what to upgrade??

[rosankarel]

i have these specs and i want to upgrade for better performance

specs 

motherboard-dh61ww

graphics card -gt 710

ram 6 gb

processor- i3 2100

and rest peripherals

i can do 3d modeling without any issue but the problem comes in rendering .

[Guest]

I'd upgrade the CPU to a core i5-2400 or i5-3470 quad cores. With the GPU, a 1050ti will do the job at playing games at 1080p with a decent gaming experience with no drop in frames.

[Flameytail]

get a 1050 ti it'll work wonders 

 

this is a good one because it is clocked super high and it is reasonable cheap (as of now)

[SupaKomputa]

For old PC, i would say the very 1st thing to upgrade is HDD to SSD if you haven't already.

You'll see a massive improvement in term of responsiveness and loading time.

HDD is the bottleneck in pc for years, ssd is the cure.

 

Next, if you wanna keep your motherboard, get a Xeon, its very cheap right now, i suggest E3 1230 or better.

It has 4 core with 8 threads for around $80. Compared to similar i7 which sell above $130 is a steal.

Watch out for E3 1220, it only has 4 threads same as i5 2400.

 

 

Then i would upgrade the memory to 8gb at least.

 

Lastly the GPU, if you don't play games, gpu will have no (realtime) benefit when using 3d apps.

But it will boost your rendering time if the programs support GPU rendering (cuda or opencl).

If you don't mind longer rendering time, i say the 8 threads of the CPU still powerful enough compared to your current setup.

For the GPU i would recommend 1050 and above if you're on the green team (Cuda).

And if you're on the red team (opencl) a rx460 4gb is a good pick.

[rosankarel]

 

 

thanks @SupaKomputa @Flameytail @TheBeastPC for your suggestions 

i have one more question how do you all choose the CPU .

I know the first thing is socket type but then there is a long list from 2nd gen to 3rd  gen (in my case) and some pentium and xeon as suggested by @SupaKomputa

and it is all confusing..

it will be great to know what to choose so that i can filter them by availability to me. 

lastly does the used one are worth buying if i am getting a good deal on that?

 and once again thanks.....

 

 

 

[SupaKomputa]

Yes its very confusing, even for me when intel changing sockets every 2 years.

 

When choosing CPU, first thing you do is decide weather you keep the current system or upgrade?

It all depends of the CPU socket, right now you have 1155 socket which is compatible with second gen (ix-2xxx) and third gen (ix-3xxx).

Fourth gen and  up will use different socket (LGA 1150 & 1151) so you ignore them for now.

i3, i5 and i7 is a consumer cpu, aimed at regular pc users.

Xeon's processor are build for enterprise & servers market, but its based on the consumer counterparts.

Xeon 12xx (v1) is based on second gen and 12xx v2 is based on second gen, 12xx v3 is based on third gen and so on.

A Xeon 1230 v1 is basicly the same as a i7 2600.

It uses the same lga socket (1155), so you'll want to check the cpu socket first.

But watch out for Xeon 2xxx and up, these cpu uses different socket (LGA 2011).

 

Next is the specifications.

1. the speed (in ghz). it is self explanatory. you can see it in the model number also, i5 2400, i5 2500, i7 2600, i7 2700 and so on.

 

2. How many cores, does it supports multithreading? More cores is better and more threads is desireable.

This you can easily tell by looking at the model number, let me break down to you:

-pentium brand, the cheapest, has 2 core and no multithreading, so 2 threads

-i3 got 2 cores and multithreading, so you have 4 threads 

-i5 has 4 cores but no multithreading, so 4 threads

-i7 has 4 cores (or more) with multithreading, 8 threads

more threads means you can process more task at once.

so why 4 threaded i5 is better than 4 threaded i3?

Multitreading optimizes the cpu workload, but it is not adding another core power.

In only uses whats left from each core. Say you have a task that demands only 60% or the core power, multithreading adds another 40% so the core will always at 100%.

But if a task uses 100% of the core, theres no more room for multithreading.

Not all programs support multithreading. So more core basically perform better.

 

3. The generations. Newer generations is relatively better than older ones.

It operates at lower power & runs cooler than less gen, so they can run faster, thats why there's a bump of ghz in each newer generatons.

Also newer gen support faster memory speed and newer gpu. Here's a comparison:

• i5-2400 – 3.1 GHz, supports 2-channel DDR3-1333, HD Graphics 2000, 95 watt
• i5-3570 – 3.4 GHz/3.8 GHz Turbo Boost, supports 2-channel DDR3-1600, HD Graphics 2500, 77 watt

 

Does older cpu still worth buying?

 

As you can see in the video, all three of the generations runs at the same 3.1ghz, and the oldest still performs the same.

For games GPU really dictates your fps more than cpu.

Second generation intel core processor is a giant leap from the first one, but since then intel haven't made anything groundbreaking other than faster frequencies.

so yeah it is still worth buying. and its damn cheap.