CPU advice needed.

[greypanther]

Well, I know it gets asked regularly and I really should search the forum for past answers, perhaps will, but I have specific questions I could need help with. Not to mention I need up to date info too.

It seems I am going to have to bite the bullet and finally upgrade the CPU on my PC, prompted by X4 of course. Thing is the number of options is just bewildering to be honest and not a little daunting. I don't think I will have issues with the hardware, that should be quite straight forward, once I get past the bewildering choice of motherboard and actual CPU. I am considering just getting a whole new PC, but cost suggests that is a bad idea, cos I am poor. Never mind me wanting to avoid Windows 10 if I can. The issue will be the software, particularly with Windows, but the rest too. I have been told some horror stories in the past.

So any advice would be appreciated regarding which motherboard/ CPU. It wouldn't be so bad if I could get a very old CPU and just swap that over, probably, but it hard to find an eight year old CPU! I also need advice on how to deal with any potential software problem. Links to whole guides would be useful too.

I am going to give it a go with my present CPU, an i5 650, but hold out little hope as it only has two cores, not the needed 4.

[Ronald Sandoval]

I think your choice today is the same as it has always been if you have the money buy intel i9 they are the best . But AMD give better valuue i think Ryzen 5 offer best value for today Ryzen 7 offer best value for tomorrow
or go look on ebay for a good deal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... -christmas

[jlehtone]

"To avoid Win 10" ... Search with "Windows-7 Ryzen" yields things like:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11182/ho ... dows-7-x64

(That with assumption that AMD is cheaper than Intel, yet "close enough" in performance.)

[BugMeister]

you can get some really good 4-Core Intel i7 CPU's, if you shop around - sort of £300 to £500 price range..

[muppetts]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/in ... ,5281.html

I5 8400 and a coffee lake Mobo, no overclocking needed so cheapest mobo will do - Gigabyte B360 HD3 Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard is about 85 quid or Asus - TUF B360M-E GAMING Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard about the same. Literally just got my new MB, CPU, GPU through the door.

base clock rate is low but that's because...

'on the surface, a lower clock rate looks bad for performance but remember that Intel's Turbo Boost technology accelerates frequencies within certain parameters. This allows the -8400 to go quite a bit faster in workloads that don't tax all of the -8400's cores. As you can see in the table above, the 8400's multi-core Turbo Boost bins get a lot more aggressive than Core i5-7400's. And they only trail the -8600K by 300 MHz.'

As far as games go this will do you for some time with a 6GB 1060 , I never have had a MB that I could keep and upgrade anyway, my systems have lasted long enough (other 2 builds lasted 8 years each) that they were left behind by new socket of the bloody month!

Actually I am typing all this and I can just go to Overclockers UK and use their config, below is 893 with win10 and they build costs inc. + there are still sales on hardware about and the 1060 and i5 8400 are in allot of them.


Case Kolink Pitch Midi Tower Case - Black

Memory **non-Z370/Z390 motherboards limited to 2666MHz** Team Group Vulcan T-Force 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD48G2400

Power Supply Kolink KL-500 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

CPU Cooler Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler

Mechanical Hard Drive 1 Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - *System Stock*

Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 Home Advanced - Systems

Motherboard Gigabyte B360 HD3 Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard

Processor Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail

Graphics Asus GeForce GTX 1060 EX OC 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

[Nibel]

buy intel i9 they are the best

stop misleading and confusing peoples.
intel is utter shit and stupidly overpriced shit to boot.
you can get AMD half the price ten times better than intel and no need to change MB each chip. intel is money grabbing overhyped garbage.

[greypanther]

Thanks guys, useful answers, particularly muppets. Is overclockers uk a good place to buy then?

Assuming I am going to stick with Windows 7 and upgrade the mothrboard myself, can anyone point me in the direction of a reliable guide, on how to do it please? Also how about issues with all my software if I upgrade the motherboard/CPU, will Windows throw a wobbler and stop me? You make it sound easy muppets, if you are on your third build! Is it really just a case of swapping out the hardware and restarting? Any pointers and warnings would be useful. You mention sales and offers, is it worth waiting for the January sales, or do they not really happen for PC hardware?

I have heard many say AMD is better value, but not quite as good, but do not know. I guess a lot of is a gamble one way or another. To be honest I am leaning towards a new PC, even if that means Win 10. I have always been too daunted to attempt a motherboard change.

[euclid]

Changing the MoBo is a challenging task because you need to remove almost everything to get to the "bottom" of your case. Muppets provided already some good advice on possible MoBo & CPU combinations. When you order the new parts then do not forget to get some thermal paste for the CPU cooler. You may even want to consider to buy a new CPU cooler because the old thermal paste sticks to it and is difficult to remove (you need to do that before applying new thermal paste). To get the CPU into the MoBo is nowadays straightforward. Once it is in apply thermal paste and mount the cooler (there are many videos on youtube for details).

Since you "only" going to change the MoBo & CPU you should not worry about your software/OS.

Now remove the memory sticks and put them into your new Mobo. And now comes the big part: You need to unplug all your drives, the PSU, the gfx card, fan connectors etc. form the old MoBo. Most likely you need to remove some parts, like the gfx card and some part of the cable spaghetti to access the screws that keep your old MoBo in place. If you never done that before it's a good idea to take a picture so you get an idea where what connection was. Once you have removed the old MoBo just reverse the process. Be aware that the new MoBo may have connectors at different locations (consult the description that comes with the MoBo).

