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Stuck on EOL platform with small replacement budget. Need input.

G

Gman1979

Gawd
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I hadn't planned on being able to do much upgrading for a while due the budgetary changes fatherhood brings. But now I have a bonus $400 I wasn't counting on having (what I left myself after sticking the rest into my 401k).

I'm stuck on an EOL platform, AM3+, with an aging video card as well. I also want to add more ram but with the DDR3 to DDR4 changeover it makes it less of a straight forward choice to just add RAM to my existing rig.

I'm actually pretty happy with the performance of the rig I have now but it puts out a ton of heat at full tilt and the parts are starting to age as well. The extra threads are welcome when building packages in Linux but I like to game too.

I haven't had a personal rig that was based on Intel since the Celeron 300A was the hot ticket so I need some input.

What, if any, sort of Intel platform could I put together for between $300 and $400 that would not be a dead end socket, and maybe offer some overclocking? If I went that route I'd just keep using my current GPU for a bit so that's not a cost concern. I'd also already have the PSU, drives, and other bits already. So it would basically be cpu+motherboard and maybe RAM depending on the platform, with the RAM possibly being bought a couple weeks afterwards if it frees up enough $ to make a difference.


If it just doesn't seem viable then I'll probably just buy a new GPU and start hogging the living room TV for Dad time.
 
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Just buy a GPU. I would go for a 970 for like $260 and save the rest towards a CPU, mobo and ram upgrade when you get another ~$260 to add to that $140 you saved.
 
What are you doing on the rig when you notice it's dissipating a lot of heat?

Building packages in Linux? CPU/MB/RAM upgrade
Gaming? GPU upgrade

IMHO, if you're happy with the performance of the system then go with a GPU upgrade. It'll show you the most gains. It's also the oldest component in your system. I believe the 7870 was released around 2012 and that AMD CPU was released around 2013. In most cases your CPU/MB/RAM will out live multiple GPU upgrades during it's lifetime. A 970 GTX is a nice upgrade. I've got a few of them I'm running and they're strong little GPUs. Probably wont help with your heat issue however. I'd look into waiting until the GTX 1070 comes out. They're better than a 970, but they are a little past your $400 budget. They should be in the $380 - $450 range on launch. Though you'll get close to 980 Ti ($600+) performance.

If heat really is a concern then upgrading the CPU will give the best results. GPUs are going to dissipate a lot of heat especially when they're under full load. A 6600K will set you back about $220, motherboard for said CPU will run ya $130 for a good one and 16GB DDR4 RAM is gonna take $50 - $60 out the budget as well. So it's possible to stay within' your $400 budget.

Assuming, of course, that your PSU is up to the task. Not all PSUs are created equal and even the best PSU will degrade over the years.
 
ANd you can pick up 8 or 16 gigs of ram pretty cheap on the forum. Throw in a newer GPU and you have plenty of gaming power at 1080p.
 
Skillz said:
What are you doing on the rig when you notice it's dissipating a lot of heat?

Building packages in Linux? CPU/MB/RAM upgrade
Gaming? GPU upgrade

IMHO, if you're happy with the performance of the system then go with a GPU upgrade. It'll show you the most gains. It's also the oldest component in your system. I believe the 7870 was released around 2012 and that AMD CPU was released around 2013. In most cases your CPU/MB/RAM will out live multiple GPU upgrades during it's lifetime. A 970 GTX is a nice upgrade. I've got a few of them I'm running and they're strong little GPUs. Probably wont help with your heat issue however. I'd look into waiting until the GTX 1070 comes out. They're better than a 970, but they are a little past your $400 budget. They should be in the $380 - $450 range on launch. Though you'll get close to 980 Ti ($600+) performance.

If heat really is a concern then upgrading the CPU will give the best results. GPUs are going to dissipate a lot of heat especially when they're under full load. A 6600K will set you back about $220, motherboard for said CPU will run ya $130 for a good one and 16GB DDR4 RAM is gonna take $50 - $60 out the budget as well. So it's possible to stay within' your $400 budget.

