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It's time to upgrade my CPU
Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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I upgraded my GPU last year, and this year I plan on upgrading my CPU.

Current setup:
CPU: AMD FX-4300 @ 3.8 GHz
RAM: 8 GBs of DDR3 @ 1600 MHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GBs of VRAM
Mobo: some old Gigabyte (I forget the exact model); not important

My FX-4300 has performed well, but it bottlenecks performance in more recent AAA titles. So I need a CPU that won't be a bottleneck to my GPU.

I want to go with Intel this time, and am eyeing the i5-8400. AMD's Ryzen 5 1600 is priced similarly, but I want the higher IPC offered by Intel (I'm willing to hear out any arguments in favor of AMD though). I am only interested in gaming performance. I play games at 1080p on a 60 hertz monitor. I am not concerned with 1440p or 4K resolutions. I would like to not have to upgrade again for another three years.

The i5-8400 sports 6 cores and 6 threads (no Hyper-Threading). Its core clock speed is 2.8 GHz, but it (supposedly) has no issues reaching its turbo speed of 4.0 GHz with adequate cooling. There is no overclocking potential. If purchased, I would partner this with a Z370 motherboard and 8 GBs of DDR4 RAM (2666 MHz most likely). Z370 is the only board that supports newer Coffee Lake CPUs. It's a bit expensive, but budget boards are supposedly coming (or will be announced) sometime in March.

Currently, it doesn't make sense to pair a locked CPU with an expensive motherboard that supports overclocking. So I'll likely wait until budget boards become available before pursuing the i5-8400. On the other hand, I could fork over an additional $70 for the i5-8600K and couple it with a Z370. Benchmarks between the two only sport ~5-15 additional frames, which I'm not certain warrants the extra cash (they both already run in the 100s anyway when coupled with a decent GPU).

Additionally, there's the i3-8350K, which performs similarly to the 8400, but it's only 4 cores. I think the i5-8400 would be better than the i3 for future-proofing.

But anyway, that's a bit of a ramble. What do you think? Should I go with Intel or AMD for gaming? Do you think the i5-8400 would be a good purchase? I'm open for suggestions and advice. :) Thanks!

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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I'm a big AMD fanboy and I'm telling you. Just buy a cheap Intel. You need single-threaded to run anything these days and AMD isn't competitive yet.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010

Have they fixed Spectre and Meltdown in their new CPUs already?

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Yes.

But don't worry about that.

(*Ish.)

Worry about getting a CPU with a high benchmark but piss for performance in games (the only place where performance ACTUALLY matters because it's a real-time hard requirement as opposed to 58 vs 72 seconds for a video encoding where you leave the room and drink a coffee regardless).

That's why I'm stressing that I'm an AMD fan boy and I've been using them all the way back since AMD K2. (Pentium) I've got a 266 MHz, and Athlon XP ~1800, an Athlon X4 630, and an Athlon FX-8370.

And here I am saying "Just buy an Intel."

More on the ish. Linux and Windows patches are out. They reduce performance but ONLY in very heavy kernel-to-user task switching, like servers that handle tens of tons of packets a second and each packet involves hitting the kernel to send it out. The loss for games is almost none. About 1 FPS out of a 80 FPS game.

And don't get me wrong. Intel is a bunch of !@$!holes. But buying a PC isn't about supporting the underdog. It's about getting the most bang for your buck. It's a (in the words of Our Great Leader) a glorified calculator.

If I was going to get a Ryzen (which I had been planning on for two years now!) I would recommend just waiting till the Gen 1.5, and Gen 2.0 Zen (The Ryzen cores are Zen cores) come out. They involve fabrication shrinks, and instructions-per-second increases. "Never buy the first of a gen." just like you never buy the first year of a brand new car generation / model update because they have to iron out all the problems and haven't had the extended time to really optimize the platform. (For example, my 2001 Jetta has a 12-valve head. The 2002 model... has a 24-valve head and 30% more power for the same engine and fuel economy. It also doesn't have a timing chain problem that destroys the engine before 100,000 miles that mine does, or the transmission that grenades at 80,000 miles.) Likewise, with CPUs, you can see the Zen 1.5 (Zen+) and Zen 2.0 roadmaps.

