I need some help figuring out what I need.

[Demaurice]

So lets start off listening my current specs:

 

Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
    AMD FX-4100    35 °C
    Zambezi 32nm Technology
RAM
    16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 933MHz (10-11-10-30)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK Computer INC. M5A78L-M/USB3 (AM3R2)    52 °C
Graphics
    PL2473H (1920x1080@60Hz)
    8192MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 390 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner)    45 °C
Storage
    931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-08M2NA0 ATA Device (SATA)    41 °C
Optical Drives
    No optical disk drives detected
Audio
    Plantronics GameCom

Case

    Some old cooler master case that is not even listed on their website anymore, it also has a massive gap where there used to be an optical disk drive.

 

 

So for a while now I've been wanting to change the cpu and motherboard of my pc. Trying to listen music from youtube and having my games stutter because of the video playback taking too much cpu power is driving me crazy. Aswell as terribly slow video editing and several musical synthesizers just overrunning errors because of the cpu. Also the motherboard has been failing since I brought it home without protection in the train... So basically it blackscreens at first startup and always starts up after 1 reset. Really weird, but I have no idea how to fix that.

You might see from my specs that my budget isnt that great. 

Now I've been wanting to get a new motherboard and CPU for a while now, and the worst thing would be for me to upgrade and find out half a year later that I need an even better cpu for what I want to use it for.

Now what I want to achieve is atleast get rid of the problems listed above, but I would also want to record game footage and maybe stream aswell. I will not be gaming above full HD but if possible want to record at 60fps with OBS.

I've been wanting to save up for the i7 6700K, but then I'd have to sell the ram and buy new sticks again and it's just a lot of hassle.

Now I am pretty unfamiliar with CPU Price VS Speed or "bang for your buck" comparisons and with the budget I have, I'd rather not buy the i7 4790 but rather something as close to its performance as possible.

(sidenote: I will not be overclocking any cpu)

Also I've been looking at several motherboards with the least functions as I need, basically only 2 ram slots, 1 video card slot, enough usb ports on the back and the green audio jack, and support for usb 3.0 case when I have that money.

the Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 is the first motherboard I found for this. But I'm not sure if there might be a better/cheaper/more reliable option anywhere.

 

Thanks for all the help in advance!

 

Edit 3 (the more info the better the help i guess): my bank account currently holds just about 240 euro's and within a month I will get about 150 more from work and some other stuff. That might be barely enough to get an 4790 and motherboard? right?

 

Another edit:

My setup has also been on Worst setup wars from techsource over here: 

 

(at 3:51) if you're interested

[arch_linuxos]

7 minutes ago, Demaurice said:

So lets start off listening my current specs:

 

Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
    AMD FX-4100    35 °C
    Zambezi 32nm Technology
RAM
    16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 933MHz (10-11-10-30)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK Computer INC. M5A78L-M/USB3 (AM3R2)    52 °C
Graphics
    PL2473H (1920x1080@60Hz)
    8192MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 390 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner)    45 °C
Storage
    931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-08M2NA0 ATA Device (SATA)    41 °C
Optical Drives
    No optical disk drives detected
Audio
    Plantronics GameCom

Case

 

 

 

So for a while now I've been wanting to change the cpu and motherboard of my pc. Trying to listen music from youtube and having my games stutter because of the video playback taking too much cpu power is driving me crazy. Aswell as terribly slow video editing and several musical synthesizers just overrunning errors because of the cpu.

You might see from my specs that my budget isnt that great. 

Cheapest upgrade would be switching to FX 8350. Could keep same mobo, and that's pretty much the only CPU from AMD worth buying. I'd say get an i5, but that's more expensive and requires new mobo.

 

If you're ok with spending more, get an i5 6400 or 6600k. Mobo for 6400: ASUS H170M. Mobo for 6600k: ASUS Z170 A

 

EDIT: The rest of the system looks great. No need to upgrade anything else, although if you can, faster ram (1600MHz or so) would probably help too.

