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Affordable Computer Upgrades for Windows 10 Intel i3 4100?


thek8ikat

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Hello. Not sure if this is the best place to ask for help about this, but I was hoping someone here would be able to halp. I'm somewhat new to computer gaming and I've still never had a graphics card or anything fancy like that. While I don't need to go all out with extreme ENBs, it would be nice to try some graphics-enhancing mods more intensive than I'm able to use with integrated graphics. Oh, and I'm talking about Skyrim (non-Special edition). I've just seen many graphics cards that could potentially bottleneck an i3, apparently, and that may not be compatible with Windows 10.

Here are my specs. Thank you!
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Are you planning on keeping that CPU for awhile, or is there an upgrade for it on the horizon too?

If you're standing pat as long as possible, a GTX-1050ti is probably gonna be as powerful as you want to go.

 

If you think you're gonna upgrade the CPU in the next year or so, a GTX-1060 is more your speed. Some bottlenecking now, but more room to step it up with a new CPU. I will say the 6Gb option of the 1060 might make it a better choice either way, Skyrim is a vram whore.

 

Since I assume you've been gaming on the integrated graphics, either option is going to be leaps and bounds better.

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I'd suggest the GTX 1050 TI also. It's a wonderful card and I use it myself. There is bad news though. The price for them right now is ridiculous. The rise in popularity of Cryptocurrency mining has increased the price of GPUs' significantly. I paid about $165 total for my Asus Dual Fan GTX 1050 Ti shortly after it was released, now its over $300. There are some places that will lower the price for it back down to MSRP, but thats only if you buy or build a new PC with them. You should check out how good the PSU that came with your PC is also. Most that come with the PC are less than ideal for new stronger GPU's. 

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If you're just looking for something to carry you for a year or two and then (hopefully when GPU and RAM prices are closer to reality) go full new build, you might also consider a 1050 non-Ti. It hasn't been hit as hard by cryptomining (it's not really powerful enough for that), so prices are still somewhat reasonable, and unless you go crazy with 4K textures or demanding ENBs, it will run a modded Skyrim just fine. It's what I started with (with an i3-6100). If you have a Microcenter or Fryes near you, see if they have an open box, or check Craigslist.

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If you're going to get a new computer I'd suggest an AMD processor, since you'll get the most bang for your bucks that way. It's a bit weak when running on 1 core but with an 8-core you can get the same power as an i5. Just look at this price vs performance chart for reference https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

You can also see the benchmark value of video cards there and confirm that you hit the bottleneck with the 1050 ti. It's not really a problem though, because it's still a decent and affordable card.

 

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13 hours ago, Captain Cobra said:

Define affordable, as crypto miners have doubled the price of most video cards.

Can you explain in short why the price of graphics cards are affected by bitcoins? It seems very complicated and I don't understand how they can be open to mining. There must be a flaw in the security that needs to be fixed, or we'll all be slaves under the cryptominers in the future. Egoistic pigs who make a profit and increase market prices in the process. Graphics cards should have become cheaper after Christmas. Not the other way around. I actually waited with upgrading mine only to see the prices increase. :confused:

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The news coverage around mining created a lot of noise and a bunch of folks bought up cards en masse, selling them at a huge markup to miners. Stocks dried up and pricing depends basically on supply and demand, which hit the gaming industry hard. There's also a bit of a memory shortage, with HBM/HBM2 pushing fab capacities to the limit, which has pushed memory prices upwards (which will explain why memory has also doubled in price over the last 15 months). 

 

GPU vendors don't care who pays them, hence they buy up foundry capacities, foundries in turn have reduced production of DDR4 and are busy meeting DDR5 orders for GPU vendors. The problem is actually the most acute for nVidia and AMD, who have to be able to provide refurb service for all the cards abused by miners over the entire warranty period, and whose brands are built by gaming franchises. For miners, cards are a commodity as is the electricity and heat they are wasting in trying to make a wad of cash.

 

I  had bought 4 cards in the last year, 1060+1080 from nVidia and 460+580 from AMD. All bar the 580 were reasonably priced, I thought I had overpaid for the 580. But it has basically doubled in price now, so I think I lucked out. When I sold the 1060 I was able to price it pretty close to the price that was paid for it (a friend got it for me as a trade for some money he owed me).