Hope that helps.

Cheers Euclid

[jlehtone]

When you order the new parts then do not forget to get some thermal paste

Now remove the memory sticks and put them into your new Mobo.

Some cooler packages do include paste.

The i5-650 supports DDR3 RAM. Recent AMD and Intel CPU generations support DDR4. Therefore, "remove and put" is not feasible; one needs new RAM too. (There might be some "support both RAM types" combos, but I'd steer clear of them.)

[muppetts]

Overclockers UK are reliable for the config and the prices, been around for ages, had a bit of a wobble when German 'CaseKing' took them over but they got back on track a while ago.

I certainly find it very exciting or stressful never quite sure!

I have a good case and I have a good watercooling system for the cpu, really I just needed cpu, mobo and GC, I have an old soundblaster fatal1ty which is more than enough, previously I have started from scratch and sold the old system on for parts or whole but now I have much less money.

I balanced off the match ups, AMD/Radeon with Intel/Nvid which I feel are natural pairs, then I started looking at what could last me 6-8 years and what was on sale now.

https://www.tomshardware.com/

The above site is great, very impartial and packed with great info, especially in-depth reviews and comparisons.

For me the 8400 having the ability to ramp up performance so I don't need to bother with overclocking, which I hate, also means I can get a cheaper mobo as I don't need the extra's.

Certainly the whole AMD/Intel is a choice on what you can find on sale or a good price and if you have any preference, clearly some people are more passionate about the subject, if a little light on actual facts to compare but I go on actual performance tests and after 6 hours of reading up on CPU's/GC's I can afford with the help of toms site, I am pretty happy with a 1060 Nvid and the 8400.

I did wait a little to save up and get DDR4 memory but I save as I have a 500 SSD and 2 old 1TB spin em up! drives so I do not need to replace them.

Use Overclockers Config to play around, as the case size and the mobo/fan choices have impact, they will red line a combo where the case has size issues which is great, even if you are keeping the old case you can compare volume with a similar on the config and make sure you have no issues fitting stuff in.

Between Toms H and the Overclockers Config you can get a good idea of what parts you can afford and what you need, then you spend a month trying to save up cos you chose bits you can't afford!

[Ronald Sandoval]

new pc building now days is easier than lego and whats more there is this great place called youtube

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... -christmas

[Terre]

I would recommend an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Gen2 6 Core, currently 144.98 on Scan, paired with an B450 motherboard, I have an ASUS AMD Ryzen ROG STRIX B450-F AM4 ATX GAMING.

[Aragon Speed]

To help narrow things down, here's a helpful vid on the current CPU choices you should be looking at.

Top 5 Best CPUs November 2018

[greypanther]

More great replies, ( mostly, ) thank you.

I suppose my PC has been running for eight years, time to replace entirely maybe, so now I guess I have to get my head around Windows 10.

[Ronald Sandoval]

what ever you do dont buy a 4 core cpu i think the future games are going to require more cores so more cores + hyper threading

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... -christmas

check this out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCss3Q ... BAetIo0qXA

[jlehtone]

there is this great place called youtube

That has "How to build" videos, "Everything is Wrong in the 'How to build' videos" videos, "Cutest cat ever builds" videos, ...


Thankfully the Aragon's "Top 5" link has also a written version. A video is waste of bandwidth for such content.
Tom's HW has slightly different "Top N gaming": https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/be ... ,3986.html

[greypanther]

I am now playing X4 on my current set up, whilst monitoring the CPU temps as I play. From comments here, half expecting it to burst into flames!
Thing is, how high is too high? The highest I have got so far is 51 degrees C, which is not that high, but opinions vary with some saying they often get upto 100 degrees! So how far should I push it?

By the way, X4 plays fine so far, though only after a couple of hours so far.

[pjknibbs]

You should probably monitor the GPU temps as well--from what I hear, X4 is unusual for an X game in riding the GPU more than it does the CPU. As for how hot is too hot, if the CPU is hot enough to start throttling itself down to avoid burnout then you've gone too far, but when that happens depends on the CPU to some extent. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable running any CPU above 75C, but I like to have a bit of spare room in case of problems.

[jlehtone]

I have a (practically idle) NAS with Atom. The GUI shows 71-72C all the time. That is unnerving, but ok so far.
I've seen a desktop, where parallel 'make' is now very audible and temps reach 100C. I suspect that TIM has dried (of old age).
I've seen NVidia Quadro GPU run ~70C (idle) 24/7 for years and throttle at 100C (when dust totally clogs the cooler).

Years ago, I had AMD board that did throttle the CPU on load. I had put tower cooler on the CPU and tuned fan speed down. The motherboard did the throttling, not to save the CPU but to keep the VRM cool (stock CPU cooler directs more airflow onto those components). According to Fora of the time, the other brand motherboards lacked such safety measure and their VRM could indeed send smoke signals.

In other words:
If your cooling is clean and good, then you should be ok.

[greypanther]

Thanks for that guys, your info is reassuring.

The CPU is running at about 24 degrees on idle, but I have never really monitored that closely before. The GPU is another matter, mainly because it runs hot with Far Cry 5, but well within parameters, according to Nvidia. It runs a little cooler with X4, which is good. I don't want to get too confident, but it seems I can put off Windows 10 for a little longer!
< Goes round touching wood; checking the lucky charms, etc. >