What is the minimum acceptable upgrade can I get?

[kitnoman]

I promised myself I would skip this generation too but I have this itch that won't go away. So now I'm having a battle with myself. So I have an i5 8400 8th gen, and I have a budget of $250 to $400( the more affordable the better of course) for a new processor. What are processors that's worth the upgrade basing on price and performance? I'm mainly gaming and some basic work from home stuff. In general, how many percentage of performance increase do you guys consider worth the upgrade? Thanks.

[tkitch]

I would not upgrade 2 generations.  You need a CPU and Board, and that'll eat your max budget for a meh upgrade.  

[TheBean]

unfortunately you're stuck with intel with that budget since switching to AMD will require a new motherboard. (AMD mobo will cost >150usd)

what motherboard do you have right now since that will determine compatibility. 

[Prometheus935]

37 minutes ago, kitnoman said:

I promised myself I would skip this generation too but I have this itch that won't go away. So now I'm having a battle with myself. So I have an i5 8400 8th gen, and I have a budget of $250 to $400( the more affordable the better of course) for a new processor. What are processors that's worth the upgrade basing on price and performance? I'm mainly gaming and some basic work from home stuff. In general, how many percentage of performance increase do you guys consider worth the upgrade? Thanks.

Are you getting any bottlenecking on the CPU? I would say that most games today would run perfectly fine on that CPU without any bottlenecks. And as @tkitchsaid if you go for a newer CPU that would be better performance you would have to look at getting a new motherboard too. 

 

So I would say don't bother especially if your not even having any bottlenecking on the CPU to begin with.

[kitnoman]

 

42 minutes ago, tkitch said:

I would not upgrade 2 generations.  You need a CPU and Board, and that'll eat your max budget for a meh upgrade.  

That is just my budget for cpu, by mobo budget is round $100-200, I live in asia and I live to think that we have a fair amount of selection of B550/x570 for amd and z470/z490 and z590(the cheap kind, so no go for 11th gen) for intel that is under my budget.

 

27 minutes ago, Prometheus935 said:

Are you getting any bottlenecking on the CPU? I would say that most games today would run perfectly fine on that CPU without any bottlenecks. And as @tkitchsaid if you go for a newer CPU that would be better performance you would have to look at getting a new motherboard too. 

 

So I would say don't bother especially if your not even having any bottlenecking on the CPU to begin with.

I don't think so, my system is fairly balance right now. However I'm one of those people who can't afford to upgrade their whole system at the same time. I was suppose to upgrade my gpu 1st, but judging today's standards, I probably won't be able to until Dec or Jan (fingers crossed). I'm actually been sitting on my budget for a while now and for some reason started to spend them on other things ahahaha.

[tkitch]

If you want to upgrade?

Hold off for next generation, and get in on some new DDR5 goodness.  That way future builds can use the memory.  (DDR4 is coming to an EOL this generation.) 

[Mister Woof]

What's your graphics card?

[CryingWimp]

IMO sell your MB/CPU and get a 10700/11700 which ever model and version is cheapest. Switching platforms isn't as expensive as it appears, your current stuff has resale value.

 

6 threads can definitely be an issue, but I wouldn't spend a lot of money on an older 6 core i7 just to have hyperthreading. A real upgrade is 8 cores/16 threads. That would be massive enough of an upgrade to be worth the time/cost. IMO

 

If your current motherboard supports and is decent enough to handle a 9900k that is a great option. Assuming you can find one for a decent price.

 

Does the 250-400 include selling your parts, or does selling your parts increase this?

[MadGoatHaz]

Board: $100

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089FY7QT1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_VFJ9H8VSDWR5AKEH47VN

 

Proc: $300

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SXMZLPK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_5YW1BAEHKMJ35DKVDBZ4

 

Decent (upgradeable) setup that will last you a couple years.

 

[CryingWimp]

IMO avoid Ryzen 3000, 10th/11th gen intel is cheaper and faster.

[rockyroller]

17 hours ago, kitnoman said:

I promised myself I would skip this generation too but I have this itch that won't go away. So now I'm having a battle with myself. So I have an i5 8400 8th gen, and I have a budget of $250 to $400( the more affordable the better of course) for a new processor. What are processors that's worth the upgrade basing on price and performance? I'm mainly gaming and some basic work from home stuff. In general, how many percentage of performance increase do you guys consider worth the upgrade? Thanks.

The best advice you are ever going to get is to only upgrade when what you have can't run the program what you need to run in the way you would like to. And then go all out and buy a whole new computer with the fastest parts you can get. 1 bit a time if you had too.

The only second bit of advice you might get from other people with your current PC is to sell it to get money whilst it is still sellable so you have cash for the new PC.

 

I might only upgrade your PC depending on the motherboard. Did it have NVMe for faster load times? Was it limited in some other way?

I might swap the cooling system for an quality AiO watercooler so it can be O/C and later on moved to the next PC. Or put in a lastest Gfx card if that were a issue.

 

[kitnoman]

Thanks for the help, I can definitely can still run the games that I want to play at the moment. But I'm also having some weird issues, either with the mobo, os or the wireless mouse itself, but that's another story. Anyway, thank you for the help, I'll just wait 3months(thinking happy thoughts), prices are coming down in our local market so I'll probably upgrade gpu/cpu/mobo and power psu by then.

 

On 7/2/2021 at 11:02 PM, Mister Woof said:

What's your graphics card?

currently have a 1060 6gb, that's why I can't wait for the prices to go back to normal, have around 800-1000 budget for a gpu now if I don't upgrade my cpu/mobo. So save some more until oct just to by everything else.

 

On 7/3/2021 at 6:48 AM, rockyroller said:

I might only upgrade your PC depending on the motherboard. Did it have NVMe for faster load times? Was it limited in some other way?

I might swap the cooling system for an quality AiO watercooler so it can be O/C and later on moved to the next PC. Or put in a lastest Gfx card if that were a issue.

 

Currently have 2tb of gen3 nvme for my games, an old 2.5 ssd for my os and hdd for everything else.