CPU upgrade for friend

[WereCat]

Just out of curiosity.. what do you guys think?

 

My friend has FX 8120 CPU on AM3 socket for quite a long time now. Right now he is going to buy GTX 1060 but he also plans to upgrade his CPU somewhere around Christmas. About two months ago he upgraded his RAM to DDR3 2x8GB so he would like to keep it because he wouldnt be able to sell it without losing money on it.

Originaly I told him to upgrade to i5 6600 as it costs less than i5 6500 but just about €20 more than i5 6400 while having quite a bit higher clocks. However he would have to switch to DDR4 so I told him to pick up Xeon E3 1231 V3 if he wants to keep his RAM. Personaly I think the Xeon is better for current games that are starting to utilize more threads even though the IPC is a bit lower. Also he wont OC at all so unlocked CPUs are waste of money for him.

Considering that the Xeon is just €20 above i5 6600 but it features HyperThreading even though the IPC is a tad lower and the Boost is only 100MHz lower I still think it actualy is more worthwhile upgrade than going for i5 even if it is Skylake. Sure, there is no upgrade path from it but I am sure he wont plan to change that CPU for another few years.

[Electronics Wizardy]

If your gonna upgrade later, the 7600 will be out.

 

Id get new ram. Its under 50 dollars these days

 

Zen might also be out by then, so se how thats like.

[Imakuni]

Frankly... I'd just try to sell the CPU and mobo along with the old RAM. In parallel to it, post another add for those without the RAM. If you are lucky to get rid of it along the way, just take the chance and jump straight to DDR4. If the no RAM add sells first, however, then I guess it'll make more sense to go with an older Haswell setup.

 

Speaking of which, hunt the used market for: i7 4770/90 or a Xeon 1230/31 v3 (assuming you get to keep your DDR3). Those are all pretty much the same CPU.

[RS2007GOD]

Last gen i5s can he had for fairly cheap. Ddr3. Might even find a i7 4690k reasonably priced 

[WereCat]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If your gonna upgrade later, the 7600 will be out.

 

Id get new ram. Its under 50 dollars these days

 

Zen might also be out by then, so se how thats like.

Thing is I am in EU. Things are more expensive here. Also I am quite sure the i5 7600 will be even more expensive than i5 6600 while having small if any performance improvements for the CPU. I am sure the iGPU will be improved which wont be used anyway.

And Zen.. well, depends if my friend is willing to wait for another few months.

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

Frankly... I'd just try to sell the CPU and mobo along with the old RAM. In parallel to it, post another add for those without the RAM. If you are lucky to get rid of it along the way, just take the chance and jump straight to DDR4. If the no RAM add sells first, however, then I guess it'll make more sense to go with an older Haswell setup.

 

Speaking of which, hunt the used market for: i7 4770/90 or a Xeon 1230/31 v3 (assuming you get to keep your DDR3). Those are all pretty much the same CPU.

Yes, I told him to sell CPU+MoBo+RAM and go for DDR4 platform but that would cost about €50 extra in total compared to HyperThreaded Xeon. The motherboards are quite a bit cheaper for Haswell too.

2 minutes ago, RS2007GOD said:

Last gen i5s can he had for fairly cheap. Ddr3. Might even find a i7 4690k reasonably priced 

New Haswell i5s/i7s are as expensive as new Skylake ones, thats why I like that Xeon so much as it costs almost €100 less than i7 4770. He doesent want to go for used. Also there is very few used Haswell CPUs that would people want to sell.. especialy those that are for sale cost quite a lot still.

[Imakuni]

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Thing is I am in EU. Things are more expensive here. Also I am quite sure the i5 7600 will be even more expensive than i5 6600 while having small if any performance improvements for the CPU. I am sure the iGPU will be improved which wont be used anyway.

And Zen.. well, depends if my friend is willing to wait for another few months.

Fom all we know, raw peformance of the 7th gen is going to be the exact same thing as the 6th, only difference being higher clocks.

 

As for Zen, it's frankly pointless. Again, for all we know, looks like Zen is just going to be Haswell levels of performance. Not worth the thought for someone that's either thinking of getting Haswell to save the RAM (remember, Zen will use DDR4) or jump to Skylake for evne more performance.

[RS2007GOD]

Just now, WereCat said:

Yes, I told him to sell CPU+MoBo+RAM and go for DDR4 platform but that would cost about €50 extra in total compared to HyperThreaded Xeon. The motherboards are quite a bit cheaper for Haswell too.

New Haswell i5s/i7s are as expensive as new Skylake ones, thats why I like that Xeon so much as it costs almost €100 less than i7 4770. He doesent want to go for used. Also there is very few used Haswell CPUs that would people want to sell.. especialy those that are for sale cost quite a lot still.

i see them selling here in nz for around 200$ and mobos go for  around 100$ but yea new they are def overpriced.

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Imakuni said:

Fom all we know, raw peformance of the 7th gen is going to be the exact same thing as the 6th, only difference being higher clocks.

 

As for Zen, it's frankly pointless. Again, for all we know, looks like Zen is just going to be Haswell levels of performance. Not worth the thought for someone that's either thinking of getting Haswell to save the RAM (remember, Zen will use DDR4) or jump to Skylake for evne more performance.

And if I am not wrong the 7th gen will have higher clocks for the K CPUs. I think read somewhere that Intel is planing to make the clock gap between unlocked and not unlocked CPUs bigger .. meaning the not unlocked ones will have lesser clocks than they have right now.

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, RS2007GOD said:

i see them selling here in nz for around 200$ and mobos go for  around 100$ but yea new they are def overpriced.

99% of people that sells i5 or i7 in my country sells it with entire PC and not separately. I doubt that they would be even willing to sell it separately. But yea, those prices are nice if they were real here. Even on eBay it is overpriced though.

[Imakuni]

6 minutes ago, WereCat said:

And if I am not wrong the 7th gen will have higher clocks for the K CPUs. I think read somewhere that Intel is planing to make the clock gap between unlocked and not unlocked CPUs bigger .. meaning the not unlocked ones will have lesser clocks than they have right now.

No idea. Not saying that it's wrong, but I don't remember hearing anything about it...

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

No idea. Not saying that it's wrong, but I don't remember hearing anything about it...

It may be missinformation but I am positive I have read it somewhere here on LTT in TechNews.

Apparently i5 7600 is supposed to have base clock 3.5GHz (boost clock unknown). i5 6600 has base clock 3.3GHz and boost 3.9GHz.

[Imakuni]

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

It may be missinformation but I am positive I have read it somewhere here on LTT in TechNews.

Apparently i5 7600 is supposed to have base clock 3.5GHz (boost clock unknown). i5 6600 has base clock 3.3GHz and boost 3.9GHz.

Learn from your mistakes: ignore base clock.

 

Case and point, the 6400 vs the 6500. On paper, the 6500 is just soooo much better with it's 3.2 base VS the 6400's 2.7. 500mhz is a lot, don't ya think? But THEN, you take a look at the boost table and realize that, in reality, it's only 200mhz difference.

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/000005647.html

[WereCat]

7 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

Learn from your mistakes: ignore base clock.

 

Case and point, the 6400 vs the 6500. On paper, the 6500 is just soooo much better with it's 3.2 base VS the 6400's 2.7. 500mhz is a lot, don't ya think? But THEN, you take a look at the boost table and realize that, in reality, it's only 200mhz difference.

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/000005647.html

I know. Thats why I havent even considered i5 6500. Either i5 6400 or i5 6600 which actualy has quite nice boost clock improvement while being actualy cheaper over i5 6500.