What to choose: APU, Haswell, Skylake or FX. (1st Part)

[Vedder]

Hello . If you are looking to upgrade/build a PC from Core 2 Duo / Phenom / etc. i would like to help you depending of many factors a good choice for a fresh start with a good socket processor and looking for 1080p gaming resolution and 720p HD.

To start i want to tell you that i don't have idea about U$S prices in EEUU; or the money that you use, i will try to be the most accurate possible.

First, i want you to watch the follow video, it may help you, not even with graphics card, also with processors choice:



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1. It's crucial to know which motherboard you will choose, if one for Crossfire / SLI, Four Channel, Overclocking, etc... the most important thing, is the socket and the memory tipe.

If you are going to choose i3/i5/i7/ 4xxx / Pentium GXXX, the socket is LGA1150 and DDR3.

If you are going to choose AMD FX, the socket is AM3+ and DDR3.

If you are going to buy i3/i5/i7/Pentium Skylake, the socket is 1151 and DDR4.

There are a lot of sockets and chipsets to buy, i usually recommend the chipset B85 for Haswell (Intel), H170 for Skylake (Intel) and Asus Evo 2.0 for AMD FX Processors. ALLWAYS A88x chipset for APUs.

Now, lets suppose that i have 450 U$S, and i'm looking for 1080p, without importance about details settings.

In this case, it's very difficult to say something if you are looking for an upgrade. APU is not a bad choice if you don't care about details / resolution, but if you buy an APU, take for sure that you will need a faster RAM, a good chipset from your motherboard, and it's very possible that, even A10 Godavari, to bottleneck your PC if you buy a i.e. R9 380 - GTX 970.

This is the first option:

- APU A10 7850K
 - 2x4 Corsair Vengeance 2133 Mhz
 - EVGA 500w 80 Plus
 - 1 TB Western Digital
 - Thermaltake Versa
 - A88X Chipset Motherboard

 All for about 420$ (Amazon)

Now, if you are looking or you are fanboy of Intel, there are better / many options, i.e. G4400 (Skylake DDR4) or i3 + GPU in that range of price. I personally recommend this option, because you have too much posibilities to upgrade (i5 - i7) the processor and the GPU by separated way, and you aren't stuck like with the APU. I don't recommend absolutely nothing FX Processors, they're old and need an extra-cooler to work properly without high temperatures.

i3 6100 Skylake
H110 Gigabyte Motherboard
2x4 DDR4 Kingston HyperX Fury
EVGA 500w 80 Plus
Thermaltake Versa/Commander
1TB Western Digital
R7 250x (Regular for 1080p, very good for 720p)
 
All about 470$ (Amazon), clearly a very better option and performance, just for a little bit more of cash.

You can look at: R7 250x, R7 260x, R7 370 or R9 380. It depends of how much performance you want and how much MONEY you have.

That is the minimum needed for 1080p gaming, you can also take a look at the A8 7650k or decrease the case price, if you have - money than 400$

If you have no more than 250$, you can't expect so much from this. You just can play TF2, SA:MP, GTA IV... etc,

For these situations, i recommend you an A6-6600K, with a standard motherboard, case and power supply, 4GB of RAM, and 1TB Disk.

Or, you can get a G3250 intel processors, that is a lot better than the A6 but it's integrated graphics is poor. If you choose it, get an HD 6670 atleast (to discard the needing of a power supply).

600 U$S PCs:

- i5 4460
 - 2x4 Corsair Vengeance
 - GTX 950
 - B85
 - Seasonic 620W
 - Corsair Carbide 100R
 - 1 TB Disk.

With a PC like this, you can run every game to 1080p Medium-High settings, so that's the concept of price to performance, i personally recommend this option for a medium-high gaming experience. You will get more than 40-50fps in any game, at exception of AC Unity / Syndicate, badly optimized games.
 
800 U$S PCs:

Processor: i5 4460/4590/4690k
Motherboard: Asus / Gigabyte / MSI B85/H97
RAM: Corsair / GSkill / Kingston 2x4GB 1600MHz CL9
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue / Caviar Black
SDD (Optional): Samsung Evo 250 GB
Video-graphics Card: GTX 950 / GTX 960 4GB / R9 380 4GB / R9 380x
PSU: 600w 80 Plus (Antec, Cooler Master, Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, TT, XFX)
Case: TT V3 / V4 / Commander - Cooler Master N300 - Corsair Carbide 100R


Gloriouses PCs Gaming Master Race (more than 1000/1500$):

Processor: i7 4790k (1150) / i5 6600k / i7 6700k (Skylake)
Motherboard: Asus Z97 / Gigabyte H170 (for Skylakes)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 / DDR4
HDD: 2TB x 2 Western Digital Caviar Blue
SDD (Optional): Samsung Pro 1 TB
Video-graphics Card: GTX 970 / 980 Ti
PSU: 750w 80 Plus (Antec, Cooler Master, Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, TT, XFX)
Case: CoolerMaster Trooper


The post will be in constantly update, if you have a doubt you can ask any community or me on IRC. I hope to have helped you.

