Unnecessary Upgrade

[Accessless]

A friend of mine has asked me to help with an upgrade (new build). But after looking over what he already has I came to the conclusion that an upgrade at this time wouldn't yield enough results to be worth it. But I wanted to get a second opinion.

He currently has:

CPU: AMD FX-9590
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960
RAM: 8GB DDR3
HDD: 2TB
SSD: 500GB

The best I came up with for him was a Ryzen 7 1800X with 16Gb DDR4 for £600-700 for a 1.5x boost in CPU performance only

Or an i7 6950X with 16Gb DDR4 for ~£1000 for a 2x boost in CPU performance only.

I know this is going to down to opinion but I didn't see either of those as a worth while direction other than mostly power management gains.

[Mark.]

I would concur, there would be a lot of money and time spent with little performance gained to justify the effort.
if the reason for the upgrade was to improve overall performance, perhaps a fresh install of the system would give as good a hit as anything.
but what with the PC already having a SSD, that would be slight at best.

[camerongray]

It entirely comes down to what they need the upgrade for, is there something they are trying to do that their current machine can't handle?

[DaveLembke]

Their current system should be plenty of processing power.

I'm curious if they really need to have anything better or if they just want something faster for bragging rights to say here look at me I have this overkill system. I dont see it worth the money to make that upgrade which would require a new Motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

Of course if they are rich and money is no object then sure buy the latest and throw away a system or motherboard/CPU/RAM combination more powerful then the average user. Lots of people would grab up that tossed out FX-9590 in a heartbeat.

[Accessless]

As far as I'm aware he just thought that there was faster stuff on the market at the moment. He's not the type for a pimped PC. I think his main problem is stability. His graphics card fans aren't working at the moment apparently.

... Lots of people would grab up that tossed out FX-9590 in a heartbeat. ...

Why would anyone want that CPU? It's 220W, his entire problem is thermal regulation.

I've advised him that RAM expansion and some aftermarket cooling is the best way to go.

[BC_Programmer]

Why would anyone want that CPU? It's 220W, his entire problem is thermal regulation.

A tossed out CPU is pretty much a cheap/free upgrade if you already have the required motherboard and PSU.

I got a QX6700 Chip to replace my Q8200 in my other system even though that raised the TDP from 95W to 130W and didn't really make up for it with corresponding increases in performance. Why? Because I could it was like- 8 dollars.

You get a chip for free or cheap that is already compatible with your system, you've got nothing to lose, really. It's not like you can stick a Ryzen 7 in a AM3+ board.

It sounds like the Graphics card is a bigger issue than the CPU anyway, if it's Fans aren't functioning when under load.