Assuming, of course, that your PSU is up to the task. Not all PSUs are created equal and even the best PSU will degrade over the years.
Click to expand...

The heat output under load wasn't really an issue until my office became the nursery and a utility room became my office. It's more of a heat build up problem in the room because it's just small and I use this PC for everything from gaming, to running VMs, building software in Linux, converting home movies and such to get served up by the PC on the home network for the TV, laptops, and tablets around the house. I had forgotten Microcenter is literally 12 miles from my house and can easily squeeze something into my budget with one of their bundles. I appreciate the input from everyone though.


Edit for good news: Eth value jumped. I sold. +$200 to budget. With a MC combo an option and the budget boost I think I'm going to be in a good place if I spend wisely. If the 480 from AMD performs as expected, I've got enough to get cpu/mb/ram/gpu all upgraded. I must have gotten some good karma banked along the way. Found out Curb Your Enthusiasm was coming back on my bday and now this.


Now I'm confused again. I just found out the unlocked Intel CPUs disabled vt-x and it causes problems for running VMs. Is this still true and which chips still have it enabled?
 
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[21CW]killerofall said:
ARK | Your Source for Intel® Product Specifications is your friend for Intel CPU specs.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that. It got me the info I needed and alerted me to another issue I hadn't been aware of. Sadly it looks like Intel have marketed themselves out of a sale :( I can't use my trusted platform module with either unlocked Skylake CPU, and I lose VM passthrough if I want an unlocked chip with hyperthreading. Now I remember exactly why I ended up on AM3+ to begin with :/ F Intel.


This is like going to the car dealer with cash to buy a new Corvette only to be told they only come with the speed limited to 60 mph or you can have one without a speed limiter but no radio and only two seats, or no radio and 4 seats and both options come in only in Midlife Crisis Yellow.
 
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Skillz said:
All corvettes are two seaters anyway.
Click to expand...

Bad choice of car on my part but it was more about referring to the unlocked I7 as the high end of Intel's consumer lineup. I also couldn't think of anything worthwhile that came in both editions other than trucks lol. I can get the features the unlocked cpus have by buying a Xeon, but they don't get a bundle discount with motherboard at Microcenter and it's my impression overclocking is limited to a possible 5 Mhz base clock increase if I go that route. If I'm misinformed please let me know (hoping I'm missing something).
 
I was just being funny. Intel removed those features because people who need them need stability (no overclocks) over someone who doesn't.

I'm pretty sure Intel's high end processors (5820k) has what you're looking for. Microcenter might carry bundles.
 
I was actually just looking at that very combo (5820k). It's really tempting as I've already got custom watercooling and I like systems that will remain powerful for a nice long while. The price difference between the 6700k on 1151 and the 5820k on 2011 isn't much at all and either will be a big jump in performance. I know I'm getting old when part of me is like "wth do you need all that for?" I guess I need to go do some research on the platform performance differences and go from there. I appreciate the suggestion though because it does solve the hang up I was having about the missing features.
 
I'm pretty sure the 6700k supports vt-d...

But saying that, if you do a lot of compiling 5820k will be faster.
 
From what I could see, the 6600k has vt-d and vt-x, while the 6700k has just vt-d. Honestly it's not a big deal at this point since I can just move the current rig to another room for hosting VMs and such. I realized I was being picky over features so now it's just a question of how many threads do I really want and how much am I willing to pay for it.

It's been too long since I built a system just for me. The TPM is only for work anyway and I can run that stuff on my current box shoved in a closet somewhere along with the VMs I play with and just remote into it. And I don't do what I consider "a lot" of compiling. I do tend to build my own packages before they're out in the official repos and only have a couple hours at night to myself, so having a few extra threads helps get the builds done a tad quicker in case I need to make changes and restart the build.
 
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The 6700k supports both vt-d and vt-x. The only difference between the 6600k and the 6700k is clock speed and hyper-threading.
 
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