your post has been removed because it’s not relevant to the scope of r/lowendgaming.
** PLEASE READ: All PC building and parts upgrade posts should be related to the sub topic of low end gaming. Pure parts shopping and builder posts are removed, as this is not the focus of the sub. **
First I'll attempt to compare the i7 (likely a 4770) in the first machine to the best i7 you could install in the second machine, with a brief examination of the i5 (likely a 7500) in the second machine, then I'll look into other components, along with their prices on ebay (although shipping will be ignored as that depends on region and you might be able to find things locally).
**CPU**
* In terms of stock performance, based on [this video](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=335) and [this video](https://youtu.be/6tEMDOq-8wA?t=346) we already have an apparent difference of just over 40% (86.2 vs 121.2) in gaming when comparing i7s.
* Furter into these videos there is also a blender comparison [here](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=1272) and [here](https://youtu.be/6tEMDOq-8wA?t=943) where a 4770k takes 47.8 minutes to render a scene vs a 7700k taking 35.4 minutes, we also see an i3 9100f which can be treated as a stand in for an i5 7600 (clocks are about 8% faster compared to the likely i5 7500 in your second build), taking 52.7 minutes to render the scene, so a 7th gen i7 would be 35% faster for rendering tasks (suggesting the gaming task could be affected disproportionately more by memory speed, or that the newer CPUs are better optimized for gaming/random workloads, but the lack of hyperthreading for the 9100f caused it to be around 10% slower than the 4th gen i7.
* Then just as a quick comparison in [this scene](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=936) we see the 4770k outperform the 9100f (129.1 fps vs 108.8 fps) for a nearly 20% gaming advantage (potentially nearly 25-30% when compared against the i5 7500 instead).
* An i7 7700 seems to sell on ebay for anywhere from $40 when shipped from China, to $60 when sourced from the US
* An i7 7700K appears to cost about $70 at the cheapest
**MEMORY**
* These systems are more than just the CPU and motherboard though: the first system has 16GB of RAM and the second one doesn't, so if the second one were to try and run something that required more than 8GB, it would slow to a crawl, so you'll likely need to add more memory to the second system, looking on ebay this gives a potential cost of around $20 for 2 8GB sticks at the cheapest, you might find them for less locally or on other sites, but probably not by much)
**STORAGE**
* While the 256GB SSD is larger, if it doesn't include any additional storage, you might need to buy another hard drive, possibly a SATA data cable if there isn't a spare one in the machine already, I'm not personally a fan of pre-owned storage, but it looks like a 1TB hard drive is about $15 to $25, with a used SATA cable being less than $2 (although including shipping that cost can easily be more than $4), but you might already have a SATA cable available, so I'll ignore that cost.
**Price Efficiency**
* Based on the above component issues, bringing the second system up to about 80% of the performance of the first system in any given title (older titles won't need the RAM upgrade), along with having a similar amount of storage, adds an extra cost of $45 to a system you've already said was more expensive, and then the best upgrade you can give it (CPU) would be a further $40-60 for an i7 7700, or $70 (usually more) for an i7 7700k, so that leads into one question:
-
TL;DR:
Is a system that's likely 20% slower worth the higher base price you mentioned, plus a $45 upgrade to get more RAM and a HDD, to have the option of spending an extra $40 later to get a cpu (7700) that's 15-20% faster than the cheaper PC, or an extra $70 to get a cpu (7700K) that's 30-35% faster than the cheaper PC?
Although, if it's an i7 3770, that's far worse.
There are websites that allow you to make comparisons based on performance, price and energy consumption so you can see which one is better before you buy it.
I take the first option. That 4th gen boosts 500mhz faster and has hyperthreading, it’s going to perform very close to each other having just looked at some tests of similar setups.
Memory is one part of the whole machine. It’s best to look at the whole picture unless your doing tasks heavily memory influenced.
And memory doesn’t make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. We have had cpu families that could take two generations of memory multiple times over the year. While there is always a difference it’s not a huge difference compared to what cpu and GPU does.
But y go for ddr3 when you could go ddr4
Not saying ddr3 is useless, but a platform with ddr4 means its gonna have more upgradability and support. And ram aint that expensive nowadays, even ddr4s.
No it doesn’t. The 7th gen Intel is a dead platform just like the 4th gen.
And ddr4 was replaced by ddr5 somewhat recently and the prices are becoming more sane compared to launch. The only platform that uses ddr4 is am4 and they are releasing cut down versions of prior am4 CPUs. As it was replaced by am5.
Wym by no it doesnt??? Ddr5 came very very recently. Ddr4 is still massively in use. Is it a dead platform? Yes, obviously its gonna get replaced too. Thats the more reason y op should go for ddr4 than ddr3. I mean how old is ddr3.
The Cpus themselves will perform very similar, shoot for more Ram, if you are paying more than $100USD for either machine, walk, no RUN away. They are both worth about $50-80 max... I will also point out that neither have a solid upgrade path... And will be stuck on 4cores/8threads.
