Upgrade options within 20-25k

my pc currently has an i5 4460,although this processor was quite capable back in the day,its begun to show its age and often performs rather slowly in cpu demanding games like AC origins etc.

so i would like to upgrade my pc and have a budget of upto 25k.I was wondering what could i possibly get within this meagre price range.

I have decided on the foll. parts primarily:

10400 or 10400F(the latter being the preferred option,but its currently not available at any of the local hardware stores here).

Gigabyte h410 ms2 mobo

8+8 GB DDR4.

I will be reusing my 1060 6gb,H410R cooler and TXM 550 PSU.

Some questions that i have are:

Will it be a good idea to pair an i5 with a cheap h410 mobo?Can it cause any issues in the long run such as cpu throttling/overheating etc as it has no heatsink on its VRMs?

As this mobo has just 2 ram slots and i plan on using 2 DIMMs,will installing an aftermarket cooler like H410R obstruct any of the memory slots and prevent me from using both of them?

some alternate mobos are:

GB B460M gaming(has a similar layout as that of the above mentioned h410 mobo)

GB b460M d3h

But the problem is both of them are a lot more expensive,and i dont really want to spend more than 25k this time around.

As per Techspot, there is no performance difference when 10400 paired with H410 or Z490 board. So I don't think it would throttle. But don't know which H410 he used in the testing. I guess you can look for that. Am I seeing the picture right? I checked the board you narrow, there is only one choke on the VRM side. Is that right? Anyway, look for reviews at least user reviews.
AHO rambled about A520 and is experimented A520 with 3950X, see if he has any rambling video of H410 or something.
You gotta check youtube videos of the board/cooler of yours to see if they it's obstructing.

BTW, are you sure you can fit all these under 25k? I guess not.

i am aware that this build would exceed my budget of 25k by a slight margin.

However as this motherboard (h410 m s2) is pretty new,almost no reviews of it are available online.So i cant decide whether to go for it or avoid it,more so as i want to use my CM h410r cooler with this cpu and i dont want to face any compatibility issues with the memory slots.

found this pc build video with h410 m s2h on youtube:

Intel i5 10400 H410M DS3H GTX1650 SUPER Ram 16G (Benchmark PUBG, Fortnite, CSGO and GTA5 ) - YouTube

they seem to have used an aftermarket cooler with this setup and it has installed fine without interfering with any of the memory modules.

H410 m s2 and m s2h are pretty similar as far as layout of the board is concerned,so i am hoping there wont be any issues with the former either.

The i5 10400 is 15.5k or so, not a bad deal considering Ryzen 5 is overpriced right now. Maybe get 1x16GB now for 5k & get another stick later, if you want. Although 16GB is sufficient for gaming for years to come (maybe 3-4 years).

Thanks for your inputs-will using a single stick of ram cause any performance issues as it will run in single channel mode?

Acc. to various sources on the internet,running memory in dual channel is recommended for games,otherwise the performance might be affected-is this applicable to intel cpus as well?

quicky008 said:
Thanks for your inputs-will using a single stick of ram cause any performance issues as it will run in single channel mode?

Acc. to various sources on the internet,running memory in dual channel is recommended for games,otherwise the performance might be affected-is this applicable to intel cpus as well?

Yes, dual-channel RAM provides 10-15% performance uplift. But since you have just 2 slots, better to have room for 32GB, if needed.

My local Hardware retailer suggested that i could opt for a setup with ryzen 2700x rather than 10400. Will the ryzen 2700x be better for games and more future proof as its an 8 core cpu?

Also can it be paired with cheaper b450 mobos like asus b450m-a?

Do these r7 cpus run hot and can i reuse my h410 cooler with it?

quicky008 said:
My local Hardware retailer suggested that i could opt for a setup with ryzen 2700x rather than 10400. Will the ryzen 2700x be better for games and more future proof as its an 8 core cpu?

Also can it be paired with cheaper b450 mobos like asus b450m-a?

Do these r7 cpus run hot and can i reuse my h410 cooler with it?

R7 2700X will perform better in productivity tasks, but not necessarily in games. But considering you won't be using a very high-end GPU along with it, there shouldn't be CPU bottleneck, so gaming performance should be similar. So I'd say go with R7 2700X if the price is similar.

