Drop knowledge on me

[Cb2394]

Ok, after acquiring a nice start with a Craigslist buy with a full tower running an AMD fx 6300, I upgraded my gpu to a 1060 6gb. Trying to find a nice upgrade path, want something that won't bottleneck my gpu to harshly if at all. I'm ok with buying a Mobo also, but trying to keep everything under $400 USD if I can. Suggestions? Plan to 4k game and vr, light workstation duty otherwise.

[PlayStation 2]

Maybe an i5-8400 and a decent motherboard (I don't remember what the new i5s are called, someone will correct me on it if I'm wrong)?

[samcool55]

r5 1600, b350 board, 16GB ram, should fit in your budget.

You can easily upgrade to 32GB and a more powerful CPU later. There's an upgrade path (at least that's what AMD promised us)

 

[Tabs]

10 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Maybe an i5-8600 and a decent motherboard (I don't remember what the new i5s are called, someone will correct me on it if I'm wrong)?

I agree with getting a coffee lake upgrade down the road, but I'd recommend going for a i5-8400 since the i5-8600K is more than 50% more and would require a Z370 motherboard to really make the most use of, which would push way past $400 usd.

 

OP, right now the only coffee lake motherboards available are the high end Z370 ones... I'd say "wait and see" right now, since if you aren't going to overclock an i5-8400 and a cheaper mobo would make a compelling upgrade. Right now the boards simply don't exist.

 

*However!*

 

If you are aiming for 4k gaming, your 1060 6GB is going to very, very quickly become an issue. My 1080TI can't always get playable framerates running at 4k on semi-demanding titles, without bumping down the settings. 1060 6GB would be great for a 1080p build, and for a 1080p build your current setup should work pretty well. You can probably get good framerates at 1440p too, so long as you dropped the settings a little.

 

If you *need* to upgrade right now, go for Ryzen, since the performance is good and the motherboards are cheap. Eventually you could upgrade to a higher end intel chip, but intel is just too expensive right now.

[handymanshandle]

5 minutes ago, Tabs said:

I agree with getting a coffee lake upgrade down the road, but I'd recommend going for a i5-8400 since the i5-8600K is more than 50% more and would require a Z370 motherboard to really make the most use of, which would push way past $400 usd.

 

OP, right now the only coffee lake motherboards available are the high end Z370 ones... I'd say "wait and see" right now, since if you aren't going to overclock an i5-8400 and a cheaper mobo would make a compelling upgrade. Right now the boards simply don't exist.

 

*However!*

 

If you are aiming for 4k gaming, your 1060 6GB is going to very, very quickly become an issue. My 1080TI can't always get playable framerates running at 4k on semi-demanding titles, without bumping down the settings. 1060 6GB would be great for a 1080p build, and for a 1080p build your current setup should work pretty well. You can probably get good framerates at 1440p too, so long as you dropped the settings a little.

 

If you *need* to upgrade right now, go for Ryzen, since the performance is good and the motherboards are cheap. Eventually you could upgrade to a higher end intel chip, but intel is just too expensive right now.

Aren't there really only Z370 board right now?
Because if there are coffee lake B or H boards out then I would get one of those instead...

 

Intel is kinda always more expensive lol

[Cyracus]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/8tjwZ8  can drop to a r5 1400 if you want to drop it under $400, 1500x doesn't have a cooler so the savings would be offset by needing a cooler, the 1600 comes with a decent cooler that you can get a moderate overclock on

[Tabs]

6 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Aren't there really only Z370 board right now?
Because if there are coffee lake B or H boards out then I would get one of those instead...

 

Intel is kinda always more expensive lol

I agree, I guess it was more in case the OP planned on upgrading in future when non-Z370 boards became available rather than right now. Since upgrading in any meaningful way would require a mobo change anyway, right now Ryzen really is the best bet for an upgrade that doesn't break the bank.

[handymanshandle]

7 minutes ago, Cyracus said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/8tjwZ8  can drop to a r5 1400 if you want to drop it under $400, 1500x doesn't have a cooler so the savings would be offset by needing a cooler, the 1600 comes with a decent cooler that you can get a moderate overclock on

If OP is just gaming then an R5 1400 would be a decent choice...