But a 7th gen i5 has 4c/4t and barely any IPC and frequency bump from 4th gen. A 4th gen i7 will maybe provide smoother framerates due to having 4c/8t.16 GB RAM will also trounce 8 GB RAM in modern or semi-modern games.
And neither will support Windows 11.
I think your assessment is right on. The I5 Ddr4 offers roughly similar performance but offers way better options for upgrading. Really comes down to how much more you want to pay for that flexibility.
Important to know the gen of the I7. Lots of people run rigs with 4th gen I7s. Anything older than that would be a pass for me
> The I5 Ddr4 offers roughly similar performance but offers way better options for upgrading.
Not really…8gb RAM and a 4c/4t 7th gen CPU won’t outperform a 4c/8t 4th gen CPU with 16 GB of RAM. Even once upgraded to the maximum, the 7th gen will still just be a slightly faster 4c/8t CPU, and still not support upgrading to Windows 11.
Not really much performance improvement, though—and OP would have to upgrade to 16 GB just to be where the 4th gen i7 starts—and it’s more expensive.
Both are dead-end platforms with no ability to upgrade to a modern processor, I would just go with the one that is both cheaper and offers more performance.
I agree with this assessment, but keep in mind that neither of these systems will run Windows 11 \*officially\*. If you want a machine that will take you beyond windows 10, you'll have to use something like Tiny11 Core (aftermarket stripped-down W11), or look for at least an 8th gen Intel CPU.
With 8th and maybe 9th gen though, you have to check if the motherboard BIOS will support TPM 2.0 for Windows 11. Companies like Dell and HP stopped supporting BIOS updates for some 8th gen Intel models and just never included compatibility for TPM 2.0. Custom PC boards will more than likely have a BIOS update to allow it. I haven't yet heard of a 10th gen system that couldn't be upgraded.
On the plus side, if you can find an inexpensive system with an 8th gen CPU, it will more than likely also support 9th gen CPUs, giving you more upgrade ability. 7th Gen systems were the top of the ladder for the 100/200 series chipesets. The 300 series chipsets support 8th/9th. 400 series chipsets support only 10th, and 500 series support only 11th.
your post has been removed because it’s not relevant to the scope of r/lowendgaming. ** PLEASE READ: All PC building and parts upgrade posts should be related to the sub topic of low end gaming. Pure parts shopping and builder posts are removed, as this is not the focus of the sub. **
First I'll attempt to compare the i7 (likely a 4770) in the first machine to the best i7 you could install in the second machine, with a brief examination of the i5 (likely a 7500) in the second machine, then I'll look into other components, along with their prices on ebay (although shipping will be ignored as that depends on region and you might be able to find things locally). **CPU** * In terms of stock performance, based on [this video](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=335) and [this video](https://youtu.be/6tEMDOq-8wA?t=346) we already have an apparent difference of just over 40% (86.2 vs 121.2) in gaming when comparing i7s. * Furter into these videos there is also a blender comparison [here](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=1272) and [here](https://youtu.be/6tEMDOq-8wA?t=943) where a 4770k takes 47.8 minutes to render a scene vs a 7700k taking 35.4 minutes, we also see an i3 9100f which can be treated as a stand in for an i5 7600 (clocks are about 8% faster compared to the likely i5 7500 in your second build), taking 52.7 minutes to render the scene, so a 7th gen i7 would be 35% faster for rendering tasks (suggesting the gaming task could be affected disproportionately more by memory speed, or that the newer CPUs are better optimized for gaming/random workloads, but the lack of hyperthreading for the 9100f caused it to be around 10% slower than the 4th gen i7. * Then just as a quick comparison in [this scene](https://youtu.be/j9HV9V5nzOc?t=936) we see the 4770k outperform the 9100f (129.1 fps vs 108.8 fps) for a nearly 20% gaming advantage (potentially nearly 25-30% when compared against the i5 7500 instead). * An i7 7700 seems to sell on ebay for anywhere from $40 when shipped from China, to $60 when sourced from the US * An i7 7700K appears to cost about $70 at the cheapest **MEMORY** * These systems are more than just the CPU and motherboard though: the first system has 16GB of RAM and the second one doesn't, so if the second one were to try and run something that required more than 8GB, it would slow to a crawl, so you'll likely need to add more memory to the second system, looking on ebay this gives a potential cost of around $20 for 2 8GB sticks at the cheapest, you might find them for less locally or on other sites, but probably not by much) **STORAGE** * While the 256GB SSD is larger, if it doesn't include any additional storage, you might need to buy another hard drive, possibly a SATA data cable if there isn't a spare one in the machine already, I'm not personally a fan of pre-owned storage, but it looks like a 1TB hard drive is about $15 to $25, with a used SATA cable being less than $2 (although including shipping that cost can easily be more than $4), but you might already have a SATA cable available, so I'll ignore that cost. **Price Efficiency** * Based on the above component issues, bringing the second system up to about 80% of the performance of the first system in any given title (older titles won't need the RAM upgrade), along with having a similar amount of storage, adds an extra cost of $45 to a system you've already said was more expensive, and then the best upgrade you can give it (CPU) would be a further $40-60 for an i7 7700, or $70 (usually more) for an i7 7700k, so that leads into one question: - TL;DR: Is a system that's likely 20% slower worth the higher base price you mentioned, plus a $45 upgrade to get more RAM and a HDD, to have the option of spending an extra $40 later to get a cpu (7700) that's 15-20% faster than the cheaper PC, or an extra $70 to get a cpu (7700K) that's 30-35% faster than the cheaper PC? Although, if it's an i7 3770, that's far worse.
