expensive here.

What is your definition of "too expensive"? For now, you are not going to see SSDs match 1-to-1 against mechanicals in $/GB, but the difference has been steadily shrinking. Which brands are available at your location? Or are you just getting greedy and keep looking at 500GB-1TB drives (which are still quite expensive)? Recently the likes of Crucial have released new lines of SSDs that bring pricing to new lower levels. For a lot of enthusiasts, paying <$100 for ~250GB of SSD is low enough already. You know you don't have to put everything on the SSD and can move some not so frequently written-to files to the mechanical?

Flying Fox wrote:

hakron wrote:

I know the SSD is the way to go to improve the system response and feel, but they are too expensive here.

What is your definition of "too expensive"? For now, you are not going to see SSDs match 1-to-1 against mechanicals in $/GB, but the difference has been steadily shrinking. Which brands are available at your location? Or are you just getting greedy and keep looking at 500GB-1TB drives (which are still quite expensive)? Recently the likes of Crucial have released new lines of SSDs that bring pricing to new lower levels. For a lot of enthusiasts, paying <$100 for ~250GB of SSD is low enough already. You know you don't have to put everything on the SSD and can move some not so frequently written-to files to the mechanical?

Well, here in Brazil, technology price is expensive. We got the world's most expensive PlayStation 4, the world's most expensive iPhone and so on.
I can't find any M.2 SSD on the price grab website that I use before going to the stores and buy the goods.

An example of price difference between newegg and from the physical stores here is like this: this SanDisk Ultra Plus on newegg you can grab one for US$ 61.00. If I want one over here I would spend US$95.00

I got 2 500GB Satas HDDs that I'll keep using, until I got a nice SSD sale over here.

I'm a TR reader for quite some time, at least since my 1st built computer, an Athlon XP 2600, I know i don't need to store everything into the SDD, and I don't plan to, just the OS and essential programs. Games will continue to use the HDDs.

Thanks for your input Flying Fox.

...I bought my 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 (3 years ago) for $180....

Did it cost a lot compared to today's prices? Yes
Was it worth it? Totally!

hakron wrote:

An example of price difference between newegg and from the physical stores here is like this: this SanDisk Ultra Plus on newegg you can grab one for US$ 61.00. If I want one over here I would spend US$95.00

What about other brands such as Kingston, Crucial, Mushkin, PNY, Corsair, etc., are they available and what prices are they asking? Your threshold for "expensive" seems tight, a lot of us pulled our triggers on our first (or even 2nd) SSD once it crossed below the $1/gig line.

I'm aware that SSDs are super good and I almost drool when I see the prices at newegg.
I'll eventually gonna get one for my rig, but right now the CPU is holding back my games (Crysis 3, Metal Gear Rising, TERA online, among others).

Asus is the brand to go when talking about mother boards, right? Any opinions on GigaByte boards? Never used one, can't say if they are on par with Asus.


A Corsair SSD, CSSD-F128GBLX, on newegg is US$ 70.00, here is US$ 173,17.
A Samsung 840, MZ-7PD128BW, on newegg is US$ 116.00, here is US$ 197,59.

We have Adata, Intel, Crucial, Kingston, SanDisk, OCZ, Plextor... Not as many versions of the available drives, and the number of stores selling them are few, mostly 5, less than 10 stores.
SSDs around here still a luxury item, sadly.

What resolution do ya game at? Anything greater than 1080p would still be bottlenecked by the GPU. Even at 1080p, most CPUs fall within a ~10FPS split which means you'd get way more FPS upgrading the GPU. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1107

An SSD won't help with FPS but it's a pretty good upgrade to get when you can for the system. Amazon always has a couple SSDs up on Black Friday too that should be worth checking out.

hakron wrote:

Asus is the brand to go when talking about mother boards, right? Any opinions on GigaByte boards? Never used one, can't say if they are on par with Asus.

I bought my Gigabyte Z87 motherboard (over an ASUS) specifically because of the SEVEN header fan software control feature. However Easytune's fan control software is so poorly written that it can't even remember settings, has problems detecting random fans, and doesn't even function at all on the CPU Opt header. The software is utter garbage meaning the feature I bought the board for is partly useless, and the UEFI fan control options are barebones. I can't say if ASUS writes better software (Xonar drivers were terrible), but their UEFI fan control options are still the best in the industry so I'd suggest sticking to ASUS. It doesn't help several of GB's UEFI "features" such as the HD interface don't even work on my board either.

Kougar wrote:

What resolution do ya game at? Anything greater than 1080p would still be bottlenecked by the GPU. Even at 1080p, most CPUs fall within a ~10FPS split which means you'd get way more FPS upgrading the GPU. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1107

I got a 23" LG LED TV/Monitor (can't recommend it, avoid like the plague) @ 1080p.
Tried lowering the resolution on more demanding games, but the blurriness annoys me and I prefer to set the quality a little lower.

I'm waiting for NVidia new 900 series (they are skipping the 800 name scheme, right?) to make a GPU upgrade.

Kougar wrote:

An SSD won't help with FPS but it's a pretty good upgrade to get when you can for the system. Amazon always has a couple SSDs up on Black Friday too that should be worth checking out.

I bought my Gigabyte Z87 motherboard (over an ASUS) specifically because of the SEVEN header fan software control feature. However Easytune's fan control software is so poorly written that it can't even remember settings, has problems detecting random fans, and doesn't even function at all on the CPU Opt header. The software is utter garbage meaning the feature I bought the board for is partly useless, and the UEFI fan control options are barebones. I can't say if ASUS writes better software (Xonar drivers were terrible), but their UEFI fan control options are still the best in the industry so I'd suggest sticking to ASUS. It doesn't help several of GB's UEFI "features" such as the HD interface don't even work on my board either.

For me to import from Amazon is tough, I have to rely on an exporter service, and pray that my purchase don't get over taxed and arrive safe and sound, here in Brazil.

Asus mobos seems pretty nice in the UEFI, gonna need these fan controls in Brazilian summer (a nice CPU cooler, as well).

Thanks for the reply Kougar.