Hey y'all, want to get some advice on upgrading. Just recently upgraded (maybe?) my CPU from a FX-4130 to an i3-4360 and will probably jump up to something else soon. I can't really make up my mind between a Haswell i5 or i7 (looking at 4690k or 4790k currently). Overclocking doesn't matter, but would be nice. I have a B85 chipset mobo, which means I would need to update my bios for the Haswell refresh (need to research that as well). My current graphics card is a R9 270(x?) and I was looking into Nvidia, more so at the 1060. I also heard about AMD's RX 480 being great performance for the price. I'm stuck on what to go with though, unless a GTX 970 (or AMD equivalent is a better option, but I can't do a dual setup with the mobo I have). Only really problem is size, I don't think a full size card will fit in my case (mini ATX or ATX I think, came from a buddy). I will be upgrading to a 600 or 650 watt power supply too. So all in all, I'm at a standstill on what to buy when I get the money, and it won't be for a month or 2 till then. I've really started to get into PC games now since No Man's Sky came out (and the 50+ hours put into Beamng ) and I'm kinda lost on what to get lol. I wanna future proof it a little and play at high/ultra 1080p, but money is a factor.
Do not get that game. It is probably the most over hyped game of this year. The gameplay is incredibly repetitive, multiplayer is not functioning as the devs promised, and the PC port is outright broken.
Just make sure it's a 4xxx series processor, K suffix not req'd because they're mostly a sham anyways - heat issues keep you from attaining high clockspeeds. The i7's hyperthreading helps a bit with lots of cars in play (more than 4), as it can juggle the more-threads-than-cores situation much better. If you push your machine to the limit, i7 is the way to go, if you do not and just game and do recreational stuff on the PC the i5 is more than plenty. I built an i7 rig with a 4790k chip in it and have yet to get anything stable over it's advertised speed, not even 100mhz, due to heat issues, and I have one of the best air-coolers money can buy (and yes it's mounted right, and the cooling is right)... these chips suck for heat issues, due to internal manufacturing NERFing. Good to see you ditched that AMD junk CPU, those things are dirt for running this game. They might do okay on Call of Doodey or Cattlefield (well prob not that one), but they won't do for Beam. I 4670/4770 would work out-of-the-box (most likely) with your motherboard. A 4690/4790 would most likely take a bios-update to make your board work with it. Would recommend you get an aftermarket cooler of some sort if you go the i7 route. The stock cooler can't handle the i7 chip. It will throttle in many situations under heavy load even at a paltry 4ghz nominal clock speed. The i5 is pretty good and runs on avg 10~12C cooler so it's usually fine. Best recommendations: get an i5, it need'nt be a K-series, but if you want to go i7, i'd update the whole system and do an X99 build because it's not worth going for the i7 on mainstream platforms, it's worth it going on x99 though for the extra cores (which come in handy for Beam action). Clockspeed = how many FPS you'll get in Beam*, core amount = how many cars you can run before the fps starts to drop. *provided your video board isn't a bottleneck, it should not be as mine's lessor and I run all maps with it in medium or high detail. I wouldn't worry about upgrading the video card right yet. It's more of a want than a need at this point. I have a lowly R7 265/2gb (Radeon 7850), and with a bit of OC on it, it still does games fairly nicely even if it's over 3 years old now and it was 'marked down' on sale when i got it. A RX 480 would be decent, a RX 470 more economical/less hot running etc, lower power and such. The RX 470 AIB cards run 50~60C, the RX 480 AIB cards run 80C. It's all how much heat you want in the case, if you aren't going over 1080p resolution, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
Would the B85 chipset bottleneck an i7 for the time being before I upgrade the motherboard for something better? If so, I'll probably grab an i5 and just upgrade to Skylake in the future. Video card wise, I'm still at a standstill between a 1060 and 1070, the 1070 being a turndown for the price (don't really want to drop $400+ on a video card, but I can). What aftermarket/3rd party brand would y'all recommend? I was quite surprised though when I got my i3 that it was going to be meh, and I hop on Beamng and can get a stable 60fps on normal with the T-series (only 30-50fps before), so I think I'm an Intel guy now lol. Edit: My board does support the Haswell refresh CPU's without a bios update (being my current i3 is one), so i7 it is I guess, with a 1070 if I find one at good price and size (DVD might have to go). From there, I should be good for a couple years right? Well too late lol. I actually enjoy it, and I agree it was overhyped (what games aren't these days and are 100% perfect?). I feel Sony pushed an indie company too much and tried to promise something larger than your average AAA tittle.
The b85 won't bottleneck any of the CPUs. You'll be fine with that motherboard. Just plop an i5, or i7 cpu on that board and feed it 16gb of memory and pick up the video card that fits your budget (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI all make great cards, other brands can be hit or miss, XFX is good card but only 2 year warranty). Make sure your power supply is up to snuff for the video card you purchase. I would say that a 650 watt supply is generally good enough - especially if it's a Seasonic (I swear by these). I picked up a 750 watt Seasonic with 7 years of warranty backing it at a brick-and-mortar shop - really like it. Leaves you a little room to upgrade, but a 650 watt unit should be plenty, also. If you're not running past 1080p resolution on your screen, you'll see diminishing gains past a GTX 1060 nvidia or Radeon Rx480 (or Fury). The 1060 is more powerful and also more expensive, but it's up to you which you like better. Both cards listed will run games great. Just make sure you get 4~6 or even 8gb on the new video card, as you should pass on the soon-to-be-outmoded 2~3gb models. If you're gaming at 1440p, 4k, etc, you'll obviously want a 980ti, 1070, 1080 type video card - and a monitor to match it. Otherwise, just go with a card you like the looks of, has a good warranty, and isn't a reference model/founders edition (buy one with 2~3 fans, they cool better & quieter). When I mentioned system memory above, get 1600mhz ddr3 memory, as I don't think the motherboard you have will allow increasing the speed of memory any above 1600mhz. If you still have money left over, snag a 512gb SSD from Amazon or Newegg or wherever you buy from, as running an intel PC without one (using a regular hard drive) is almost taboo. The difference is night and day - but only do this if you're good at installing Windows and such. I hope this helps - good luck.