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It's going to be the same AM4 socket for Zen 1 and Zen 2 CPUs. So you can either buy a cheap Zen 1 and upgrade to a Zen2 later, or, just wait. You've already made it this far with an old computer, so I'd recommend just waiting the one more year--or, you know, buy an Intel.

Supposedly Zen2 are coming next year:

https://www.pcgamer.com/leaked-amd-roadmap-points-to-zen-2-processors-in-2019/

One more point. Specter and Meltdown are separate exploits. Meltdown is Intel (and certain ARM) CPUs only. However, all CPUs are affected by Specter. All modern CPUs will (or at least should!) have Specter fixed. Zen2 cores are slated to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Worry about getting a CPU with a high benchmark but piss for performance in games (the only place where performance ACTUALLY matters because it's a real-time hard requirement as opposed to 58 vs 72 seconds for a video encoding where you leave the room and drink a coffee regardless).

Like I said, I'm only interested in gaming performance. I've seen various benchmarks on YouTube of dozens of games, and the i5-8400 performs very well. Video encoding benchmarks and the like mean nothing to my use case.

Polybios said:

Have they fixed Spectre and Meltdown in their new CPUs already?

They have negligible impact on gaming, so I'm not concerned about it either way.

If I was going to get a Ryzen I would recommend just waiting till the Gen 1.5, and Gen 2.0 Zen ... It's going to be the same AM4 socket for Zen 1 and Zen 2 CPUs. So you can either buy a cheap Zen 1 and upgrade to a Zen2 later, or, just wait.

I have to hand it to AMD, they certainly have a clearer and potentially easier upgrade path compared to Intel. However, I don't plan on upgrading again for at least another three years, so I'd rather go "all in" now on something that'll last me longer, rather than go the cheaper route and upgrade again sooner.

While AMD still lags behind Intel in single-threaded performance, I must commend them on their efforts. They are improving, even if slowly.

The only thing holding me back from making the purchase on an Intel CPU right now is the lack of budget boards. I don't care about SLI or overclocking, or any of the other fancier features that the current boards support. If the budget boards were available right now, I'd buy one today.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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While AMD still lags behind Intel in single-threaded performance, I must commend them on their efforts. They are improving, even if slowly.

Absolutely. I love AMD cpus. (Although, I have to ask myself... why? It's not like they run unique programs like a Nintendo SNES vs Sega Genesis does. Maybe I just love an Underdog.) I hate ATI ::cough::AMD::cough:: videocards though they're probably better than they used to be. I wish AMD would have just borrowed some money and bought NVIDIA instead of ATI back-in-the-day.

AMD is certainly getting better AND pushing down Intel prices as a direct result. I told my friends "mark my words" before Ryzen hit, that the prices of comparable Intel CPUs would magically fall.

But after watching PUBG benchmarks of even the BEST AMD CPUs against "no where near the top" (and many less cores) Intel CPUs, I was like "wtf am I optimizing for." Yeah, more cores = fun. But again, the only thing that matters is 2-4 cores for your most hard-real-time-constrained apps, like videogames. So who cares if I have 8 cores (I do) when half of them sit idle when I play a game.

Do I REALLY need to encode a video, while extracting a zip, while running a SQL server in a VM while I play a game? I think I'd be better off keeping my old machines for doing everything else (SQL, work VM, web server, etc) and leaving my most recent machine for the games. Because the LAST thing you want your server or long encoding task to do, is crash because your video game took down an essential service with it or blue screening the whole machine.(*)

(*) Oh, and the ONE multi-tasking use? Video encoding? 99% of the time you should use your GPU for that. (NVENC for nVidia, for example.) My FX-8370 could do 1080p, but, 4K? Loaded the ENTIRE CPU (all 8 cores) just to keep up with 30 FPS. So the only remaining thing left is like keeping Discord, Steam, etc. And those need at most, a single core between all of them.