Yes, B450 can be used. Try to get a B450 with 4 RAM sticks & preferably something decent, not the cheapest ones as you are going to use a Ryzen 7. Gigabyte B450 DS3H will be the lowest mobo I'd recommend. I'd prefer AsRock B450 Pro4 or Asus TUF B450 (both cost 7.5-8.5k or so these days).

Ryzen has an included cooler, called Wraith Prism. It is a good enough cooler IMO. Do try your present cooler as well, if it supports AM4 socket.

Found this video, results were as I expected:

This is a really useful video-the performance of both cpus is almost similar,but in flight simulator there seems to be a significant disparity between both.For r7 2700x,the avg fps is only 31 fps,but its 42 fps for i5 10400(tested with rtx 3080).

i thought flight simulator was heavily cpu bound-why then is it performing poorly on a processor that has more cores/threads as opposed to the i5?Is it due to the older architecture of ryzen 2nd gen?

quicky008 said:
This is a really useful video-the performance of both cpus is almost similar,but in flight simulator there seems to be a significant disparity between both.For r7 2700x,the avg fps is only 31 fps,but its 42 fps for i5 10400(tested with rtx 3080).

i thought flight simulator was heavily cpu bound-why then is it performing poorly on a processor that has more cores/threads as opposed to the i5?Is it due to the older architecture of ryzen 2nd gen?

Yeah, older architecture. Apparently, MS FS doesn't use more than 4 cores properly, not MS' best job at optimization.

Wait for Ryzen 5000 series CPUs to food the market. Older CPU prices will crash.

When is that likely to happen? Not this year is it?

quicky008 said:
When is that likely to happen? Not this year is it?

USA release for Ryzen 5000 is next week.

ico said:
USA release for Ryzen 5000 is next week.

Might release here as well around the same time

bought the following components recently and assembled the new system:

i5 10400f,b460 m d3h motherboard(gigabyte),corsair ram ddr4 8+8 gb 3200 mhz

however i am facing the following issues with this machine:

i clean installed win 10 v 2004 after performing the upgrades,however i observed that fast startup was not working properly ie whenever the pc was being turned on,it was taking a long time to boot and the boot status was being shown as 0x0 in windows powershell,which indicates a cold boot(normally for fast startup,the boot code is 0x1).

So i installed the latest updates for windows as well as the latest drivers for my nvidia 1060 gpu( i read somewhere that bad or outdated drivers can sometimes cause fast startup to not work properly).After carrying out these steps,fast startup is now working and the system boots within seconds of being powered on.

However now i am facing yet another issue,whenever i switch the computer on (after its been kept off overnight),it does not turn on when i press the power button on the case the very first time-when i press it once again(ie for the 2nd time),it turns on,then immediately turns off and turns on back again and proceeds to boot into windows normally(ie in fast startup mode).This issue does not happen every time i turn the computer on,but intermittently.

This is really annoying and i really have no clue as to why this is happening-is it a software related glitch,associated with windows or fast startup or an indication of some other,more serious problem related to hardware?Is there any way to determine the exact cause and fix the power cycling problem?

After setting up the new system,i had enabled XMP in the bios-could the problem be related to that somehow?Also i observed that in gigabyte's website,the first available bios for this mobo is version F3,whereas the version present on this mobo is F2.This is really strange-can an old or outdated bios cause such issues?

Not sure of those issues, but how is it giving you an option to use XMP in BIOS? Isn't it supposed to be disabled for B460? Or is it just a cut down XMP with just timing tunings & freq stays at 2666?

it stays at 2666 mhz(ie the ram sticks are running at 2666 mhz,previously it was 2133 mhz)

quicky008 said:
it stays at 2666 mhz(ie the ram sticks are running at 2666 mhz,previously it was 2133 mhz)

That's how its supposed to be, fine then. Intel needs to unlock XMP at least for B series mobo to be competitive, if not OC. But right now Ryzen supply issues are helping Intel.

Any ideas as to what might be causing the power cycling issue occasionally during boot?

quicky008 said:
Any ideas as to what might be causing the power cycling issue occasionally during boot?

Upgrade your BIOS and check again.

Typical reason of power cycling during boot is RAM related configuration issues.

I have never attempted a bios update before, is it a good idea to try it? Can it possibly brick the mobo or void warranty?

Should it be updated from the q flash utility that's built into the bios itself?

Should i disable xmp and check if the problem persists?

quicky008 said:
I have never attempted a bios update before, is it a good idea to try it? Can it possibly brick the mobo or void warranty?