 

You'll have to wait at least six months more to see prices come back down to some sane levels, though I wouldn't expect them to hit the pre-Christmas lows of last year, like ever. Unless governments step in start regulating crypto-mining, PC gaming as we know it will eventually die or move totally to consoles, a fact that actually suits nVidia and AMD. 

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15 hours ago, thek8ikat said:

Hello. Not sure if this is the best place to ask for help about this, but I was hoping someone here would be able to halp. I'm somewhat new to computer gaming and I've still never had a graphics card or anything fancy like that. While I don't need to go all out with extreme ENBs, it would be nice to try some graphics-enhancing mods more intensive than I'm able to use with integrated graphics. Oh, and I'm talking about Skyrim (non-Special edition). I've just seen many graphics cards that could potentially bottleneck an i3, apparently, and that may not be compatible with Windows 10.

Here are my specs. Thank you!
 

 

The i3 4130 is a Haswell CPU. You may be able to find something on Craigslist.

 

However!!!!

 

Get an Asus P55DE-LX motherboard ($100) and a Xeon X3450 ($20) and overclock it to 4.1GHz - performs WAY better.

 

 

4.2GHz.jpg

 

7k.jpg

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Edit: I realize you want a GPU upgrade, not CPU. Get a 1050Ti for the i3, and the 1060 6GB for the Xeon if you go that route.

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4 hours ago, nightwolf said:

Can you explain in short why the price of graphics cards are affected by bitcoins? It seems very complicated and I don't understand how they can be open to mining.

Graphics cards are used to "mine" (solve math problems) that reward the person mining with a small portion of the cyrpto that they chose to mine.  Miners buy up tons of cards to mine with and cause shortages in retailers, who then raise prices.  Additionally, Graphics card manufactures themselves can't keep up with the demand that miners have added, keeping supply short and prices high.

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4 hours ago, Captain Cobra said:

Graphics cards are used to "mine" (solve math problems) that reward the person mining with a small portion of the cyrpto that they chose to mine.  Miners buy up tons of cards to mine with and cause shortages in retailers, who then raise prices.  Additionally, Graphics card manufactures themselves can't keep up with the demand that miners have added, keeping supply short and prices high.

Amazon sellers typically raise their prices because high prices destroy the ROI of the card, discouraging miners from buying them. If you message a seller on Amazon and ask them to momentarily lower the price of a card for a specific time of purchase, they will more than likely agree if you tell them how much you hate miners.

 

I got a GTX 1070 for $380 before the huge spike in prices, wanted to give SLI a try, but the cards were way too expensive. I messaged an Amazon seller and told them about the problem and they agreed to lower their price for a 5-minute window so I could get one for MSRP.

 

I ended up not buying it, but the fact that the seller agreed to lower their price for 5 minutes so a legitimate gamer can get one shows that there's still good in this fucked up world.

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10 hours ago, nightwolf said:

Can you explain in short why the price of graphics cards are affected by bitcoins? It seems very complicated and I don't understand how they can be open to mining. There must be a flaw in the security that needs to be fixed, or we'll all be slaves under the cryptominers in the future. Egoistic pigs who make a profit and increase market prices in the process. Graphics cards should have become cheaper after Christmas. Not the other way around. I actually waited with upgrading mine only to see the prices increase. :confused:

There's nothing complicated about it. Miners buy cards in lots of 20 50 100, ergo there are no GPUs to buy, ergo any remaining GPUs cost a billion dollars to own.

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15 hours ago, nightwolf said:

If you're going to get a new computer I'd suggest an AMD processor, since you'll get the most bang for your bucks that way. It's a bit weak when running on 1 core but with an 8-core you can get the same power as an i5. Just look at this price vs performance chart for reference https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

This is true when you're playing with optimized multi-threading games engines.

 

On 24/02/2018 at 1:31 AM, thek8ikat said:

I'm somewhat new to computer gaming and I've still never had a graphics card or anything fancy like that. While I don't need to go all out with extreme ENBs, it would be nice to try some graphics-enhancing mods more intensive than I'm able to use with integrated graphics. Oh, and I'm talking about Skyrim (non-Special edition). I've just seen many graphics cards that could potentially bottleneck an i3, apparently, and that may not be compatible with Windows 10.

The OP wants to play Skyrim, and in this case, it is the Intel CPU that takes the upper hand on AMD - PassMark - CPU Mark Single Thread Performance - Updated 24th of February 2018.

