FM2/FM2+ socket help

[Yorkshire19931]

Afternoon, 

 

 I'm after some advice on what CPU I should buy for my prehistoric Motherboard. I can fit FM2/FM2+ CPUs, the obvious beauty of this is that parts should be mega cheap for me to buy, and also fairly easy to find these days. 

 

 I use my PC for gaming, web browsing & YouTube, that's pretty much it really. Ive got an Xbox One X for the 4k stuff and newer games, so pushing my PC too much further isn't really something I'm wanting, I just want to give it the best CPU I can currently for gaming.

 My PC games are mostly older titles, PC exclusives and the free games Epic gives away so I don't really need a Ryzen 7 or whatever number they're on now. 

 

 Currently I have an AMD A4-6300, I think it's a dual core 3.69ghz and it's surprisingly good at handling games paired with my GTX 750ti. I can get 1080p on Skyrim and it runs fine, no high temps, there's no weird freezing or frame drops, nothing. I can't figure out how it runs so well with the weak specs it's got compared to today's machines.

 I've looked online at a few lists but I can't quite make sense of whats the best choice for me really. I did see some AMD quad core CPU and straight away this is the one that's jumped out at me more than anything else, but I really don't know what to choose for my needs. 

 

 Thanks for reading, any help will be greatly appreciated. 

 

[8tg]

Your best choices would be the later Athlon x4 quadcores, such as the 840 or 860k. An 860k being the best reasonable option and they’re about 25$ on eBay.

 

Considering the cost of these chips being nothing, there’s not really any reason to buy anything less than the higher end models. There is also the 880K but theyre about 50-70$, price for 4ghz on FM2+

[8tg]

5 minutes ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

I can't figure out how it runs so well with the weak specs it's got compared to today's machines.

Skyrim is a game from 2011 that ran originally on hardware from 2011, even my thinkpad X220 with an i5 2540m and integrated intel HD3000 graphics plays it acceptably at 720p all low.

So desktop hardware of the era with a mid range gpu handles it fine, and the hardware you have is a few years newer and far from the low end.

 

[jaslion]

11 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Skyrim is a game from 2011 that ran originally on hardware from 2011, even my thinkpad X220 with an i5 2540m and integrated intel HD3000 graphics plays it acceptably at 720p all low.

So desktop hardware of the era with a mid range gpu handles it fine, and the hardware you have is a few years newer and far from the low end.

 

Keep in mind that 2540m is better than basically anything on fm2.

[Yorkshire19931]

Thanks for your reply, I'll take what you said and look for an 880k then. I also see what you mean about considering costs and going for the best I can get. 

 As for Skyrim running well for the reasons you gave, now I've read that it seems really obvious haha. 

 

 Sometimes I feel like my hardware is next to nothing and its not worth upgrading but reading that it's far from the low end is awesome, so thanks man!

 

 Just another quick question too as I see a lot of comments saying "don't buy this brand/type", what thermal paste should I avoid? 

[Yorkshire19931]

6 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Keep in mind that 2540m is better than basically anything on fm2.

This has thrown me a little. The 2450m is better than near enough anything on FM2, I understand this, but why can that play at 720p all low while my less powerful hardware will play it at 1080p all high with only one or two things at medium?

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

This has thrown me a little. The 2450m is better than near enough anything on FM2, I understand this, but why can that play at 720p all low while my less powerful hardware will play it at 1080p all high with only one or two things at medium?

Better gpu by like a LOT LOT.

[Yorkshire19931]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Better gpu by like a LOT LOT.

Oh right, I know integrated graphics aren't as good as cards but I was assuming the 2450m was better to the point that it made mine look like a child's toy

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

Oh right, I know integrated graphics aren't as good as cards but I was assuming the 2450m was better to the point that it made mine look like a child's toy

Cpu wise your a4 6300 is a childs toy compared to the i5. BUT the 750ti is like a godly being compared the the intel hd graphics :p.

