Build Advice Older PC - Upgrade Time

There's a bit more activity here than on my home forum, so I'm cross posting!

I'm building up a steambox for use under my telly, and rejoining the GLORIOUS PC MASTER RACE

My current PC is :

Intel Core2Quad Q6600
8GB DDR3 Ram
AMD 6850 1GB Graphics
2Tb HDD (WD Green)
Corsair Builder 430W PSU

I'm getting stuttering in games like NFS: Hot Pursuit when there's a few cars on the screen, and I don't know if that's PSU, GFX or CPU related.
It's connected to my 40" TV Via HDMI and running at 1920x1080
I've overclocked the CPU to 2700, and the GFX to 950/1050 and it's helped a bit.

Suggestions? I'm not made of money, but considering options like motherboard/I5 upgrades.
If the card is suitable, I'd be interested in a motherboard that would allow me to put another 6850 along side it.

 

Upgrade options are really going to depend on your budget, so what sort of ballpark figure are we looking at?

 

Depends what I need

I'm thinking between £200-£300
Hopefully the RAM, Graphics, Case, PSU and HDD are adequate and I just need to change the Motherboard and CPU

 

I'm going to assume you can use your existing ram..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX6300-...e=UTF8&qid=1387807682&sr=8-1&keywords=fx+6300

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Mast...5&sr=8-1&keywords=cooler+master+hyper+212+evo

http://www.amazon.co.uk/M5A97-R2-0-...TF8&qid=1387807744&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+m5a97

And aim for 4.4ghz or above.

Optional

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Comes to £328 total.

 

How would that fare against an i5 2500k?
They seem to be about another £40 on top of the 6300

 

What ram is it? All the DDR3 that I have for skt775 platforms is for really high volts - worth checking that if there is any ceilings for vram on AMD boards (which I don't know as I haven't had an AMD since first 64bit amd chips)

if you got 2500k then you would almost certainly need new ram as I doubt the stuff you have for skt775 is lower than 1.65v unless you are using newish ram on legacy board.

 

In general gaming duties the 6300 will be slightly slower than the 2500k, but not by anything you would notice. The 6300 has more than enough gaming grunt to run any single card set up and would be paired perfectly with the 7870LE. The revised IPC may not be world record breaking but the clock speeds you can achieve make up for it.

In productivity terms (threaded benchmarks and encoding ETC) the 6300 will perform pretty much dead even with the 2500k, only it's £40 cheaper.

Then there's the ram issue. I wouldn't run 1.65v ram with a Sandybridge. I tried it myself with my Xeon and some Mushkin Radioactive and the rig was completely unstable.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/288?vs=699

The i5 2500k is considerably faster in every aspect. particularly in gaming.

Even my good old 920 D0 still beats the 6300 in most benchmarks.

 

Did you read anything I posted?

I guess not huh.

The link you have provided is filled with crusty old games. Take that to BF3, BF4, Crysis 3, god,any half recent game, overclock the 6300 as I also said and it would be more than good enough. As for your 920? obviously you've not compared that to an overclocked 6300 (good ones will reach 5ghz) nor compared it in anything recent.

However, what matters here isn't the CPU. For gaming the most important part will be the GPU, which will be far better with the £40 saving put into it (IE it's the difference of having a 1gb 7850 or 2gb 7870LE).

 

I'm not overly fussed about OC'ing as it's got to be in the living room in a HTPC case and be quiet.

 

Then why the I5?

The worry I have with you saying you don't want to overclock is that you're going to pay the price big time for any sort of performance. CPUs (especially the ones that are unlocked for overclocking) usually come with a pretty pants speed out of the box. I mean here, for example. My FX 8320 comes clocked out of the box to 3.5ghz. I score 546 in Cinebench R15. Clock it to 5ghz? 800. That's a big, big difference.

And the same can be said for the I5 2500k. Out of the box it's pretty pants and only really becomes worth having when you overclock. Not if, but when. Why buy an unlocked CPU and pay the premium if you're not going to make the most of it.

The fact is, at the sort of prices you are talking here Intel become impossible to recommend. Even their locked down I3 costs nearly £90. And the problem is that the 6300 overclocked in any modern game or app will utterly wipe the floor with it. The 6300 when unlocked and utilised is every bit as good as the I5 2500k unless of course you run games that use one or two cores. But that's besides the point, because who wants to run software that isn't making the most of their hardware, Intel included?

If you don't want to overclock then I would go with something disposable like a Haswell Pentium and £30 motherboard, because I can all but guarantee it'll be Intel's locked clock speed that catches up with you, rather than the IPC or CPU technology itself.

Or, look for something used.

 

If your building a steam box (by this I'm assuming your using steamOS), you should probably go with nvidia for the moment as thats what is officially supported. Also make sure your motherboard has UEFI instead of a bios (which I'm pretty sure most modern ones will have)

Yes there are work arounds for both available, but if your not a linux guy it may be more hassle than its worth, over buying compatible components.

