1. #1
    Field Marshal
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    Choosing a way to upgrade

    Budget: I'm not really sure as I actually CAN spend quite some money but I don't really WANT to.
    Resolution: 1920x1080
    Games / Settings Desired: World of Warcraft, CS:GO, probably some newer games like Fallout 4. I never mind dropping the settings to low-mid in order to achieve comfortable FPS rate, not looking for amazing performance on ultra tbh.
    Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc): I might start streaming from time to time if the hardware is sufficient
    Country: Russia
    Parts that can be reused: Case, SSD, HDD, (probably) PSU.
    Do you need an OS?: No
    Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)?: No

    My current specs are (looking to replace the underlined parts):
    CPU: AMD FX-Series FX-6300 OEM (overclocked to 4.5GHz)
    GPU: GeForce GTX760 MSI GAMING PCI-E 2048Mb (N760 TF 2GD5/OC) (slightly overclocked via MSI Afterburner)
    MoBo: ASUS M5A97 R2.0
    Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (RR-212E-20PK-R2)
    PSU: 550W XFX XTR (P1-550B-BEFX)
    RAM: 8Gb DDR-III 1600MHz Kingston HyperX Fury (HX316C10FRK2/8) (2x4Gb KIT)
    HDD: 1Tb SATA-III Western Digital Caviar Blue (WD10EZEX)
    SSD: 120Gb Crucial M500
    Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite Black
    Monitor: ASUS 24" VS247HR (1920x1080)

    I'm getting enraged quite often nowadays due to the FPS drops and freezes in mythic raiding environment and I even considered quitting the game just because of that.
    I've always been a min/maxer and want to stay competitive but I feel like my hardware is holding me back.
    I have all my video settings but texture detail and particle density set to low while in raids. My FPS is usually around 30 going down to 10 when there are a lot of visual effects and up to 45 when there's nothing serious happening in my FoV.
    While these numbers may seem fine, there's no smoothness at all. I want my PC to be able to offer a stable framerate at all times, right now it feels like a roller coaster.

    So the options I am considering are:

    1) Go for i5-7600k, ASUS Z270-K mobo and 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM.
    Pros:
    - there are plenty of these on the market right now so they can be bought easily at any time
    - great benchmark results, positive reviews from WoW players
    Cons:
    - not futureproof at all as Coffee Lake and Z300 chipset are right around the corner
    - pretty expensive
    - GPU bottlenecking

    Price: ~523$ (436€)

    2) Go for Ryzen 5 1600x , ASUS ROG STRIX B250H GAMING mobo and 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM.
    Pros:
    - AM4 seems to be very futureproof and the processor would probably deliver me the performance I want as I don't care about 4K or ultra settings
    - cheaper than the Intel build
    Cons:
    - won't be as good as even Pentium for WoW since the single thread performance is weaker
    - well... it's AMD and they tend to disappoint me after I buy their products... every single time
    - it's AMD.
    - once again, it's AMD (I know I'm biased but I can't do anything about it, I've been using AMD processors for the past 7 years and I've always dreamed of Intel but never dared to spend extra money)

    Price: ~503$ (421€)

    3) Wait until Coffee Lake comes out
    Pros:
    - it's gonna be newer and newer hardware can't be worse by default
    Cons:
    - it's probably going to not be worth the extra money paid so I'd have to go back to option #1 or #2

    Price: N/A

    4) Go cheap and grab those parts from Puppy build (G4500, MSI Pro Z270 and 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM)
    Pros:
    - even a homeless junkie can afford it!
    - this pentium seems to be a BEAST for the money paid
    Cons:
    - will probably only be good for WoW, not for CS:GO/Fallout 4/occasional streaming
    - would probably make me regret 1 year later as the performance would be insufficient

    Price: ~303$ (252€)

    There's something else to keep in mind:
    - I don't really have the money to upgrade the GPU right now and it'd have to wait something around 6 months
    - Even a 100$ difference is a big deal to me since I earn ~250$ a month
    - It'd be pretty hard to get money out of the parts I'm going to replace. I think I'd be lucky to be able to sell them for ~150$
    - I can't afford to upgrade my PC often
    - I might sell the whole PC for about 350$ but building the system from scratch would require me to spend about 1k$ and I don't really wanna get rid of my case, PSU, HDD and SSD as I find them decent enough.

    Option #2 is my favorite one but you guys have to convince me that I'm not going to regret buying the AMD processor.

    Every single advice would be greatly appreciated!
    Thanks for help in advance.
    Last edited by Verral; 2017-09-07 at 01:19 PM.
    - Give the sword to Verral, he's got russian damage dealer prio.
    © Twentytwo

  2. #2
    If your main game is wow I would consider waiting for coffee lake (5 october launch according to the latest rumours) you can get a 6c/6t CPU for the price of what is currently a 4c/4t CPU (or thereabouts) but also the new i3 will be cheaper and have 4c/4t this time around even though I would advise to get at least a 6 core CPU these days if you can afford it.

    Going the AMD route is also not a bad idea, price performance wise it is a realy good alternative, the new CPU's are not that much lower to intel's performance.

    Also depending on the age of your PSU you might want to consider changing it, it is the thing that will power all your new hardware.

  3. #3
    The Lightbringer MrPaladinGuy's Avatar
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    Since we're likely a month away, wait for Coffee Lake, it's what I'm doing and I'm on a temporary potato laptop. I wouldn't wait for anything after that though.
    10850k (10c 20t) @ all-core 5GHz @ 1.250v | EVGA 3080 FTW3 Ultra Gaming | 32GB DDR4 3200 | 1TB M.2 OS/Game SSD | 4TB 7200RPM Game HDD | 10TB 7200 RPM Storage HDD | ViewSonic XG2703-GS - 27" IPS 1440p 165Hz Native G-Sync | HP Reverb G2 VR Headset

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Verral View Post
    ]3) Wait until Coffee Lake comes out[/B]
    Pros:
    - it's gonna be newer and newer hardware can't be worse by default
    Cons:
    - it's probably going to not be worth the extra money paid so I'd have to go back to option #1 or #2
    This option. Your Con is simply not true. The Coffee Lake i5's I believe have been rumored to be about $20 more than their current i5 counterparts but will be 6c/6t instead of 4c/4t. 2 extra cores for $20 is absolutely worth it and you would never want to go back to option 1. As it is, you don't want option 1. The price/performance ratio is just not there. If you want to buy intel today buy a 7700k or a G4560. Anything in between is not worth it as there is an AMD solution that while it may be about 10-20% slower is about half as much.

  5. #5
    If you are doing a lot of video and rendering, I highly HIGHLY recommend at least 16g ddr4 or 32g ddr3

    though, starting at 8 and upgrading when you can works as well

  6. #6
    Field Marshal
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    I think I'll try to sell my whole PC and wait until Coffee Lake comes out. Just gotta find someone who'd be interested...
    The investment is gonna be the same but all the components are gonna be new if I do it this way.
    - Give the sword to Verral, he's got russian damage dealer prio.
    © Twentytwo

  7. #7
    Option 3, obviously. Doesnt really matter if it's WoW or not.
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