Upgrade from i7-4790 to...? (AM4 or LGA 1200/1700 i3)

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jetheridge87

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Basically title. Currently running an upgraded OEM with 4790, 16gb ram, and an rx 570 8gb. I pretty much exclusively play Rocket League in 1440p at 165hz. Been thinking of upgrading for QoL improvements (faster bootup, nvme) as well as broadening my gaming horizons. Also would like to keep an eye to efficiency and lower power usage quite a bit.
Would I be better suited to something like a Ryzen 4500/5500, or a 10th-12th gen i3? Only looking to spend sub-$150 on cpu/mobo.
 
In your case, I would recommend upgrading only if your current CPU platform is no longer supported for security fixes. Any CPU upgrade will be limited by your budget. And costs for such low-end parts have crept upwards of late even for a downgrade in overall performance. What’s more, you’d be going from one bad thing to another as you’d be trading higher peak power consumption for a massively higher idle power consumption.
 
That's a pretty tight budget. For that budget I'd be looking at used CPU/Mobo/Ram combos instead of building something using an i3. Also, a haswell-generation motherboard should support NVMe in most cases. Even if the motherboard doesn't have an M.2 slot, you can just get a PCIe to M.2 adapter.
 
$150 is tight, especially since I assume that you'll need to replace DDR3 memory with newer as well. If you're willing to take it to $200, you can find a new AM4 mobo for under $100 (used mobo's aren't usually much cheaper and can be iffy), 16GB DDR4 for $30 or so, and you can generally find a used Ryzen CPU for $50-70. Heck, I have at least one 1600 collecting dust here that I seem to be unable to give away. For $50-70 and a bit of patience I'd expect that you could land a Ryzen 3600 or maybe even a 3700X.
 
Amds and Intel have good processors at $300 and $400 ranges

The bundles at microcenter are great ! I would up my budget to at least 600 for a decent and recent CPU/Mobo/ram combo; $150... You barely bought the ram lmao
 
jetheridge87 said:
Basically title. Currently running an upgraded OEM with 4790, 16gb ram, and an rx 570 8gb. I pretty much exclusively play Rocket League in 1440p at 165hz. Been thinking of upgrading for QoL improvements (faster bootup, nvme) as well as broadening my gaming horizons. Also would like to keep an eye to efficiency and lower power usage quite a bit.
Would I be better suited to something like a Ryzen 4500/5500, or a 10th-12th gen i3? Only looking to spend sub-$150 on cpu/mobo.
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You said you are using an upgraded OEM system now. Is that an option for your upgrade - something used off lease? I picked up an off lease i5-9500 with 16G ram and a 500GB nvme ssd for $117 ($128 shipped) Just had to drop in the graphics card and it works great. That's given you can reuse your other parts. But, I'm not sure this will give you much uplift. The Intel 10 series cpus are becoming more plentiful, now. For your budget, off lease is your best bet for Intel 10 series. I just don't see a combo with a 12100 for $150.

You mentioned AMD and a tight budget. Is there any extra room for the CPU/MB portion? Are you close to a Microcenter? Many recommend them for a reason - You can get good combo deals there pretty regularly.

If not, do you have Amazon Prime? They sell Micro Center stuff which means free shipping and easy returns. MC may not ship some of their stuff or may charge for it, if they do. Here's an AMD 4500 and B450 combo for $180. New parts, warranty, drop in AM4 cpu upgrade later, easy returns and it has many of the newer features your 4790 platform lacks. DDR4 and nvme's are cheap these days. Good time to upgrade.

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They have the 5500 for $200.

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And if you can stretch a bit more the 5600 for $230. I know that's probably pushing it.

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$150 is doable for i3 13th gen. I bought a new i3 13100F from Bestbuy deal 2 months ago for $65 plus sale tax. If you search on slickdeals site / buildapcsales subreddit, you will see that the Bestbuy has had the deal quite a few times this year, so chance you can grab one for similar price. You probably can find an entry level/budget H610 motherboard for like $60-$90. I upgraded my son's gaming pc from i7 9700F to 13th gen and keep the same gpu RTX 2080 Super, and the performance gain is noticeable.
 
nanoscale said:
$150 is doable for i3 13th gen. I bought a new i3 13100F from Bestbuy deal 2 months ago for $65 plus sale tax. If you search on slickdeals site / buildapcsales subreddit, you will see that the Bestbuy has had the deal quite a few times this year, so chance you can grab one for similar price. You probably can find an entry level/budget H610 motherboard for like $60-$90. I upgraded my son's gaming pc from i7 9700F to 13th gen and keep the same gpu RTX 2080 Super, and the performance gain is noticeable.
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He'd still need ram too then as that's Ddr5. His ram is ddr3.
 