Should it be updated from the q flash utility that's built into the bios itself?

Should i disable xmp and check if the problem persists?

It will not void the warranty.

The procedure these days is to copy the extracted BIOS ROM (download only for your model) to a FAT32 formatted pen drive. Connect pen drive to your computer. And, upgrade from the BIOS itself using the Q Flash utility.

Yes, disable XMP and check. But ideally, there should not be any problem even with XMP.

before attempting to update the bios or make any other changes,i just decided to load optimized defaults in the bios and run the system for a while.

i will observe it for a few days and if the power cycling occurs again,i may have to take other steps to rectify it(really worried about updating bios as its quite a risky process).

ico said:
It will not void the warranty.

The procedure these days is to copy the extracted BIOS ROM (download only for your model) to a FAT32 formatted pen drive. Connect pen drive to your computer. And, upgrade from the BIOS itself using the Q Flash utility.

Yes, disable XMP and check. But ideally, there should not be any problem even with XMP.

i checked gigabyte's website and found 2 available bios versions,namely F3 and F4.The version that my motherboard has is F2-can i update to F4 directly or do i need to install bios F3 first,then update it to F4?Gigabyte's website says F3 is the first official release,whereas my mobo has F2 which appears to be even older,and that is strange indeed.

I downloaded the zip file containing bios F4 and extracted its contents and found that there is a file called b460md3h.F4 and 3 other files and another folder named "BOOT"(see screenshot).In order to update bios,do i need to copy all of these files to a fat 32 pen drive or only the file called B460md3h.F4?

if by any chance bios update fails,will it leave the mobo permanently bricked?

an update albeit a late one:I updated the bios to F4 recently but it hasn't solved my problem.

The pc still continues to power cycle during cold boot occasionally.I disabled XMP in the bios ,but to no avail-even turning off fast startup in windows didn't work out.

This is a really annoying problem and i cant seem to figure out whats causing it-i wrote to gigabyte about this issue and they suggested trying with different ram sticks to check whether that solves it or not.

I currently have no extra ddr4 memory lying around-so cant check that right now.I even ran memtest on these modules but that didn't detect any errors.

Strangely however,once the pc boots into windows,it continues to work normally and i haven't run into any issues like crashes/freezes etc at all.

What could be causing this power cycling issue?Could the mobo be faulty?

@ico @whitestar_999 and others,please advise.

Can a weak cmos battery cause power cycling at start up? It happens especially when the pc has been off for over 12 hrs.

However the typical signs of a weak battery like wrong date/time etc after starting up are not seen. Shall I try to replace the mobo's battery with a new one?

Although i find it strange that a battery on a new motherboard would deplete so quickly.

Please suggest what i should do-this is becoming really frustrating for me!

Sorry, I missed your earlier message.

You have already eliminated out problem with memory by running memtest. CMOS battery is not the problem.

Power cycling at start-up is definitely the motherboard trying to adjust RAM's speed. See if you can borrow a set of RAM sticks from a friend, or just try one stick at a time.

The weird thing about the pc is during a cold boot,it doesn't start instantly when i press the power button on the cabinet-this happens especially when the system has been off for some time and the ac mains supply to the system has been switched off.Previously it happened once in a while,but nowadays it happens almost everytime a cold boot is done.

usually it starts when i press the power button the second time,and its only then that the power cycling occurs-it cycles just once and then proceeds to boot into windows.Sometimes it turns on at the second attempt and then boots into windows without power cycling at all.

The power cycling issue only occurs when the pc has been off for long periods and the system doesn't start after pressing the power button at the 1st attempt,but on the second one.

If its a memory compatibility issue,would it prevent my computer from turning on at the first try during a cold boot?Is it possible the power button on the cabinet itself is bad or malfunctioning?the cabinet is a spec 01 from corsair.

a friend of mine has 2400 mhz corsair ddr4 memory that he may be willing to give to me-should i check once again using these ram sticks?

quicky008 said:
If its a memory compatibility issue,would it prevent my computer from turning on at the first try during a cold boot?Is it possible the power button on the cabinet itself is bad or malfunctioning?the cabinet is a spec 01 from corsair.

a friend of mine has 2400 mhz corsair ddr4 memory that he may be willing to give to me-should i check once again using these ram sticks?

Good point about the power button. You can experiment by shorting motherboard's power pins to turn on the system.

Also, try with your friend's RAAM sticks.