That is, I use a Win10 VM for my work stuff (4 cores/8GBof32 dedicated) but my main machine can brick that VM easily if I mess with it too much. VMWare will crash. A video driver will crash, change the resolution, which will then force the VM to change resolution, and then that "might" crash (it's happened!) various things. Like the VM fail to come out of suspend (freeze), or crash running processes. Plugging in new devices and installing drivers can brick VMWare as it tries to auto attach them to a VM.

I've come to realize that if you want to run VM's, you should leave the BASE operating system running as little daily user interaction as possible. No encoding videos, or playing games, while a VM hosts essential services like SQL/e-mail/whatever.

Likewise, (and this was a HUGE deal for me to come to this conclusion this month) I'm probably just going to buy an Intel. Last I checked, I can get a FASTER INTEL CPU for Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (that benches faster than ALL OF AMD'S current CPUs--including thousand dollar ones), for a mere $130 (SHIPPED). That's insane.

Even though the synthetic benches show my AMD stuff is way more comparable and cost effective / processing-bang-for-your-buck, when you look at a game that uses at max 2-3 cores realistically (and WHO KNOWS how much of that "use" is actually memory contention) the humble/crap/budget Intel i3 was beating framerates for the fastest and highest core count AMDs including Threadripper (32 cores!) and 1800X (fastest clock/throughput).

Check it out:

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Intel i3-8100

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G6K34317

Now, I will COMMEND them for making their top-of-the-line CPU a mere $350. (Though that's tons of money to me, it's still pennies for many tech people.) The fact than a $130 Intel CPU can beat it by a wide margin, makes me sad.

I can't keep telling my friends "It's okay I get bad frames, because at least I'm supporting AMD." AMD is a billion dollar company. I think they'll be okay with me spending my money judiciously.

That said, if next year with Ryzen 1.5/2.0, I may look at them again before deciding to buy my first Intel rig in decades. I want to buy AMD but I gotta focus on them dolla bills these days. My whole life is about extracting as much as I can from as little spending / most-efficient spending as possible. I'm not opposed to spending money but it needs to be "as good value" that I'm getting back for those dollars. If I can fix something myself with ebay parts? I do that. If I can watch some youtube video and fix a $45 dollar drier that's worth $500 when running? I did that. All it needed was a heating element. Never opened (or even owned!) a washer or drier before. And I fixed both of them. It was a risk and it paid off. Likewise, with videogames. Humble bundles and extreme sales get me games like Skyrim for $13. That's 130 hours of gameplay for $13. Not bad.

Of course I'm ranting now. My last point is, again, I'm not opposed to spending money I just have to be careful since 99% of my money goes to medical bills. Once I have a higher paying job, I wouldn't mind blowing money on stupid stuff, or paying a mechanic/whoever to repair my stuff so I can spend my time relaxing.

[edit]

Come to think of it. There's one more benefit to having less cores (though less bragging rights) but more machines. You can power down or service their hardware individually. And, you may get MORE performance because there's no contention. Each box has their own memory so you don't have to share the bandwidth of your DDR across, say, 4 VMs. And since most of us have "shells" of computers left over when we upgrade, it's really cheap to put old boxes into service. I've got netbooks laying around all over my house with broken screens that I could turn into SSH boxes (or extern monitors) for who-knows-what projects. I just don't have any need for them at the moment.

I built my last machine with a Athlon X4 630 into a gaming rig for my wife. But she hasn't even used it yet. :o (No spare room at my house these days.) The one machine I wanted to setup was my wife's old (1st gen?) i5 laptop that I was going to turn into a media center so we could watch movies/etc in our bedroom without using my main machine or needing my main machine to be on all night. That way, she could watch our movies and I could play a game at the same time. Right now, my one machine does everything and is cluttered with audio software, video software, games, media, etc AND runs my desktop monitor as well as our small bedroom TV. I have to switch monitors back-and-forth multiple times a day. (Thank god for Win+P. And Win10 switches monitors WAY FASTER than Win7.)