[Thijn]

This post looks horrible with the colors and sizes, but that aside.
Whatever PC you wanna choose, always get an SSD. There's absolutely nothing that can give your PC such a speed boost for that little amount of money.

[Vedder]

This post looks horrible with the colors and sizes, but that aside.
Whatever PC you wanna choose, always get an SSD. There's absolutely nothing that can give your PC such a speed boost for that little amount of money.

I have never used an SSD, its so powerful really as that?

I'm going to buy an 850 Evo at June but some friends have said to me that the difference ain't that big if you have i.e. 120GB of SSD, is it true or the difference may be higher with a 250GB SSD?

By the way, Intel SSD or Samsung?

[Thijn]

I personally only use Samsung SSDs, so don't know the quality of Intels'.
Yes, the speed boost is mental.

[GangstaRas]

Intel SSDs are a good place to invest. In technicality they're probably better than the Samsungs but its nothing to brag home about, so you just buy the cheaper one (Intel SSDs are overpriced)

[Sahaj/Blurry]

To all those people who will be buying new pc parts/build:

Please do some homework/research on your part. By homework/research I meant - read, just read the articles related to PC building and other stuff. Be passionate about PCs even if it means becoming an absolute nerd. PC building/buying parts is not a child's play as most people may think. Research and analysis on your part is not only crucial for investing in pc build/parts but also for diagnosis for problems that may occur in future.

[Sora_Blue]

This post looks horrible with the colors and sizes, but that aside.
Whatever PC you wanna choose, always get an SSD. There's absolutely nothing that can give your PC such a speed boost for that little amount of money.

I have never used an SSD, its so powerful really as that?

I'm going to buy an 850 Evo at June but some friends have said to me that the difference ain't that big if you have i.e. 120GB of SSD, is it true or the difference may be higher with a 250GB SSD?

By the way, Intel SSD or Samsung?

They are powerful, I currently have PCIe SSDs running at 1GB+ speeds, boot up times less than a second.
Also Intel's build quality and warranty is superior. I prefer Intel as they have been doing a good job for me over the past years.

[Dr.Shawn]

I will assemble a new PC soon
My budget will be around 750$
It will be good if someone can help me out of it.

[Vedder]

I will assemble a new PC soon
My budget will be around 750$
It will be good if someone can help me out of it.

get a R9 380 and an i5 obviously. The motherboard (B85/H97) is your decision, and the power supply, Seasonic 620w will be cool.

Edit:

2x4 Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAM: 40$
Seasonic Bronze II 620w 80 Plus: 75$
GTX 960 4GB GDDR5: 210$
Intel Core i5 4460: 180$
Asus Motherboard B85: 70$
Seagate 1TB Disk: 50$
SSD Kingston 120GB: 45$
Thermaltake Versa H21: 35$
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO: 40$

Total: 745$

Everything High to Ultra, 1080p. Very satisfactory gaming experience.
     

[GangstaRas]

They are powerful, I currently have PCIe SSDs running at 1GB+ speeds, boot up times less than a second

These ones, how much PCIe lanes they use?

[Dr.Shawn]

Why nobody recommends the 6000+ series of i5 ?
Does it work it to go for i7 if I can ? If yes then which one I should go for ?

[Vedder]

Why nobody recommends the 6000+ series of i5 ?
Does it work it to go for i7 if I can ? If yes then which one I should go for ?

i5 Skylakes don't make a great difference with the i5 4690k, but they are the new socket of Intel, so my bad, you should go for one of them, or if you think that i7 4790k (top limit of 1150 Socket) is enough for you, well, it's your decision.

Do you want overclock or just clocked at default Ghz?

i5 6500: 210$, i5 6600k (OC): 240$
Motherboard B150: 100$ to 85$
2x4 DDR4 Ram: 45$

Total Skylake: 395$ (6600k)
Total Haswell: 295$

There is a big difference, if you are still going for the new Intel's processors, i recommend you to start with an i3. When you get more money, update to i5/i7.

[Dr.Shawn]

I'm currently using i3 3220
12 gb DDR 3 ran (4+8)
ECS H61H2-MV Intel Motherboard
and a geforce 610GT 2gb
1TB HDD
I was about to leave this PC for my Dad's office, but since its going out of budget, I will upgrade it instead.
Any recommendations ?

[Sora_Blue]

They are powerful, I currently have PCIe SSDs running at 1GB+ speeds, boot up times less than a second

These ones, how much PCIe lanes they use?

Depends on the interface they use.
If you go with NVMe based interfaces such as Intel's flagship SSDs then you will be using 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

[Vedder]

I'm currently using i3 3220
12 gb DDR 3 ran (4+8)
ECS H61H2-MV Intel Motherboard
and a geforce 610GT 2gb
1TB HDD
I was about to leave this PC for my Dad's office, but since its going out of budget, I will upgrade it instead.
Any recommendations ?

It's your choice as i said after this; or saving your RAM but buy a DDR3 4th processor, or lost 12gb of RAM but buy a DDR4 6th processor.