I made this thread 2-11-2016:
It took me a whole year to make the plunge, and I finally upgraded my GPU last year. Got a Radeon RX580 instead.
Now I’m thinking I need a new everything else: motherboard, CPU, ram.
I currently have:
AMD FX 8120
ASUS M5A970 970GX
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
500w PSU
I want to stay with an AMD CPU, I want 12gb ram minimum. I’ll be willing to pay R6000.
What do you smart people advise?
Why specifically AMD? Just an AMD Fangirl?
The only problem that you are going to have, with going either way is that you are going to have to upgrade it all at once. Mobo, CPU and Ram.
Ryzen 5 1500X , X370 Mobo and then 2x8gb ram should fit within your budget id reckon
maybe cause intel cpu’s are overpriced and still not even as secure as amd ones 
Meltdown cough Spectre * cough*
You got a point there. I have just never been a big fan of AMD, the ones that I have had always had issues and ran hot as AMD’s do. Both CPUs and GPUs
R6k for mobo, CPU and RAM currently will limit your options severely, whether you go AMD or Intel. The simple reason being that RAM prices are insane right now. For around R7k you could pick up something like a Ryzen 1400 (4 cores / 8 threads), a decent B350 mobo, and 8GB of DDR4. This will complement an RX580 quite nicely. However, AMD are on the verge of detailing the Ryzen+ lineup, and Intel are about to reveal cheaper Coffee Lake mobo’s, so you may want to sit on your hands for a few more weeks at least.
Ryzen is a game-changer in that regard. It runs cool and is just as power efficient as the equivalent Intel chips, if not more so. I have an R5 1600 with a cheapish aftermarket cooler, and it struggles to break 60C unless I run a torture test.
When I did my huge initial upgrade a while back, I was waiting for Ryzen+Vega. And I was very underwhelmed by both and decided against it
Your choice of course. I wasn’t impressed by Vega either. I do however get peeved when people steer away from Ryzen because “it isn’t Intel”. So far I’ve managed to convince at least three friends/family/colleagues to give AMD a shot when it was time to upgrade, and they’re all very pleased with how Ryzen performs. They got much better bang for buck than anything from Intel in the same price range.
My biggest issue was the cooling. Aftermarket coolers were hardly available. And I was running a full custom loop, so getting a block for Ryzen then was impossibru
If I could upgrade now I would go Ryzen,Its going to be a while after this meltdown fiasco before I trust Intel again.
The next AMD CPU lineup should be in the April or so so if you can hang on a bit I would wait or grab a 1600 /1500 etc because the price recently went down due to the APU’s that came out the other day.
Is that really as serious as people make out? Doesn’t the hacker need the actual hardware in front of them?
no Spectre and meltdown can be deployed via a web browser , meltdown can also be used to break out of VM’s to get to other users data
Thanks for all the input guys.
I’ll wait another month or 2 to see what happens to prices and the new releases.
My pc is so slow lately. Gaming is okay, but running a browser with 10+ tabs, steam and then trying to do something else just doesn’t “flow” anymore.
So I think it’s seriously time now!
Besides the fact that is sounds like a Boeing on startup, I couldn’t view a pdf map in Adobe today.
And also, I got my raise back-paid yesterday since April.
I basically have an RX580, and a 500w PSU. I need better mobo, CPU and ram than this:
AMD FX 8120
ASUS M5A970 970GX
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
Budget is probably still around R6000 
Is gaming your main focus, or do you do any type of work on the PC?
Suggest you take a look at the upgrade kits on offer at Evetech, to get a general idea of what R6k will get you.
Lol this necro but stay away from Evetech. https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/941763-Evetech-disaster-Don-t-ever-buy-from-them?highlight=evetech
Rather use Wootware and Rebeltech.
It’s not a necro if the original poster returns, is it? Personally, I’ve bought from all three you mentioned and never had an issue with any of them. Also, I suggested he use the Evetech bundles as a baseline for price comparison, not to go ahead and just buy something.
O my bad missed that.
The problem mostly is when you want to return something at evetech.
When I use my pc, it’s mostly for gaming. When I use it for work, it’s mostly reading pdfs, making slideshows or researching stuff on the internet with a gazillion tabs open.
I bought at evetech before, and based on that experience I’d prefer not to support them again.
I am using their website to look at what I’d be able to get for R6000. The issue is, I don’t really know what will be compatible with my current gpu and psu.
I like amd for no specific reason. Ultimately, the best value for money will be the determining factor, Intel or amd.