I guess this could have been a separate post. But eh, it's kind of related... by A.CC standards... ;D

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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AMD is certainly getting better AND pushing down Intel prices as a direct result.

Yeah, competition is great for consumers. :)

Quote:

I use a Win10 VM for my work stuff (4 cores/8GBof32 dedicated) but my main machine can brick that VM easily if I mess with it too much. VMWare will crash.

Outside of gaming, I'm strictly a Linux guy, but I occasionally use VMware to run Windows 7 for my job. I've never had issues with VMware, nor have I had it crash. I wonder if the performance/stability is different running on Linux compared to Windows, or if you experience crashes because you use it a lot.

Quote:

Last I checked, I can get a FASTER INTEL CPU for Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (that benches faster than ALL OF AMD'S current CPUs--including thousand dollar ones), for a mere $130 (SHIPPED). That's insane.

I'm blown away that the current Intel Core i3 CPUs are as powerful as they are (and relatively inexpensive). Coffee Lake i3s sport 4 cores and 4 threads! No Hyper-Threading, but that's a sweet upgrade (in core count) over previous generations of i3s. That rivals some of the older i5s! I get the feeling Intel rushed the release of Coffee Lake though, considering the state motherboard support right now... ::)

Quote:

My whole life is about extracting as much as I can from as little spending / most-efficient spending as possible. I'm not opposed to spending money but it needs to be "as good value" that I'm getting back for those dollars.

I think they call that "being frugal". ;) I feel that. There's nothing wrong with spending a pretty penny on something; it just has to be of good value. Equivalent exchange, and all that.

Quote:

I've got netbooks laying around all over my house with broken screens that I could turn into SSH boxes (or extern monitors) for who-knows-what projects.

I do that with old laptops. I use one to run a Minecraft server to free up resources from my main machine (where I actually play and use Discord to chat). In addition to my desktop and main laptop, I have two older laptops that I use for game servers or Web servers. I also have two mostly broken laptops from my brother just hanging out in my closet waiting to be used for something. I don't have enough space to run them all simultaneously though. :'(

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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I have been thinking about going Intel myself, but the reason I have always stuck with AMD is simple, they're CHEAPER. I could always get more bang for my buck. When I look at benchmarks that show Intel getting more than 100FPS and AMD getting 80+, I am like... so what? I'm a guy who will tolerate 30FPS, once they go above that, I start looking at prices. If AMD is cheaper and I lose 20FPS down to say, 80FPS... I am laughing because... without a number on your screen, who in the hell will even NOTICE the difference?!

My AMD is ancient, yet I still run games at a smooth enough frame rate for my liking. I have found ONE game that was horribly slow, so much so that it was obviously piss poor programming on their part, not my system.

I am reconsidering sticking with AMD. I wouldn't bother getting an Intel without hyperthreading. The Hyperthreading was the whole selling point on them for me. Without that, I'll stick with AMD. They haven't overcharged me for a CPU in many years, while Intel way overcharged.

I find my video card makes a bigger difference.

I'll probably check out which CPU comes out on top when you compare how much you have to pay for each additional FPS.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Neil Roy said:

If AMD is cheaper and I lose 20FPS down to say, 80FPS... I am laughing because... without a number on your screen, who in the hell will even NOTICE the difference?!

Then you could have just bought a cheaper Intel. :P

Also, if you play any competitive gaming, and you're getting less than 60 FPS, you're in danger and screwed. I play less than 60 and it sucks balls. It's not just average FPS. It's FPS drops in the form of "spikes". Someone pops out, you go to aim, and your screen freezes momentarily instead of moving with your aim. You're now dead. Now repeat that over and over every time you try and play a game... across hundreds or thousands of hours of gaming. No bueno.

I have a 4K screen. I play in 2560x1440 because I can only get ~50-60 FPS there and 4K runs like 20 FPS. So I play in a window. That little boost yields easily noticeable improvement in responsiveness for competitive games. (I have to play in a window because lower res + stretching makes the blur basically looks like mush.)

(PUBG is one of the worst / most taxing games these days. Which is why I bring it up. If I was playing a AAA-designed game, it would be optimized enough for me to play higher res for the same card. It's also the most popular game on Steam by far.)

