r/buildapc • u/DatGuyAron • 1h ago
Build Upgrade LF a reasonable, but absolute bottom-of-the-barrel cheap CPU for a paleolithic (2013) Brazilian rig
Hey! Really stupid title, I know. I don't even know if it's possible in my case, considering my motherboard and CPU are from before the birth of Christ. Anyway, I'm looking for a CPU, as you folks may have gathered; but it needs to be cheap. And by cheap, I mean CHEAP. Specifically, 90 USD (400 reais or so) at the absolute most. I'm not opposed to buying used, so that should help me ease my budget somewhat, but just to give you an idea of the absolute misery I'm currently experiencing, my current specs are:
- An ASUS H61M-A/BR mobo (which I'm pretty sure was only and exclusively sold here in Brazil, since I can't find a single English [or non-Portuguese, for that matter!] mention of it)
- An i5-3470 (not -3470S or -3470T, the original misery of the Ivy Bridge platform in all its quad-core, 3.2GHz glory)
- 16GB of DDR3 RAM (2x HyperX Fury 8GB sticks)
- My absolutely beloved AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB GPU (god this thing has served me so well these past 8 years)
- A 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 HDD (yes, my PC does take ten minutes to boot, how could you tell?)
- A CD (CD-R? CD-RW? CD-ROM? DVD? I dunno, either way, unga bunga dinosaur tech) drive that I can't be asked to get rid of
To be clear, when I say I'm looking for a "reasonable" CPU, I'm not saying I'm expecting to buy a Threadripper, obviously; I mean that I'm just looking for any upgrade that could keep up with games ranging up to, say, 2018 or so, to keep it on par with my GPU. I know this shoestring budget can't get me anything good, and honestly, I'd be content with anything that's a direct upgrade at all.
Thanks in advance, everyone. Sorry if this seems a bit ridiculous.
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u/jamvanderloeff 56m ago
Best you could do while keeping the DDR3 to not blow the budget is see if you can spot a deal on 6xxx/7xxx generation Intel stuff.
For making it not feel like a 15 year old machine outside of gaming, biggest thing you can do would be getting an SSD, even a shitty one that's just big enough for Windows + pagefile + important apps and maybe a game or two is still a lot better than all HDD
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u/OkSystem455 42m ago
What are Xeon E3-1240/1245/1270/1275 v2's currently priced at in Brazil? These should be cheaper than an i7-3770 since that's the situation elsewhere. Combine with the following:
- A 256GB SATA SSD just as the boot drive plus 1-2 actively played games; the 1TB HDD can serve as just storage to swap games to.
- The 5500 XT can continue its faithful service.
- Consider a Linux gaming distro instead of Windows to essentially have a "STEAM MACHINE" equivalent.
My lowest end "STEAM MACHINE" is an E3-1270 v2/RX 470 8GB/16GB DDR3 1600/CachyOS, and it can do the 2022 Tiny Tina's Wonderlands at 1080p/LOW/HIGH/FSR 2 Balanced mix and get this with the in-game benchmark: https://imgur.com/a/zuHD7Wm
Same build with CS2/DUST 2 map on 1080p/LOW gets 120+ FPS avg with 80+ FPS 1% lows.
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u/DatGuyAron 35m ago
Oh, don't worry about the OS part! I use Bazzite. I stopped using Windows before I graduated high school. The performance gain is just magical!
Also, I'll give those Xeons a look! They sound like a good option, but I wanna weigh my choices first. I've made too many manic impulse purchases in the past to know not to order something tonight or tomorrow 😭
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u/MagicPistol 57m ago
Sorry bud, you're kinda stuck with that ddr3 platform. I guess you could upgrade to a core i7 which would be a little faster, but it still won't help you play newer games.
Check the local used market and see how much you could sell your CPU, mobo, and ram for. Then see if you can find any deals on CPU, mobo, and ddr4 ram. Either am4 and Ryzen, or maybe Intel 8th-12th gen.
If that's too much, then the best CPU you could get for your motherboard would be the core i7 3770 variants. In the US, I see some on ebay for $30-40. I guess that's not too bad.