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

[Sora_Blue]

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 ?

buy the motherboard + i5 skylake, and the GTX 960. Save your HDD and your Ram (100$).

Skylake isn't meant to run on DDR3 smartass. And then there's the additional cost of actually buying Windows 10 as that is the only OS supported by Skylake.

[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 ?

buy the motherboard + i5 skylake, and the GTX 960. Save your HDD and your Ram (100$).

Skylake isn't meant to run on DDR3 smartass. And then there's the additional cost of actually buying Windows 10 as that is the only OS supported by Skylake.

Oh, sorry, didn't read the memory very well.

Well @Shawn, you got 12 gb of memory, it's your choice to change them for DDR4 or get a DDR3 processor.

And Brian is right about the SO; idk if VC:MP is actually compatible with W10, i would really choose the i5 4th; or an i7 for 100$ more.

[Sora_Blue]

Oh, sorry, didn't read the memory very well.

Well @Shawn, you got 12 gb of memory, it's your choice to change them for DDR4 or get a DDR3 processor.

And Brian is right about the SO; idk if VC:MP is actually compatible with W10, i would really choose the i5 4th; or an i7 for 100$ more.

I think one of my m8s is playing vcmp on windows 10, not sure tho'.
Anyway I suggest you upgrade to Haswell as there is almost no performance difference between the two. Actually with some time and effort it can smoke any Skylake processor.

[GangstaRas]

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 ?

Get a real GPU and a PSU to match. The i3 3220 is going to need an upgrade eventually to an i5 but its definitely capable of satisfying you for a good while if paired with a good GPU. I have the i3 3240 but a GTX 960


Windows 10 compatible with VCMP, I'm on Windows 10, didn't even have to flip one compatibility setting

[Sahaj/Blurry]

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 ?

Get a real GPU and a PSU to match. The i3 3220 is going to need an upgrade eventually to an i5 but its definitely capable of satisfying you for a good while if paired with a good GPU. I have the i3 3240 but a GTX 960

Same here.
I'm running an i3 2120 but with a GTX 960. It performs phenomenal in almost every game. GTA 5 is the only game I've come across wherein my i3 limits my framerates to some extent. I'm in no mood of buying a new motherboard so i will settle for something like an i5 3470 or 3570k ( will have to see which one is available here)

[GangstaRas]

Same here.
I'm running an i3 2120 but with a GTX 960. It performs phenomenal in almost every game. GTA 5 is the only game I've come across wherein my i3 limits my framerates to some extent. I'm in no mood of buying a new motherboard so i will settle for something like an i5 3470 or 3570k ( will have to see which one is available here)

Same plan I had. Might want to look into the Xeons though if your motherboard supports them, they're excellent for the money, i7 performance for i5 prices. Their only downfall is no iGPU depending on the model, so if your card dies, your system is temporarily dead

[Dr.Shawn]

Going for a gtx 960 will be good that means.
The thing which daze me is that should I go for DDR 4 Ram and a new motherboard ?
I have heard that the main difference b/w DDR3 and DDR4 is the power consumption and it will not effect my gaming experience at all, is that correct ?
also a 450W psu will be enough to run a gtx 960 ?

[GangstaRas]

Going for a gtx 960 will be good that means.
The thing which daze me is that should I go for DDR 4 Ram and a new motherboard ?
I have heard that the main difference b/w DDR3 and DDR4 is the power consumption and it will not effect my gaming experience at all, is that correct ?
also a 450W psu will be enough to run a gtx 960 ?

As of now, yeah that's the only advantage generally of DDR4. Games have not been optimized yet to take advantage of the huge bandwidth jump however iGPUs benefit significantly as they use the main system RAM as VRAM. Personally I would say to invest in a DDR4 system simply because the technology is newer and there is no price disadvantage really. DDR3 and DDR4 and all computer components supporting each side cost almost the same money so might as well buy the latest.

When looking at PSUs you have to look at the brand and the failure rate. Seasonic is a good place to invest but you can buy EVGA, Antec, Cooler Master or Corsair ones too (be cautious of which Corsair). 450 W is enough, I'm running my 960 on an Corsair CX430 which is only a 430W PSU. Not one issue running the card nor overclocking it. If you have overclockable CPUs however, I'd personally be more comfortable with 500W PSUs

[Vedder]

Going for a gtx 960 will be good that means.
The thing which daze me is that should I go for DDR 4 Ram and a new motherboard ?
I have heard that the main difference b/w DDR3 and DDR4 is the power consumption and it will not effect my gaming experience at all, is that correct ?
also a 450W psu will be enough to run a gtx 960 ?

I would suggest you more than 500w to run it without problems.

By the way, @Brian, do you have a constant stuttering in GTA V? Or just in some moments?

[Sora_Blue]

I only played gta 5 once which was torrented in order to benchmark my system, still planning on buying it sometime soon.
As for your question, no. I run it perfectly fine at max settings with 150 FPS average (~100 on one GPU). Stuttering only occurs when you have insufficient amount of VRAM which I have plenty of.

[GangstaRas]

I have GTA5 and I get roughly 60 fps maxed out at 1024x768, and around 48 fps average max out at 1080p. Cuz of my CPU I hit 39 fps sometimes driving through the city at 1080p, 44 fps sometimes at the 1024 res but its rare, definitely not all the time, fairly rare. If I had an i5, it would be ~55 fps at all times.

The minute I turn off hyperthreading on my i3 to effectively make it a Pentium, GTA5 cannot run beyond 40 fps and it dips into the 28 fps levels. That's just for anyone who thinks they can cheap out and buy the overclockable Pentium. Worst decision you will ever make