Also, if you're not using G-SYNC or the AMD equivalent (FreeSync?) (which properly syncs the videocard refresh rate to the monitor) means you've got the standard sampling interval problem where AT BEST you get HALF (that is SEE HALF) the indicated framerate. 60 is 30. 30 is 15. and so on. The whole Nyquist Frequency problem. And worse, you could have a monitor at 60 FPS, and an videocard at 59 or 61 FPS and you'll get a drumming/throbbing/"beating" rate. (IIRC) One 60, one 30, one 60, one 30, or some similar pattern which causes stuttering. (Beat frequency I think it's called.)

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nyquist_frequency

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Beat_(acoustics)

video

(**Note: While this video shows two signals adding together--obviously sampling isn't the same. This is a synchronous scheduling failure. But it shows/hears very well the "pattern" of what's going on as they line up and lose syncronization.)

It's a DAMN SHAME that nVidia are a bunch of pricks who made G-SYNC extremely expensive to add and a closed protocol. Because EVERY damn monitor made after 2005 should have already had this built in. And you can't get ANY monitor that supports both sync protocols so you're stuck with an "AMD TV" or an "nVidia TV" and never both. (wtf, right?) And 99% of the main brands only add either as a "gaming monitor" so you'll pay for a premium monitor/tv series to get it. You'll never see it on a budget or even mid-range TV.

[**Disclaimer: It's been a long time since I messed with signals. I'd verify my points about beat frequency/aliasing/nyquist before relying on it in a professional/expert sense.]

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Neil Roy said:

When I look at benchmarks that show Intel getting more than 100FPS and AMD getting 80+, I am like... so what? ... I lose 20FPS down to say, 80FPS... I am laughing because... without a number on your screen, who in the hell will even NOTICE the difference?!

Imagine playing a game and getting 75 frames per second. Those additional frames go unnoticed on a 60 hertz monitor. However, once the frame-rate dips below 60, it becomes noticeable. So if Intel can give me 20 additional frames compared to AMD, I'll go with Intel, because the extra "padding" above 60 will ensure that inevitable dips will be less likely to fall below my refresh rate. Even without numbers on the screen, I can feel the difference. Inconsistent frame-timing feels jittery. Admittedly, this is less noticeable in slower-paced games, but is exacerbated in fast-paced games (like racers and shooters).

Quote:

My AMD is ancient, yet I still run games at a smooth enough frame rate for my liking. I have found ONE game that was horribly slow, so much so that it was obviously piss poor programming on their part, not my system.

Which CPU are you using? If it's as ancient as you say, I doubt it'd perform well on recent AAA titles.

Quote:

I wouldn't bother getting an Intel without hyperthreading.

I don't think the lack of Hyper-Threading is a big deal. Modern CPUs are so insanely powerful anyway. Besides, Hyper-Threading is not equivalent to actually having additional cores; it amounts to something like a 30% boost in performance compared to not having it. In other words, a dual core CPU with Hyper-Threading can not compete with a quad core lacking Hyper-Threading when both are operating at the same frequency. As far as games are concerned, single-threaded performance is king, and Intel CPUs reign supreme in this regard compared to AMD.

AMD is improving though. For example, the Ryzen line boasts 52% higher IPC counts compared to previous generations of AMD CPUs. I have seen AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X perform comparably to Intel's Core i7 6700K (the latter being two generations old). So while AMD has improved, they are still at least two generations behind Intel where single-threaded performance is concerned. Hopefully they can continue to close that gap moving forward though.

Keep in mind, I'm aiming to make a purchase that will satisfy my gaming needs today as well as three years from now. I see it as an investment, and as such, I want the biggest and longest lasting bang I can get for my buck.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
avatar

My current CPU is an AMD Athlon II X3 440, though I unlocked the fourth core on it, so it is now performing the same as an AMD Phenom II X4 @3GHz (stable on all cores).

I don't play PVP games, so that's not an issue. I ran the newer Doom 2016 Demo with no problems and it was smooth.