 

"Boris Vorontsov (creator of ENBseries) mentioned that the Application Protocol Interface (API, =>DX9 in Skyrim) usually works in a way that 1 core builds an array with information to render (draw calls) which is then processed and forwarded to the gpu by another core. The main "building" core gets insane usage, while other core(s) remain on the low because they can not help building it, but only forward it." Quote from About Skyrim and multithreading - extensive testing on a 6-Core CPU from late 2015.

 

15 hours ago, nightwolf said:

You can also see the benchmark value of video cards there and confirm that you hit the bottleneck with the 1050 ti. It's not really a problem though, because it's still a decent and affordable card.

+1. You've made a good point here.

 

13 hours ago, RussianPrince said:

Get an Asus P55DE-LX motherboard ($100) and a Xeon X3450 ($20) and overclock it to 4.1GHz - performs WAY better.

Someone is using his brain here, and I like this way of thinking: by pushing the limits to the top. Nice little overclocking by the way. :classic_wink:

 

Spoiler

5a92219c3e320_OCCTE8400OCed3825aircooling.thumb.PNG.afe688d96e2ddc2bf805d209b73323d2.PNG

 

5a9221bca46da_3DMARKSkyDiverTest.thumb.PNG.0420972898790547adc6b4c4e65cd2bb.PNG

 

But back to the topic:

 

The GTX 1050 is by far your best bet. Your i3 can easily keep up with it and it would be fine with 2 GB GDDR5 or more and good enough for a 1050ti or RX470 if you could afford them. It would be best to stick with an Intel and NVidia combo in your setup.

 

Core i3 is a good gaming CPU and it's a shame this CPU has locked CPU ratio, what means you can't really overclock it. You can play with "bclk" in your bios settings, but above 103MHz it may cause instability so it's not really worth it for ~100MHz higher CPU clock. You can play with memory settings and that's almost all. However on some motherboard you can have limited memory settings too.

 

Tips before buying your graphics card:


- If you want to change the graphics card on an existing PC, there are compatibility constraints, including size (clutter in your PC box), power supply and processor. Branded PCs are often supplied with a generic "300W" power supply, unable to power a powerful graphics card. You must therefore check the power of your current power supply. If your graphics card requires a 6-pin PCI-E jack, make sure your power supply is capable of providing at least 28A on the + 12V, and that it has a 6-pin PCI-E jack. If your graphics card requires two 6-pin or 8-pin PCI-E jacks, you will need a minimum power of 500W, and in the case of a PC brand, you will certainly have to change the original power supply.

 

- Contrary to popular belief, the amount of memory is not critical in the performance, it is the GPU that determines them.

 

- Modded games may require more memory than the standard 2 GB, see especially Skyrim. But it also often requires a more powerful GPU to avoid the "lags", which is therefore to take a more upscale CG, and not just with more memory.

 

- Different types of memory are sometimes proposed for the same GPU: G-DDR3 and G-DDR5, some have G-DDR5 at 1100Mhz and up (recommended), but others have G-DDR3 800Mhz, much less efficient, the memory bandwidth being divided by 3. It's better to have 2GB of GDDR5 than 4GB of GDDR3 for example.

 

- Be careful not to take a graphic card too powerful for your PC. It would be a useless expense, if your graphics card is too powerful for your CPU or your screen size: a 17" or 19" screen will make the CPU Limited more sensitive. There is no need to take a very powerful graphics card if you have a 17" or 19" (1440 x 900) display: powerful graphics cards are suitable for Full HD displays (1920 x 1080).

 

Warning:

 

Branded PCs have many ways to limit or even prevent the change of certain components: non-standard dimensions or connectors, BIOS with "White List", ...
The compatibility of new CPUs or graphics cards is therefore more uncertain, and in some cases only tests can determine what is really compatible.
In this case, it is recommended to go through a computer store.

 

PS: Sorry for the long post, guys and gals. I tried to make it shorter, but ... it's against my nature. :classic_blush:

 

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Just now, Fifoo said:

be fine with 2 GB GDDR5 or more and good enough for a 1050ti or RX470 if you could afford them. It would be best to stick with an Intel and NVidia combo in your setup.

