$250 budget, what route to go?

branden_lucero · February 23, 2016

several years ago, i built this for my cousin. $400 total, including the monitor, so minus $120+ including the monitor and peripherals and it would roughly be a little more than $250. so yeah, it was a fun experiencing what i could pull off.

Ben_Upde · February 28, 2016

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and input.

I ended up getting the open-box i7 6700K, which was sent in only a static baggie

I also got the Asus Z170-A motherboard, which was actually a factory refurbished part, so I'm happy with that.

Picked up 16GB of DDR4, was only 2133 but that was what was available at the moment, and was on sale for $90.

Either way, system is back up and running and I have gotten some impressive results.

Overclocked to 4.7Ghz @1.4V (seems about average) so I know the CPU is at least good.

Motherboard does everything it is supposed to with no strange noises or problems so all good there.

RAM is sitting happily @2800Mhz at 1.2V so for now I am happy with that.

Cinebench R.15 results went from 675CB on the FX@4.4Ghz to 1004CB@4.7 on the i7

Dying light gameplay has increased drastically. My 270x CF setup now runs between 75-150FPS with no gameplay lag, and CPU utilization never reaches more than 45% across all 8 threads.

Tomb Raider benchmark went from 82FPS avg on the FX to 112FPS avg on the i7.

All in all, SUPER HAPPY with the new power on my system. Should have gone this route to begin with.

Moral of the story: unless AMD gets their shit together, don't waste your money on one of their processors. They are stuck in the stone age as far as I'm concerned!