Upgrading from a i7-920 on a budget.

[blindnoir]

My buddy needs to upgrade his CPU/MOBO/RAM. He's got a pretty set budget of $350. He's coming from a 9 year old build that has an i7-920 and 6GBs of DDR3 RAM and a Dell Motherboard that was in another system. The PSU and GPU (GTX 770) were upgraded so those are still good  for the time being and he has a new SSD he will use when the new parts are here. I was thinking he should get a Ryzen 5 1600, an ASRock AB350 MOBO, and an 8GB stick of DDR4 Ram. We have a Micro Center in town so getting the 1600 and ASRock motherboard gives us an automatic $50 discount. Is there anything else the you guys can recommend in this price range? Main purpose is gaming, like Overwatch, PUBG, Heroes of the Storm.

[Damascus]

A 1600 is a very solid choice, it will serve them well. 

[The Sloth]

4 minutes ago, blindnoir said:

he should get a Ryzen 5 1600, an ASRock AB350 MOBO, and an 8GB stick of DDR4 Ram

sounds like a solid upgrade 

[bimmerman]

Super budget option: Xeon X5650 or any variant thereof on the LGA 1366 platform. Prices are $30-180 for the 6c/12t chip and drops right in on his motherboard. Nice boost in performance once overclocked, not really worth doing otherwise (and would be the same era of technology as his i7-920)

 

The R5 1600 option is an excellent choice to modernize the system.