I will probably upgrade sometime this year. I checked the prices and I did notice Intel Core I3-8100 around $150ish (Canadian dollars). So if I do upgrade, I am tempted to go that route.

My video card has served me quite nicely, it's a GTX 650. I checked the prices of those now and they are over double what I paid new, they went up in price?! Yeesh.

Anyhow, YOU may notice FPS below 60, I really don't, or at least not enough to bother me. It's why my system is about 8 years old now, I can tolerate lower frame rates without it bugging me.

I am tempted to go for something with more cores as I tend to do more than just gaming these days. More cores could really help with 3D rendering for example (with Blender, not games). And I plan to make videos, so if that would assist with faster times compressing... time will tell. I'm not made of money. ;)

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Wow, that CPU is ancient! :o I'm amazed you're still up and running with such an antiquated setup!

You can thank Bitcoin miners for the hike in GPU prices. I paid ~$240 for my GPU last year, but now it's going for $470—crazy!

By the way, you mentioned you played a game that was "horribly slow" due to poor programming. Which game was that?

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Neil Roy said:

. I ran the newer Doom 2016 Demo with no problems and it was smooth.

As I've noted, AAA-titles can afford custom engines with dedicated GPU/graphics architects to ensure every GPU and CPU resource is as efficient as possible.

Read these amazing articles to see in INSANE amount of effort that goes into making games like GTA V run full frame rates on low-end PCs and consoles.

You like OpenGL, so you'll appreciate this craziness:

http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphics-study/

Doom, the game you're playing:

http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2016/09/09/doom-2016-graphics-study/

(Note the huge amount of pipelines dedicated to pre-rendering stuff that gets calculated later than is very specific to their game. Everything is deferred rendering so no pixel is drawn twice allowing every shader to be used for the actual important calculations with little to no wasted effort.)

Now compare that with a bone-stock engine like Unreal (for PUBG) that's being abused to render huge terrain distances, or a custom engine by beginners, or Unity, and you'll see MUCH MUCH MUCH less "efficient" use of CPU and GPU resources. It'll look like piss compared to GTA V or Doom, and yet will run at <20 FPS on your machine.

So if you like 3-D indie titles, you may actually benefit from a better machine.

When I upgraded from Athlon x4 630 to Athlon FX-8370, in the game Styx, I went from 40, to over 100 FPS with the same video card. I always thought the GPU was the only thing important for graphics and I was wrong!

You can thank Bitcoin miners for the hike in GPU prices. I paid ~$240 for my GPU last year, but now it's going for $470—crazy!

Scumbags. >:(

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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I have messed around with the Unreal 4 engine and it runs fine as well.

I don't tend to buy a lot of indie stuff, so that is probably why I haven't noticed much of a slowdown. I think the one title I got that was indie was the one that was slow. I'll check to see the name of it again (booting up steam now).

I ran GTA4 (don't have GTA5) and it was fine, good quality and speed. Borderlands 2... I don't tend to buy the newest games, heck, I don't play as many games as I used to.

Hmmm... games like Cities: Skylines ran fine, Skyrim, both the Portal games 1 & 2, all run smooth with high quality settings.

The slow title was "Quern - Undying Thoughts", a Myst like game. I haven't played it for a while, so maybe they patched it and this has improved, but the difference in speed was mind boggling! I mean it was horribad. And yet it is not that complex of a game, not compared to the other titles I played. Not even much action happening in it when you start out. So, for a puzzle style Myst game, I was really surprised and still think there is a problem with the programming on their end.

If I can program simple 3D and render 10000 models and get 91FPS, surely someone making a commercial game can do better with a static 3D scene and proper optimizations! Yeesh.

Anyhow, I don't look forward to upgrading. I usually will buy things a part at a time after researching it. Motherboard etc... all as I can afford it until I have something built. Hey, worked out last time, this system has lasted me 8 years!!! :D

Edit: Oh, and I paid $100 CDN for my GTX650, it is now over $250 or something, wow. Crazy. Any upgrades won't include a new video card, I just can't justify that sort of expense for gaming. Better off buying a console (which I don't own, but just may buy)

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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I was just joking with my friends that because of bitcoin currency raising the cost of VIDEOCARDS...