Thank you all for the tips! I really appreciate it. (^_^) Thankfully I just had my birthday, so I have some money. Hopefully I can upgrade this semi-potato! XD

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11 hours ago, Fifoo said:

Someone is using his brain here, and I like this way of thinking: by pushing the limits to the top. Nice little overclocking by the way.

I have a 4790K at 4.8GHz :smile:

 

11 hours ago, Fifoo said:

but above 103MHz it may cause instability so it's not really worth it for

Technically incorrect. On Haswell, the SATA controller is still linked to the BCLK, which can result in data corruption. Skylake unlinked it, however Intel saw this as a threat to unlocked K series processors, so they created a hard limit of 103MHz. Older Skylake boards with their stock BIOS still allow a BCLK over 103. My Xeon E3 1240 has a BCLK of 106.

 

 

Md3YQRK.jpg

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11 hours ago, Fifoo said:

Branded PCs have many ways to limit or even prevent the change of certain components: non-standard dimensions or connectors, BIOS with "White List", ...

Dell and HP do this. Some Dell XPS machines have a GPU whitelist, and HP has a WiFi chip whitelist for most of their laptops.

 

9 hours ago, jimmywon34 said:

anyone here gone from an i5 to an i7 8700k and seen substantial improvements in their skyrim performance?

I went from an Intel Xeon E3 1240 to an i7 4790K.

 

You will only see a difference in Skyrim if your 8700K clocks are higher - Skyrim heavily favors single threaded performance over multiple cores.

 

Example, my E3 1240 has a single threaded score of just over 2000 on PassMark, but my i7 4790K has a single threaded of nearly 3000. When compared to the overal multicore scores of 9000 and 13000 respectively, the difference in score is much bigger when comparing single threaded performance.

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5 hours ago, RussianPrince said:

Technically incorrect. On Haswell, the SATA controller is still linked to the BCLK, which can result in data corruption. Skylake unlinked it, however Intel saw this as a threat to unlocked K series processors, so they created a hard limit of 103MHz. Older Skylake boards with their stock BIOS still allow a BCLK over 103. My Xeon E3 1240 has a BCLK of 106.

Thank you for clarifying me on this subject and for being kind enough to correct me. I relied on texts that mentioned this limitation on new motherboards.

 

15 hours ago, jimmywon34 said:

anyone here gone from an i5 to an i7 8700k and seen substantial improvements in their skyrim performance?

For example, according to tests made by some gamers, the i5 8400 could be a no-brainer in terms of what it offers and how it compares to the competition, but if you are a hardcore gamer and want to have the very best benchmark without willing to dive into overclocking your current CPU by the manual way - and if your hardware can't allow such OC, then go for the i7 8700k.

 

Technically these processors use the LGA1151 socket, which is also used by the 6th Generation and 7th Generation processors with the Z170 and Z270 chipsets. However due to differences in the pin-layout of these two sets of processors, 8th Gen will only work in Z370 boards and there is no level of cross compatibility.

 

But personally I do not think this choice is the most judicious in the immediate future, in terms of investment. Unless you want to play other games more recent than Skyrim and be at the forefront of technology. Intel does not stop us from changing platforms, and how long will we have before this new chipset becomes obsolete?

 

Upgrading CPU for Skyrim w/ 1000+ mods and ENB.

The AnandTech Coffee Lake Review: Initial Numbers on the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400 by Ian Cutress on October 5, 2017.

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19 minutes ago, Fifoo said:

Thank you for clarifying me on this subject and for being kind enough to correct me. I relied on texts that mentioned this limitation on new motherboards.

 

For example, according to tests made by some gamers, the i5 8400 could be a no-brainer in terms of what it offers and how it compares to the competition, but if you are a hardcore gamer and want to have the very best benchmark without willing to dive into overclocking your current CPU by the manual way - and if your hardware can't allow such OC, then go for the i7 8700k.

 

Technically these processors use the LGA1151 socket, which is also used by the 6th Generation and 7th Generation processors with the Z170 and Z270 chipsets. However due to differences in the pin-layout of these two sets of processors, 8th Gen will only work in Z370 boards and there is no level of cross compatibility.

 

But personally I do not think this choice is the most judicious in the immediate future, in terms of investment. Unless you want to play other games more recent than Skyrim and be at the forefront of technology. Intel does not stop us from changing platforms, and how long will we have before this new chipset becomes obsolete?

 

Upgrading CPU for Skyrim w/ 1000+ mods and ENB.