If your talking about a windows machine with steam or your happy messing about with linux by all means consider ATI.

 

What gfx settings? I can't see the gfx being the issue, probably the Q66. Overclock more if you can even if it's only for a little while, just to see how it affects fps.

 

Andy, your basicly saying that you have to overclock the nuts off AMD cpus for them to be anything close to what intel can offer at stock. Which is true. Your right.

My 920 D0 has an OC profile stable at 4.5Ghz on air which would trump the 6300 overclocked to what ever impracticable state you can get it too.

But getting back on topic, its going in a small case in the lving room, so can not have massive loud cooling installed to keep the AMD chip cool and stable which would up the price considerably anyway which kinda defeats the object with AMD cpu's, there cheap and cheerful.

also i agree with theshadow2001,
If you want to be an early user of the SteamOS then best go close with what's in there steam machines, Intel/Nvidia. But AMD Gfx support is coming very soon.

 

soopahfly, i take it you will need a Micro ATX motherboard with that case of yours? if so here is what i recommend, and change left over to treat the missus ;-)

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-...c3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-150v

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...-38ghz-turbo-1200mhz-gpu-34x-ratio-84w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...-sata-iii-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-matx

Now this is with in mind you are not overclocking. so no need for a K type CPU and not need for a fancy pants motherboard, just a good stable, long lasting one.

 

Eh?

Look, please don't twist my words, exaggerate, then put words in my mouth. For the second time, read my post again, then go back and look at your benchmarks without the blue tinted glasses on. A couple of points.

1. At no time in any of the benchmarks did the AMD become unusable.
2. At no time did the FPS go under the safe minimum.

In fact, without the blue tinted specs on you can see that the AMD actually won some of those benchmarks, which kinda flies in he face of your considerably faster comment.

The same can, and will, hold true for stuff that supports the CPU properly. In fact, when fully supported and overclocked you'll find the AMD wins in quite a few important benchmarks and games (IE encoding, BF3 and so on).

As I maintain. The AMD is the much better option because OP needs a GPU. If he didn't? then the £40 extra could possibly be worth it for older titles that use a core or two. But here's the kicker - Piledriver added just enough to make sure that those old games could run more than well enough.

The overclock? that's the free bonus AMD give you with this CPU. And when overclocked?

I tell you what, let's erase that phobia that you seem to have of AMD. Download Cinebench R15 and run it on your I7.

 

FFS so now you've got him buying new ram and a considerably over priced locked CPU just so he can avoid AMD?

You need to look around you a bit.

 

Go with AMD and keep your old memory. Even 1.65V should be fine an an OC'd AMD system cause you're pushing up the voltages anyway. This is the cheapest option for you. 6850 will be fine at 1080p.

You will need to cool the VRMs with some airflow though as AMD systems really pull the amp's as you push up the volts and frequency. That board has VRM heatsinks but I've had boards wit no VRM cooling cut out because of OTP (yes! thank god for OTP/OCP - not every company bothers because they want to save $10c)

Elsewise, if you can get that 2500K and Z68 board cheap, it's another good option. Depends how early your DDR3 was; does it run SPD 1.5V at 1333?

 

@andy

I never said unstable, i said impractical because of the amount of cooling the chip would need with the massive overclocks which isnt an option here. Also the power draw would be massive.
Like bindibadgi said, AMD systems need plenty of cooling.

He could easily sell his old ram.
The benchmark i linked the AMD chip only won 2 out off 36 tests against the I5 2500, look at it again.

He does not really need a new GPU as his still have some life in it for now and can be easily upgraded in time...
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1562148
He could also Flash his BIOS to a 6870 (no shader unlock tho)

I dont have blue tinted glasses, im not the one with a fanboy reputation on here.

The intel chip is not overpriced if it performs accordantly.
It beats anything AMD has to offer in this test by Bit-Tech staff:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/12/intel-core-i5-4670k-haswell-cpu-review/1

 

And once again the name calling begins. Sigh.

As I said to you, Cinebench R15. Basically a FX Piledriver can easily match the IPC of the I7 you have when running at 4.5ghz. Once you get into that territory you can easily match the IPC of the I7 you have running at 4ghz.

So that's 6 cores with the same IPC as a first gen I7. How much were they again? oh yeah ! about a grand.

TBH? I couldn't give a flying **** what those benchmarks and games you posted say. At the end of the day if you buy a CPU and leave it stock (when you're paying for the unlock) then you must have taken leave of your senses.

None of those games or benchmarks are current. Hell, I bet they are using Windows 7 which has been proven to basically not even work properly with FX CPUs.

But whatever. You're just picking peanuts out of the proverbial poo.

It's quite funny just how many people are not up to date or, will post pointless benchmarks to prove their point when they're not even taking overclocking into consideration.

Whatever. Buy Intel. It's not my money you're wasting.