... videocards may become a new form of inflated currency. ;D Buy them low, sell them high!

And then we joked about like Fallout with bottlecaps, how scraps of videocards would become currency.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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LMAO!!!

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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I suggested something similar to my brother just yesterday. It's a greater return on investment right now to purchase a pre-built desktop than it is to purchase the parts individually. So you could purchase a pre-built machine that boasts a decent GPU and just gut the system and sell its components individually for a profit. Rinse and repeat! ;D

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Yeah, I am used to building my own system from scratch, but for the first time in my life, it is actually cheaper to buy a pre-built system, not an idea I like.

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“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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It's just the GPU that has turned the tables as of late. It's still cheaper to build your own desktop if you already have a decent GPU rather than buy a pre-built one. It's all due to the GPU prices right now, but hopefully that'll change soon enough.

So what do you guys think about thermal paste? A lot of CPUs ship with a stock cooler that has thermal paste pre-applied. From what I've read online, this performs just fine, but some folks are unyielding in their belief that after-market is the only way to go. What do you think?

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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It depends on whether you plan to overclock your CPU or not. Thermal paste you get with it is just fine if you plan to run it at stock speeds. If you plan to overclock, or for some reason the CPU runs rather hot, than you may wish to get something else. it's been a while since I had to get any, I used to get what I think was called "Arctic Silver", but then I was planning to overclock at the time. It definitely makes a difference, but spread it on thin.

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“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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That's a good point. The CPU I'm looking at is locked and comes with a stock cooler, so after-market thermal paste probably won't be of much benefit to me. As far as Intel CPUs are concerned, I believe the unlocked models don't come with coolers, as they expect you to get a beefier after-market one anyhow. I'll probably pick up a tube of something when I buy a CPU just to have on hand either way.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Yeah, it certainly can't hurt.

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“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
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I didn't get too deep, but your stuff ain't that modern, it's DDR3..
I'd consider perhaps pulling some more time, but upgrading motherboard + RAM + CPU at once.
Besides today 8GB don't really cut it, need 16. Now buying extra 8 gb of 1600 mhz RAM, + getting CPU that I believe you still won't be able to move to newer system..

I didn't buy a PC from scratch for a decade, but when I replace CPU it always goes with motherboard, and new, better RAM.

My current one is DDR3 however, but it's a 16GB @ 1867 Mhz with i5-2500k clocked to 4.20 Ghz.
I really have no reason to upgrade that stuff now. Card is RX 580 4GB.

When I do go for an upgrade though, I'll buy mobo+ram+cpu again.

I believe the unlocked models don't come with coolers, as they expect you to get a beefier after-market one anyhow. I'll probably pick up a tube of something when I buy a CPU just to have on hand either way.

My current i5-2500k which was bought some 7 years ago came with a stock cooler, IIRC the "boxed" versions come with cooler, standalone are cheaper but come without.

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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type568 said:

I didn't get too deep, but your stuff ain't that modern, it's DDR3.. ... Besides today 8GB don't really cut it, need 16.

That's my current hardware. I intend to upgrade to something from this generation. As for RAM, I had 16, but lost 8 when one of my sticks died. I'm not sure if I'll buy 16 gigs of DDR4 memory when I upgrade though, because it'll run me $200 for that alone. I think I can make do with 8.

Here's the hardware I'm aiming for:

CPU: Intel Core i5-8400
Motherboard: a Micro-ATX Z370 (likely the ASRock Z370M PRO4)
RAM: 8GB (or maybe 16GB) DDR4 2666 MHz (Corsair Vengeance or Ballistix Sport LT)

That'll cost me ~$420-$520 (depending on how much RAM I get). Even at $520, it should last me at least 3 years, so that's only a cost of ~$14.44 per month. Not bad.

I'll probably also get a new case when I upgrade. I never liked the red/black color scheme of my current case. :-X

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