E4g1e said:
Like GoldenTiger said. He cannot carry over his old system's existing RAM to the new build as they are completely incompatible with one another.
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I just tried to answer op question about cpu/mobo. I didn't assume or presume anything outside of his basic inquiry.
 
Would I be better suited to something like a Ryzen 4500/5500, or a 10th-12th gen i3? Only looking to spend sub-$150 on cpu/mobo.
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Both Ryzen 4+/Intel 10th+ stuff require DDR4.

Are you willing to extend your budget for the ram? or.. are you implying and we should infer you have DDR4/DDR5 ram on the side not disclosed in your OP?
 
For OEM parts, verify compatibility with other hardware or you'll need to add in some extra parts to make it work. That HP has some quirks. Start with the chipset and verify the platform and their bios will allow the CPU you are pairing with it. Same for CPU cooler. Same for RAM. That HP MB will need a PSU adapter or an HP PSU. If using the OEM PSU, wattage and GPU power connectors should be verified. It likely needs an HP chassis fan or an adapter as the fan header is not standard and there appears to be only one fan header for a rear fan. Some have mounting holes that will not align with standard consumer cases. Interesting place for the sata and USB headers. Finally, there doesn't seem to be an NVME slot which OP specifically is looking for.

OEM builds can be great value for money. But, getting a non standard system and trying to swap off the shelf parts can frustrate the uninitiated and cost them more. If going OEM it's usually cheaper/easier to buy the complete base system to make sure everything works together.
 
Interestingly enough, I'm still rocking an i5-3570 (non K). Was looking at a cheap platform upgrade to something like a 12400. And for my use cases, it seems that getting a used 3770 is probably better for now. I'm pretty sure my setup cannot do any of the faster NVME drives though, at least I haven't found any bios updates for my motherboard that allows for booting to PCIE. That would be the only reason I would feel compelled to upgrade. But honestly, SATA3 SSD's are just fine, for the most part. Compared to my NVME laptop (which has an i5-8400), the SATA SSD is just *that* less snappy. Certainly a far cry from when we jumped from HDD's to SSD.

Honestly, I can't decide on whether I'm more impressed by the longevity of some of these older platforms or depressed at the lack of innovation pushing these old platforms out of existence. Still, I'd take a $20 upgrade over a $350 one. :)
 
Not sure how far into a new system that budget will get. If you are into OEM builds. An optiplex 3050 and above has M.2 slots. You could build a fast booting 6th-7th gen and get it with a decent I5 leaving room for a 6700 or 7700 depending on what the box will allow
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Interestingly enough, I'm still rocking an i5-3570 (non K). Was looking at a cheap platform upgrade to something like a 12400. And for my use cases, it seems that getting a used 3770 is probably better for now. I'm pretty sure my setup cannot do any of the faster NVME drives though, at least I haven't found any bios updates for my motherboard that allows for booting to PCIE. That would be the only reason I would feel compelled to upgrade. But honestly, SATA3 SSD's are just fine, for the most part. Compared to my NVME laptop (which has an i5-8400), the SATA SSD is just *that* less snappy. Certainly a far cry from when we jumped from HDD's to SSD.

Honestly, I can't decide on whether I'm more impressed by the longevity of some of these older platforms or depressed at the lack of innovation pushing these old platforms out of existence. Still, I'd take a $20 upgrade over a $350 one. :)
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You do not have to boot from pcie to benefit from pcie flash. Install large applications and games to it and enjoy it.
 
Let me know if you ever want to get rid of that 4790. That would be a drop in replacement for the 4570 in my firewall!
 
I have an i7 4770k in my media server, my primary rig I went to a 3800X, then a 5600X, if I was you I'd aim high since you don't upgrade too often and get the best CPU Intel or AMD that you can in whatever price range you got and buy during Black Friday / Cyber Monday. You waited this long I'd wait for the deals.
 
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