 

The CPU is what's causing these issues. To make it feel snappier, you can buy a small SSD and store your OS and frequently used programs on it if you want. This is far from necessary though if on a budget.

[trag1c]

2 minutes ago, arch_linuxos said:

Cheapest upgrade would be switching to FX 8350. Could keep same mobo, and that's pretty much the only CPU from AMD worth buying. I'd say get an i5, but that's more expensive and requires new mobo.

 

If you're ok with spending more, get an i5 6400 or 6600k. Mobo for 6400: ASUS H170M. Mobo for 6600k: ASUS Z170 A

I wouldn't not consider getting an FX-8350 with that board. You need at least 8+2 power phases for effective use of a FX-8350 while that board only has 4+1. Those VRMs will throttle the shit out of the FX-8350 simply because the current draw is way to high for the number of phases so the VRMs overheat and have to throttle power to the 8350 causing the BIOS to down clock the 8350 causing performance problems.

[Tieox]

I second getting a FX 8350, and if you could budget it a basic SSD.  That system would feel like a whole new machine then.

[Funtron5000]

11 minutes ago, arch_linuxos said:

Cheapest upgrade would be switching to FX 8350. Could keep same mobo, and that's pretty much the only CPU from AMD worth buying. I'd say get an i5, but that's more expensive and requires new mobo.

 

If you're ok with spending more, get an i5 6400 or 6600k. Mobo for 6400: ASUS H170M. Mobo for 6600k: ASUS Z170 A

 

EDIT: The rest of the system looks great. No need to upgrade anything else, although if you can, faster ram (1600MHz or so) would probably help too.

 

The CPU is what's causing these issues. To make it feel snappier, you can buy a small SSD and store your OS and frequently used programs on it if you want. This is far from necessary though if on a budget.

933 MHz is just how CPU-Z reports 1866 RAM. So, no new RAM

[Demaurice]

Sorry I just edited the topic, I accidently saved it before finishing it. I didnt think people would react so quickly thanks already

[arch_linuxos]

5 minutes ago, trag1c said:

I wouldn't not consider getting an FX-8350 with that board. You need at least 8+2 power phases for effective use of a FX-8350 while that board only has 4+1. Those VRMs will throttle the shit out of the FX-8350 simply because the current draw is way to high for the number of phases so the VRMs overheat and have to throttle power to the 8350 causing the BIOS to down clock the 8350 causing performance problems.

Good point. I didn't check the mobo specs. So, OP, at this point I'd recommend getting Intel if you'd have to buy a new mobo anyway. If you can find budget space for it, 6700k is great choice.

[arch_linuxos]

19 minutes ago, Demaurice said:

 

the Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 is the first motherboard I found for this. But I'm not sure if there might be a better/cheaper/more reliable option anywhere.

 

 

With 6th gen, you need Z170. Z97 is for Haswell (4th gen). You could go for a 4790k or 4690k if you want to go with that board because it's cheap.

[Funtron5000]

Why not H97 motherboard with a Haswell Refresh i7 non K then?

[arch_linuxos]

Honestly literally anything is an upgrade over a 4100 lol. A pentium G3258 (overclocked), i3 6100, etc. would all have better performance. i5 will be a MASSIVE improvement, as will i7.

[Mark77]

I'd get a SSD first, see if that resolves your issues, particularly with respect to stuttering and all that.  That sounds more like a HDD access problem more than anything. 

 

Failing that, you basically have a choice to make -- abandon your DDR3 RAM and replace it all with a new Skylake setup, or try and get onto a Haswell/Broadwell setup and re-use your RAM.  I'd probably go for the newer stuff personally, and try to sell your existing RAM (which may not even be the DDR3L that is required in the newer boards anyways!). 