Though, I tend to see the R5 1600/1600X as the nice middle ground. R7 1700 if you can make more use out of those 8c/16t.

[Froody129]

I would also look at an 8100 and a Z370 board and go to an 8700k later. This is the first gen where’s actually a solid reason to go the i7 later

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

I would also look at an 8100 and a Z370 board and go to an 8700k later. This is the first gen where’s actually a solid reason to go the i7 later

I kinda have a hard time seeing Intel keeping LGA 1151 around for another iteration since they couldn't/didn't make Z170/Z270 boards comparable with Coffee Lake, so whatever is next I could see possibly being on a new socket.

 

However you are right, 8100 to 8700K is a nice jump.

 

A similar jump to what I was going to do with my Z170 board, as I currently have a 6100 and I could go up to a 6700K or 7700K. But I'm not super keen on the height of my case and really there's not many other ATX cases that I like and I wanted smaller anyways, so I'm probably going to get a B350 TUF and R5 1600 to put in a Silencio 352.

[Cb2394]

3 hours ago, Cyracus said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/8tjwZ8  can drop to a r5 1400 if you want to drop it under $400, 1500x doesn't have a cooler so the savings would be offset by needing a cooler, the 1600 comes with a decent cooler that you can get a moderate overclock on

I have a semi decent coolermaster CPU cooler right now, so I could theoretically hold off on a cooler for a bit. 

 

3 hours ago, wcreek said:

I kinda have a hard time seeing Intel keeping LGA 1151 around for another iteration since they couldn't/didn't make Z170/Z270 boards comparable with Coffee Lake, so whatever is next I could see possibly being on a new socket.

 

However you are right, 8100 to 8700K is a nice jump.

 

A similar jump to what I was going to do with my Z170 board, as I currently have a 6100 and I could go up to a 6700K or 7700K. But I'm not super keen on the height of my case and really there's not many other ATX cases that I like and I wanted smaller anyways, so I'm probably going to get a B350 TUF and R5 1600 to put in a Silencio 352.

I didn't consider Intel ditching the LGA 1151, that would considerably screw me since I'm trying to get something that will still be relatively upgradeable in 5 years, I was stuck behind the cue ball so long computer wise I want to try to stay caught up now jump frogging bottlenecks. Is there a consensus on AMD keeping relatively comparable to Intel with Ryzen being super tempting now?

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 minutes ago, Cb2394 said:

I have a semi decent coolermaster CPU cooler right now, so I could theoretically hold off on a cooler for a bit. 

 

I didn't consider Intel ditching the LGA 1151, that would considerably screw me since I'm trying to get something that will still be relatively upgradeable in 5 years, I was stuck behind the cue ball so long computer wise I want to try to stay caught up now jump frogging bottlenecks. Is there a consensus on AMD keeping relatively comparable to Intel with Ryzen being super tempting now?

Intel ditching LGA 1151 isn't going to be too big of an issue, even 1155 CPUs aren't gonna be obsolete for quite a while; I have a friend who's still rocking an i7-3770K on the Z77 platform.

[Cyracus]

2 minutes ago, Cb2394 said:

I didn't consider Intel ditching the LGA 1151, that would considerably screw me since I'm trying to get something that will still be relatively upgradeable in 5 years, I was stuck behind the cue ball so long computer wise I want to try to stay caught up now jump frogging bottlenecks. Is there a consensus on AMD keeping relatively comparable to Intel with Ryzen being super tempting now?

Intel isn't too great on the upgradeability front, they like to change sockets, and z370 probably will be a single cpu gen chipset, though their cpus have historically been good for 4-5 years. AMD is sticking to am4 until 2020, and planning to change to 7nm on am4, The ryzen refresh should do something about the overclocking, and you can buy a good am4 mobo and cpu and buy an upgrade cpu down the road and the price comes out to about what it costs to go Intel, the margin is less at the lower end of the product stack though. But it all boils down to how you feel gambling on the future