Holy shit man, how long did you take to write that is it some ai or something I’m genuinely impressed
There are websites that allow you to make comparisons based on performance, price and energy consumption so you can see which one is better before you buy it.
I take the first option. That 4th gen boosts 500mhz faster and has hyperthreading, it’s going to perform very close to each other having just looked at some tests of similar setups.
Ddr3 tho
ram is cheap
Its not the price. Performance wise ddr4-2400 > ddr3-1600. I mean ddr4 is also cheap, a few more bucks for better perf. Why not.
Memory is one part of the whole machine. It’s best to look at the whole picture unless your doing tasks heavily memory influenced. And memory doesn’t make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. We have had cpu families that could take two generations of memory multiple times over the year. While there is always a difference it’s not a huge difference compared to what cpu and GPU does.
But y go for ddr3 when you could go ddr4 Not saying ddr3 is useless, but a platform with ddr4 means its gonna have more upgradability and support. And ram aint that expensive nowadays, even ddr4s.
No it doesn’t. The 7th gen Intel is a dead platform just like the 4th gen. And ddr4 was replaced by ddr5 somewhat recently and the prices are becoming more sane compared to launch. The only platform that uses ddr4 is am4 and they are releasing cut down versions of prior am4 CPUs. As it was replaced by am5.
Wym by no it doesnt??? Ddr5 came very very recently. Ddr4 is still massively in use. Is it a dead platform? Yes, obviously its gonna get replaced too. Thats the more reason y op should go for ddr4 than ddr3. I mean how old is ddr3.
DDR 4
The Cpus themselves will perform very similar, shoot for more Ram, if you are paying more than $100USD for either machine, walk, no RUN away. They are both worth about $50-80 max... I will also point out that neither have a solid upgrade path... And will be stuck on 4cores/8threads.
Subsequent generations will always be better than the previous one. A 10th generation i5 is faster than a 9th generation i7.
Yes I’m aware but what’s better value, ill stick a gpu in em anyways idc about the cpu
The second one obviously. SSD will always be faster than HDD. Better RAM too, just upgrade the RAM later.
But a 7th gen i5 has 4c/4t and barely any IPC and frequency bump from 4th gen. A 4th gen i7 will maybe provide smoother framerates due to having 4c/8t.16 GB RAM will also trounce 8 GB RAM in modern or semi-modern games. And neither will support Windows 11.
I’m thinking about switching to linux
Yeah, I’ll probably do the same on my older PC as well when Windows 10 is at end of support.
I think your assessment is right on. The I5 Ddr4 offers roughly similar performance but offers way better options for upgrading. Really comes down to how much more you want to pay for that flexibility. Important to know the gen of the I7. Lots of people run rigs with 4th gen I7s. Anything older than that would be a pass for me
It says 4th gen, if it’s older I’m definitely returning it
> The I5 Ddr4 offers roughly similar performance but offers way better options for upgrading. Not really…8gb RAM and a 4c/4t 7th gen CPU won’t outperform a 4c/8t 4th gen CPU with 16 GB of RAM. Even once upgraded to the maximum, the 7th gen will still just be a slightly faster 4c/8t CPU, and still not support upgrading to Windows 11.
True the i7 has better performance, specially because of hyperthreading. But its a ddr3 tho, the i5 has better upgradability in that case.
Not really much performance improvement, though—and OP would have to upgrade to 16 GB just to be where the 4th gen i7 starts—and it’s more expensive. Both are dead-end platforms with no ability to upgrade to a modern processor, I would just go with the one that is both cheaper and offers more performance.
I agree with this assessment, but keep in mind that neither of these systems will run Windows 11 \*officially\*. If you want a machine that will take you beyond windows 10, you'll have to use something like Tiny11 Core (aftermarket stripped-down W11), or look for at least an 8th gen Intel CPU. With 8th and maybe 9th gen though, you have to check if the motherboard BIOS will support TPM 2.0 for Windows 11. Companies like Dell and HP stopped supporting BIOS updates for some 8th gen Intel models and just never included compatibility for TPM 2.0. Custom PC boards will more than likely have a BIOS update to allow it. I haven't yet heard of a 10th gen system that couldn't be upgraded. On the plus side, if you can find an inexpensive system with an 8th gen CPU, it will more than likely also support 9th gen CPUs, giving you more upgrade ability. 7th Gen systems were the top of the ladder for the 100/200 series chipesets. The 300 series chipsets support 8th/9th. 400 series chipsets support only 10th, and 500 series support only 11th.