Planning an upgrade. Need help choosing CPU

[KingUnicorn]

Hello there! So, I'm planning a pretty big upgrade for my system. Upgrading Graphics Card, upgrading CPU to compensate, and upgrading motherboard to handle the CPU. I've already settled on a GTX 1050 Ti (mostly for budget and so I could handle this upgrade in a relatively short time). I'm gonna be getting a job soon, and i'm wanting to do it in 3 or 4 checks. This gives me a budget of about 450-500 USD. about 230, 280 or so after the graphics card. This is the card I plan on buying, though I'm willing to choose another if I must, but only if it does not require extra power from the PSU. My current PSU does not have those cables, and I do not want to drop extra money on a new PSU. My PSU is a 450W unit, so I'm sure it could handle it.

 

But enough talk about the GFX card. I'm in this thread because I need to know what CPU I should pair with it, and by extension, what motherboard to use as well.

 

The games I tend to run could easily be handled by the 1050ti, however a good chunk of them are very CPU heavy, with Kerbal Space Program and Team Fortress 2 being the biggest culprits. TF2 is just horribly optimized for modern systems, thanks to Source being so old, and KSP puts all of the physics calculations and the part calculations on the CPU, and it's a single threaded engine (the dev team cannot make it multi-threaded without a huge amount of effort and essentially re-writing the engine, I've asked). So, I'm looking for a CPU that has good single thread performance, but still enough cores to handle more multi-threaded processes. My current processor is a FX-6300, with 6 cores. I'm okay with 4 cores in the CPU, but 6 or 8 is just fine so long as it doesn't break the budget. I also do not plan on overclocking, so do not suggest a CPU based on it's ability to overclock.

 

As for the motherboard, I'm not looking for anything amazingly fancy. Something that can handle the rest of the system just fine, and is relatively future proof. Enough to support any minor future upgrade, or another GPU upgrade.

 

If you decide that upgrading to DDR4 RAM is vital to the upgrade or will give a significant boost in performance, include that in the price and keep it in budget. However, I would rather put more money to the CPU or Motherboard than upgrade RAM. As far as I know, 8 gigs of DDR3 is still just fine.

 

My current system is linked here, so y'all know my whole set up at the moment. Please, make your suggestions based on this system. I do not want to upgrade anything else if I do not have to.

 

Thank you for reading it all if you've gotten this far. And I greatly appreciate any suggestions that come my way. Of course, I'm always ready to answer any questions y'all may have. Throw them my way!

Edited March 11, 2018 by Potato_King
Added information about RAM

[Emberstone]

3 minutes ago, Potato_King said:

I also do not plan on overclocking, so do not suggest a CPU based on it's ability to overclock.

If you want something cheap, the Ryzen 3 1300X is like $114 right now on Amazon, and the Asus Prime B350-Plus is still about $100. That would be a decent combo, and it's one of the few B350 boards that could handle a Ryzen 7 if you ever wanted to drop one of those in later on. I would seriously recommend overclocking, though. It isn't dangerous and it isn't scary. Just keep your temperatures below like 80 C and your voltage below 1.4v on Ryzen, and below 1.35v on Intel.

 

You could also go for something like an i3-8100 and a Z370 board, but you're paying for an unlocked chipset with a locked CPU, which doesn't make a lot of sense since many of those boards are still more expensive than the CPU itself is, and the ones that aren't are very sketchy a lot of the time.

[Psittac]

Word to the wise "getting a job soon" does not equate to having a job and money in hand.  Thing's will come up in the mean time that require financial attention.  Also the upgrade type you're talking about is a "core" upgrade cpu/mb/ram

 

edit: shooting from the hip but a used sandybridge cpu/mb would give you much more performance per dollar esp when considering you could reuse your ram.

 

edit again: quick googleing and ebay search

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-4770-4th-Gen-3-4GHz-8MB-5GT-s-SR149-LGA-1150-CPU-Grade-Fair/282875388301?epid=1607564372&hash=item41dcafe18d:g:BxEAAOSwaC9aVWjE:sc:USPSFirstClass!33064!US!-1

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-Z97-AR-LGA-1150-Intel-ATX-Motherboard-90MB0JL0-M0EAY0-NBD/142677349580?hash=item21383b94cc:g:dBYAAOSwcgNZCh~3

 

edit again again: that's ALOT to spend on a cpu that old, I would suggest looking into the newer pentium chips and see how they compare, probably take money from the cpu and put it into the mb.  I have a g4560 and that thing was a champ.  A side note, I would stick to a 6th gen pentium and z170 series mb (what ever the non-z was for that era) because you can bclk them and it doesn't add a ton of heat and it's simple to do. (do non Z boards allow bclk?).  Anyways the z270 era and 7th gen cpu's disabled bclk above 3mhz. edit: find one with HT

 

edddddddit! craigslist

[KingUnicorn]

4 minutes ago, Emberstone said:

If you want something cheap, the Ryzen 3 1300X is like $114 right now on Amazon, and the Asus Prime B350-Plus is still about $100. That would be a decent combo, and it's one of the few B350 boards that could handle a Ryzen 7 if you ever wanted to drop one of those in later on. I would seriously recommend overclocking, though. It isn't dangerous and it isn't scary. Just keep your temperatures below like 80 C and your voltage below 1.4v on Ryzen, and below 1.35v on Intel.

 

You could also go for something like an i3-8100 and a Z370 board, but you're paying for an unlocked chipset with a locked CPU, which doesn't make a lot of sense since many of those boards are still more expensive than the CPU itself is, and the ones that aren't are very sketchy a lot of the time.

Well I just haven't really thought of it, but... I might consider it. I'll keep this in mind. Thanks.

4 minutes ago, Psittac said:

Word to the wise "getting a job soon" does not equate to having a job and money in hand.  Thing's will come up in the mean time that require financial attention.  Also the upgrade type you're talking about is a "core" upgrade cpu/mb/ram

Yes, I know that. I'm waiting for more info about a couple things, however with all of the business in my area, I'm certain I could get a job within a month of searching. I hope, anyways. I also hope that my friend was right about a certain place and how easy it was to get hired there. And this upgrade isn't gonna be the first thing I put my money to. I've already made plans as to how I would handle the money, and what my priorities are. This upgrade is probably not gonna happen until April, maybe May. This upgrade isn't my first priority, but certainly not the last. And I always know plenty of people to help me out with advice or anything if I need to. And thank you for clarification about how this kinda upgrade is called. I explained it to my brother as "replacing everything under the hood of a car and the frame itself."

[KingUnicorn]

also, i see the edits about the architecture suggestion. Definitely gonna keep that in mind. Keeping the RAM is a definite plus. Thanks

[Psittac]

1 minute ago, Potato_King said:

Yes, I know that. I'm waiting for more info about a couple things, however with all of the business in my area, I'm certain I could get a job within a month of searching. I hope, anyways. I also hope that my friend was right about a certain place and how easy it was to get hired there. And this upgrade isn't gonna be the first thing I put my money to. I've already made plans as to how I would handle the money, and what my priorities are. This upgrade is probably not gonna happen until April, maybe May. This upgrade isn't my first priority, but certainly not the last. And I always know plenty of people to help me out with advice or anything if I need to. And thank you for clarification about how this kinda upgrade is called. I explained it to my brother as "replacing everything under the hood of a car and the frame itself."

 

Ok good to know you are keeping a responsible mindset.  I've been there and there's nothing wrong with being ambitious just try not to spend money you don't have yet, (even if just in your mind).  There is a fine line between motivation and dwelling.  Learn the difference and you'll succeed.