[Yorkshire19931]

Just now, jaslion said:

Cpu wise your a4 6300 is a childs toy compared to the i5. BUT the 750ti is like a godly being compared the the intel hd graphics :p.

CPU wise this will be the next change I make to my 'puter, as for the Godlike 750ti I will be keeping this until it dies of natural causes haha. 

 

 One other thing, and sorry for the 68,426 stupid questions with probably blatantly obvious answers, Id want a new cooler with a new CPU too, is there a certain size I'd need to get so as to not be blocked by my impressive and sizable DDR3? I'm sure Ive seen Mr Linus fitting a cooler to something and ram got in the way so he had to use something smaller

[8tg]

2 hours ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

 

 Just another quick question too as I see a lot of comments saying "don't buy this brand/type", what thermal paste should I avoid? 

People get picky about thermal paste like anything else and honestly just don’t buy the no name stuff from aliexpress. A universal recommendation is basically anything made by Arctic, can’t really go wrong with them. Even their ancient ceramic stuff like ceramique 2 is pretty good.

 

[Yorkshire19931]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

People get picky about thermal paste like anything else and honestly just don’t buy the no name stuff from aliexpress. A universal recommendation is basically anything made by Arctic, can’t really go wrong with them. Even their ancient ceramic stuff like ceramique 2 is pretty good.

 

Awesome, thanks I'll call and get some Arctic for when I eventually need it.

 There's nothing I've ever wanted to buy from Aliexpress, never even visited that site. Don't know where you're from but over here in the UK there are shops which sell allsorts of random stuff for £1, air fresheners on one aisle and screwdrivers and 'herb' grinders on the next. From what I've seen of that site it's basically an online version of that. Not the big Pound shop chains, they're surprisingly acceptable, but the little ones you find dotted around in building which would be better empty 

[8tg]

9 minutes ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

Awesome, thanks I'll call and get some Arctic for when I eventually need it.

 There's nothing I've ever wanted to buy from Aliexpress, never even visited that site. Don't know where you're from but over here in the UK there are shops which sell allsorts of random stuff for £1, air fresheners on one aisle and screwdrivers and 'herb' grinders on the next. From what I've seen of that site it's basically an online version of that. Not the big Pound shop chains, they're surprisingly acceptable, but the little ones you find dotted around in building which would be better empty 

Aliexpress has some good stuff, it’s an outlet for brands you really don’t see outside of the eastern Asian market, for example for every computer component company you see in the EU/UK/US there’s a whole bunch more out there. Companies like Aigo or Segotep or the weird Nvidia AIBs like ASL, Forsa, Emtek, etc

 

So there’s a lot of other options on there for good products, but there’s also a lot of the almost stereotypical cheap Chinese crap.

 

[Herman Mcpootis]

3 hours ago, Yorkshire19931 said:

Thanks for your reply, I'll take what you said and look for an 880k then. I also see what you mean about considering costs and going for the best I can get. 

With how much the 880k costs, you could get an LGA 1155 xeon and board and it'll perform much better for the same price.

[Yorkshire19931]

8 hours ago, 8tg said:

Aliexpress has some good stuff, it’s an outlet for brands you really don’t see outside of the eastern Asian market, for example for every computer component company you see in the EU/UK/US there’s a whole bunch more out there. Companies like Aigo or Segotep or the weird Nvidia AIBs like ASL, Forsa, Emtek, etc

 

So there’s a lot of other options on there for good products, but there’s also a lot of the almost stereotypical cheap Chinese crap.

 

The cheap Chinese crap is what I thought this site was made for to be honest, but fair enough if its an outlet for a different market 

[Yorkshire19931]

8 hours ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

With how much the 880k costs, you could get an LGA 1155 xeon and board and it'll perform much better for the same price.

I wouldnt expect to be able to find a cpu and a board for the same price, always thought motherboards were among the most expensive PC parts to find. You've given me more to look at anyway, I'll do some more research and find out what's available to me