The AnandTech Coffee Lake Review: Initial Numbers on the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400 by Ian Cutress on October 5, 2017.

it looks like the i7 8700k turbos up to 4.7 and the i5 8600k turbos to 4.3, I wonder what a reasonable overclock for the i7 8700k is. I've only ever taken my i5 4690k up to 4.3. but it didn't make any difference for the occasional stuttering/hitching I get in skyrim. my fps are fine, usually 60 but some areas dip to 40-45. run a gtx 980 ti alongside.

that tom's hardware post is basically my situation like the stuttering/split second loading freezes upon entering new cells(on an SSD), except i'm running only about 400 mods, a quarter of that or more is armor mods however. I get occasional hitching that post mentions still, even with the dx9 upgrade for windows 10 to use more memory. I may just have to live with it, I did wanna try some newer games but perhaps i'll just settle and buy them for console for now, it would get much more pricier since I would have to upgrade ram and motherboard along with the new cpu too. something else I keep reading including in the tom's hardware post is that skyrim is still skyrim, it's a 32 bit app and at the end of the day you'll be pushing the engine limits before you push your hardware limits, as long as you have decent specs, which also makes me a bit wary of trying to upgrade hardware with skyrim in mind.

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2 hours ago, jimmywon34 said:

it looks like the i7 8700k turbos up to 4.7 and the i5 8600k turbos to 4.3, I wonder what a reasonable overclock for the i7 8700k is. I've only ever taken my i5 4690k up to 4.3. but it didn't make any difference for the occasional stuttering/hitching I get in skyrim. my fps are fine, usually 60 but some areas dip to 40-45. run a gtx 980 ti alongside.

It's not that easy to say because CPUs aren't all identical in how they will overclock: a good bin chip will go higher on less voltage. It is not possible to guarantee what you're going to get with overclocking until you test for yourself. An i5 4690k OCed at 4.3 is already good, perhaps taking a look at this overclocking guide could help you to pass your OC cap, while keeping in mind that it is heat and voltage, not speed, which "age" a CPU: 3 Step Guide to Overclock Your i7 / i5 Haswell Platform.

 

Another detail would be to see if you can take an advantage by upgrading your RAM memory chips?

 

2 hours ago, jimmywon34 said:

something else I keep reading including in the tom's hardware post is that skyrim is still skyrim, it's a 32 bit app and at the end of the day you'll be pushing the engine limits before you push your hardware limits, as long as you have decent specs, which also makes me a bit wary of trying to upgrade hardware with skyrim in mind.

Skyrim is what he is in terms of game engine, unfortunately. That is, poorly optimized. Only mods can improve it greatly, but there will still be limits that will be difficult to overcome.

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3 hours ago, Fifoo said:

Another detail would be to see if you can take an advantage by upgrading your RAM memory chips?

Unless his MOBO uses DDR3, he'd get gouged if he upgraded RAM right now, unfortunately. 

15 hours ago, swmas said:

Get a GT 1030

This might not be a bad idea. Get a cheap/open box/used one of those and an inexpensive SSD. Newegg often has deals on 120 GBs for under $40. An off-the-shelf HP that's five (?) years old doesn't really warrant putting a bunch of money into. But even a GT 1030 would be a huge improvement over the integrated graphics on a 4th generation Intel CPU, and running Skyrim off an SSD will reduce load times.

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10 hours ago, Fifoo said:

8th Gen will only work in Z370 boards and there is no level of cross compatibility

That's wrong. By adding the proper CPU microcodes to the BIOS you can get your CPU to work.

 

i7 7700K on Z370:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/kabylake-and-skylake-runing-on-z370-mobo.239325/

 

i3 8350K on Z170:

https://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-100-series-motherboard-support/

4 hours ago, tookachinchilla said:

Unless his MOBO uses DDR3, he'd get gouged if he upgraded RAM right now, unfortunately. 

I use 2133MHz CL9 DDR3 and it destroys DDR4 CL11 3000+.

 

You can get 32GB of 1600MHz ECC DDR3 for $115, which I've confirmed works on non-Xeon Z-series boards. All of my ECC RAM works in all three of my motherboards, my Z97 G5, my Z77 OC Formula, and my Asus P7P55D-E LX motherboard. CPU-Z says ECC is inactive, which means it's just running as regular RAM.

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