Best or good upgrade from an i5 6500?

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

Board is an asus H110M-E/M.2 (LGA1151)

GPU = xfx rx 580 8gb xxx gts oc+

[Illusion of Progress]

Your motherboard socket will accept the 6th and 7th generation CPUs. The absolute best that will fit into the socket is a Core i7 7700K.

You might need a BIOS update for the 7th generation.

It might not handle certain models to their fullest (those with higher TDP namely) given it's an H110 board. It depends on what the VRMs that board has are capable of (I'm not sure of this myself).

It's not really worth upgrading the the 7th generation Core i5 since it's too small of a gain over what you have, so the only practical upgrades are either the Core i7 6700 (basically a sidegrade in per core performance but you get Hyper-threading) or Core i7 7700 series (same as prior but it's also slightly faster per core).

Keep price in mind. The fastest options on a platform tend to retain value, and those two generations in particular are the most recent of the "quad core generations", so the Core i7s from those generations will probably cost more than they are worth (harsh personal opinion time, but anything over ~$80 to maybe $100 is too much).

Use new CPUs as a rough comparison point. While the appeal of going with one available for your platform is you won't have to change the board (and maybe RAM), it loses the point if you're paying too much of a premium for the CPU itself. The Ryzen 5 5600 (non-X) is going for, what, like $120 or less right now? That's a much faster, brand new, hex core. I'm pretty sure my 3700X probably wouldn't really go for much more than $100 if I tried to sell it these days and that's a faster octo core. Keep this in all mind before paying triple figures for a quad core that is half a dozen generations old now. I would probably only do it if this is an OEM where changing the motherboard might also mean changing the case/PSU too.

But if your budget fits a CPU and nothing more, the Core i7 6700 and 7700 are what you want to look at. Nothing else is a worthwhile enough change (and even those will really help only if your current performance issues are lack of threads).

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

There is not much point trying to put something like 6700K into cheapest motherboard like that and 6700K would be outdated anyway. You would be looking for CPU, motherboard and RAM swap depending on your budget.
Something like that in the cheaper end still capable of gaming just fine:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nJTwnt

[76561198343548661]

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($166.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($109.99 @ B&H)
Total: $276.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-29 19:44 EST-0500

about 3x faster

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

If you currently have 16 GB of 3000 Mhz / 3200 Mhz DDR4 RAM in your rig then you can ignore the RAM part in my suggestion but if you have less then that or very low speed like 2133 Mhz then it`s best to swap out that too since it`s pretty cheap anyway.

[hawkeye]

Depending on your budget and the cost of an i7-6700k or i7-7700k, I would recommend moving to 13th generation (or the 12100f).

Even the 13th gen i3 will be faster than 6th or 7th gen i7 when it is released.
Here is a vid on the i3-12100 -
https://www.google.com/search?q=gamers+nexus+i3-12100

Some performance stats -

The single thread speed is a good indicator of gaming performance. Sticking with 6th gen isn't worth it..

i5-6500 (4 core / 4 threads)

Integer Math ♥♥♥♥♥7 MOps/Sec
Floating Point Math 12,600 MOps/Sec
Single Thread 2,119 MOps/Se

i7-6700k (4c/8t)

Integer Math 28,233 MOps/Sec
Floating Point Math 17,512 MOps/Sec
Single Thread 2,517 MOps/Sec

i3-12100f (4c/8t)

Integer Math 41,720 MOps/Sec
Floating Point Math 32,456 MOps/Sec
Single Thread 3,517 MOps/Sec

i7-13600k (6c/12t plus 8c/8t)

Integer Math 125,157 MOps/Sec
Floating Point Math 92,636 MOps/Sec
Single Thread 4,215 MOps/Sec

there are mobo recommendations on gamers nexus too

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

Yeah the motherboard only supports ~2000mhz and i have 2 sets of 16gb ddr4 3000mhz (not sure if I ca run them both in the same board for 32gb)

I found a ryzen 7 3700x for $140 locally. Then I would just need a Matx motherboard to fit my case. i5 6500 ranks 400th and the 3700x ranks about 110th lol

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vXD4k9

current specs

[Seamus]

Well, if you're looking for mATX, that could be a problem for wanting to run 4 sticks. You got about 50/50 shot of boards being 2 slot or 4 slot. Thankfully 550/570 boards tend to handle 4 sticks better than my 470 does.

Just out of habit I'd go for something higher rated than bronze on the PSU though.

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

There's a few on here with 4 slots. Although memory was never an issue.

Anything decent here under $80 or $100?

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#sort=price&page=1

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/bWqBD3/asrock-a520m-hdv-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-a520m-hdv

This guy was the cheapest without any bios flashing warning on the website.

Would like something with RGB control but not necessary

How does this look?

Wattage still under 400w with this board and a cpu cooler and 2 ssd and 1 hdd

[Seamus]

I'd try at least for a b550 if you can fit it into your budget. aX20 boards tend to be missing a lot of features and power delivery.

Asus PRIME B550M-A/CSM might be a good choice if it works with your budget. 4 ram slots, ~$117.

[76561198343548661]

i5 12400F is better than Ryzen 3700X for gaming

[Corona Scurrae]

there is absolutely nothing right now that can beat the value of 5500 and b450 motherboards.

[76561198343548661]

Pelopidas , yet this is a budget solution . It would bottleneck faster cards . So , it depends on the OPs GPU - using or planning to use .

[[drunk] 2021 Giant Stance]

is 5500 intel