My mate has been given a Skylake motherboard (cheap really) and needs to buy a cpu and ram. He does game. Now, he doesnt want to spend tons on a CPU so he was asking if an i3 would suffice? He doesnt overclock. Wants to play battlefield, Fallout, Just cause 3 etc He has a 960 GPU and a tidy PSU and hard drive etc just he not sure on CPU. Plus, should he get 16gb ram? Ta
I think a bog standard quad i5 start at around £150 don't they? If at all possible I would stump up the extra £50 will be a rig that would last years then.
Because Skylake CPU's are still stupidly overpriced for what they are, and DDR4 isn't any cheaper than DDR3 and in some cases, far more expensive.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/defc....20ghz-overclocked-bundle-bu-051-og.html#t=b1 £370 for mobo, an i5 Haswell, 16gb of RAM, and an aftermarket cooler.
thom804 - This sort of advice is a bit dangerous without real qualification - if he already has a Skylake board, the opportunity for 'profit' is probably a bit limited - they're not changing hands for silly money like IB (z77, for instance) or x58 boards. Assuming it's a half-decent Skylake board, I'd personally build around that. The latest architecture, whilst not earth-shatteringly more efficient or faster, is very good. Plus, it's going to be a bit more futureproof buying some (perhaps a little more expensive) DDR4. Yes - I'd go Skylake. The i5-6400 is sub-£150 on Scan and it's a very capable chip. Plus, 8Gb of Corsair Vengeance (2x4Gb) is sub-£45 on Scan. That's less than £200 and limited faff. You'd probably end up spending more than that once you've messed about and changed the board. Plus - the latest and greatest, no?
If you already have a half decent board then stick with Skylake. Z87/Z97 board are going to be a pita to find in 6months+ time and that could be a problem down the line for your friend should his board snuff it!
3.7GHz, 2 Cores, 4 Threads. £91. I’ve just upgraded my mate to a 4170 (same as above except Haswell and a tenner cheaper) and its awesome. The cheapest usable Skylake i5 is £160!
My haswell based i3-4160 is doing me fine for gaming with GTX660s at 1080p. No noticeable drop from going from a Q6600.
Guys, what MicroATX Board would you recommend? Under £100. Cheaper the better if possible. I am assuming they dont come with WIFI like the ITX?
Eh? Is this a completely separate question now, in the same thread, or what? You've asked questions like this a couple of times now, and you'll get the same answer. Be more specific.
No, my mate has been given a Skylake motherboard and i was wondering which MicroATX board would be suitable for a Skylake CPU as he has been given an ITX one and he would prefer a bigger case so i said i would have the ITX board if i could find out what was a decent MicroATX board. I should have explained above. Sorry.
So he want's an mAtx board now then? So you're back to Skylake vs Haswell with Haswell being cheaper if you're getting a board, cpu and ram.