Need help deciding on components.

[eira]

Hi,

 

I currently have a prebuilt PC with an i5-4460, 8GB AMD R5 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM, a reference GTX 960 2GB, a Gigabyte B85 mATX motherboard and an FSP 350W PSU..

Is it worth upgrading the RAM, CPU and PSU or is it better just building from scratch?

I will be using FL Studio, playing CS:GO, Forza Horizon 3/4, beamng.drive, Spintires, GTA V and My Summer Car on this PC primarily. 

If the verdict is to build from scratch then I'll post on here 2 builds I'm considering. 

My budget is about £800/€900/$1000

 

Thanks  

 

 

p.s. I'll be building around November, December and January as I need time to get parts.

[Crunchy Dragon]

You can upgrade pretty well on that platform. A used i7-4770K/4790K motherboard bundle shouldn't be too hard to find. After that, grab some more DDR3 and a better GPU.

[eira]

3 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

You can upgrade pretty well on that platform. A used i7-4770K/4790K motherboard bundle shouldn't be too hard to find. After that, grab some more DDR3 and a better GPU.

Yeah. Although for a bit more money I could get an X79 motherboard and an i7 3960X (possibly a 4960X). Z87/Z97 motherboard bundles are like £100/£150 so idk whether to go for X79 or not as it'd only be about £100 more. Would the performance boost be enough to warrant that extra spending though?

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, 1kv said:

Yeah. Although for a bit more money I could get an X79 motherboard and an i7 3960X (possibly a 4960X). Z87/Z97 motherboard bundles are like £100/£150 so idk whether to go for X79 or not as it'd only be about £100 more. Would the performance boost be enough to warrant that extra spending though?

X79 isn't a bad platform by any means.

 

There's a 2% performance difference between in the 4790K's favor: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4960X-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K/1977vs2384

They're basically equal performance chips, so basically whichever one is more available and cheaper would be your best option.

[eira]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

X79 isn't a bad platform by any means.

 

There's a 2% performance difference between in the 4790K's favor: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4960X-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K/1977vs2384

They're basically equal performance chips, so basically whichever one is more available and cheaper would be your best option.

Looks like I'm going for the 4790K then. Thanks!  

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, 1kv said:

Looks like I'm going for the 4790K then. Thanks!  

No problem!

 

Another thing I will say is definitely do not cheap out on the PSU. Check our PSU Tier List and pick at least a Tier 3 unit: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/631048-psu-tier-list-updated/

[eira]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Another thing I will say is definitely do not cheap out on the PSU. Check our PSU Tier List and pick at least a Tier 3 unit: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/631048-psu-tier-list-updated/

Wow, I've not seen the PSU tier list in a while. Reminds me of 2016/2017 LTT forums (I have an account from 2016, it's @2kv)

Thanks for the link though, I'll be sure to check it out. 

[BelgianNoise]

on ebay a second hand 4790K goes for 160+. is it really worth it ?

[eira]

3 minutes ago, BelgianNoise said:

on ebay a second hand 4790K goes for 160+. is it really worth it ?

I think so. My i5 struggles with games like beamNG.drive and my GPU's 2GB VRAM struggles with anything over medium settings 1080p.