[Demaurice]

Thanks for all the responses so quickly! I dont know why but I have a bad feeling about getting an i5 (I'd feel like if i waited one month and saved up i could've had an i7). I just included my current budget in the post aswell. The main issue is the motherboard because those things confuse the hell out of me, Friends of mine bought motherboards with memory leakage and stuff like that and I feel like you guys' advice is probably better then my guess at "this one is cheap and probably works"

[arch_linuxos]

4 minutes ago, Demaurice said:

Thanks for all the responses so quickly! I dont know why but I have a bad feeling about getting an i5 (I'd feel like if i waited one month and saved up i could've had an i7). I just included my current budget in the post aswell. The main issue is the motherboard because those things confuse the hell out of me, Friends of mine bought motherboards with memory leakage and stuff like that and I feel like you guys' advice is probably better then my guess at "this one is cheap and probably works"

That motherboard will work. Might not be the best, but on a budget it will. If you're getting a Z97 though, you want an unlocked processor, so 4790k. It's about $20 more than 4790. You have to check pricing in your country though, I'm not sure what it is.

 

If you want 4790, get a H97 series motherboard. Those are made for locked processors and cost less.

[Funtron5000]

1 minute ago, arch_linuxos said:

That motherboard will work. Might not be the best, but on a budget it will. If you're getting a Z97 though, you want an unlocked processor, so 4790k. It's about $20 more than 4790. You have to check pricing in your country though, I'm not sure what it is.

 

If you want 4790, get a H97 series motherboard. Those are made for locked processors and cost less.

Yep. And an SSD or DDR4 will not help your problem. I've used DDR3 at lower speeds and HDD's without your issue. It's just the processor and maybe that motherboard.

[Demaurice]

3 minutes ago, arch_linuxos said:

That motherboard will work. Might not be the best, but on a budget it will. If you're getting a Z97 though, you want an unlocked processor, so 4790k. It's about $20 more than 4790. You have to check pricing in your country though, I'm not sure what it is.

 

If you want 4790, get a H97 series motherboard. Those are made for locked processors and cost less.

The thing is, this gigabyte motherboard is literally the cheapest motherboard in my country with 1150 socket, atleast on the best known comparison and pc parts website in the Netherlands. To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between h97 or z97.  But thats something with the chipset right? (watching this as fast as possible 

)

[arch_linuxos]

3 minutes ago, Demaurice said:

The thing is, this gigabyte motherboard is literally the cheapest motherboard in my country with 1150 socket, atleast on the best known comparison and pc parts website in the Netherlands. To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between h97 or z97.  But thats something with the chipset right? (watching this as fast as possible 

)

If Z97 is cheaper than H97, go for it. The main difference is that Z is for overclocking while H is not. But you can still use Z with a locked processor, so if it's cheaper then go for it.

[Funtron5000]

1 minute ago, Demaurice said:

The thing is, this gigabyte motherboard is literally the cheapest motherboard in my country with 1150 socket, atleast on the best known comparison and pc parts website in the Netherlands. To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between h97 or z97.  But thats something with the chipset right? (watching this as fast as possible 

)

Z97 allows for overclocking, H97 does not. Sometimes there are differences in PCI-e lanes between top tier (Z) and lower tiers, but that won't affect you.

I have a system that allows for overclocking on Haswell and....I don't overclock. I can, but it really doesn't matter to me right now. I'll apply my overclock when and if this system starts to feel slow. So, maybe eventually?

[arch_linuxos]

Short answer: Get a 4790 and that mobo, or a 4790k if you can afford it.

[Demaurice]

Thanks 

arch_linuxos

 and

Funtron5000

!!

only thing left is, will saving up for the 4790 be worth it or is there a slighty cheaper i7 for roughly the same performance?

[arch_linuxos]

2 minutes ago, Demaurice said:

only thing left is, will saving up for the 4790 be worth it or is there a slighty cheaper i7 for roughly the same performance?

There's not really another Haswell consumer-level i7, so that's your best bet. The 4770 also exists, but here at least it's the same price, so just get the 4790. The 4790 itself is the cheaper version of the 4790k.