Nord

Interesting how suddenly it's at 73°C and not at 65 as claimed before.
 
Anyway, as I don't know how to setup a ryzen system and my entire knowledge on that platform is basically from reviews I can't really provide any further guidance on the issue but ddennis seems to know his stuff, so good luck.

You can technically pair it with any RAM of similar specs, however if you care about performance you should not do so.
 
Firstly I would just RMA the ramkit you currently have and ask for your money back, for a RAM stick to make pop noises is IMO a valid enough reason to tell a company to take it's product and stuff it up their butt.
Then just pick up a new kit from either corsair or kingston with similar specs and might ditch the RGB, it just adds another possibly point of failure to a hardware that otherwise nearly never breaks or fails.

If the high temps just came out of nowhere after a stable period your cooler may be failing, dead pump or whatever.

I have heard of passmark but never seen it in any practical use, also the fact that they either hide or refuse to tell how exactly these numbers are made up (emphasis on “made up”) plus the fact that they are trying to sell you a software looks to me more like a questionable source at best.
This is the info you want:
 
For synthetics, even though they don't necessarily mean much for real world usage, look up on cinebench scores and/or use 3d Mark: https://www.3dmark.com/search#/?mode=advanced
You can even run both benches yourself, they are free and an industry standard basically, unlike passmark.

Depending on your new found information and your budget choose your new CPU.
You can't really go wrong with either. Or you just wait for the next intel lineup and choose than (should be coming soon-ish). As it is quite possible that the next chip will be extensively faster.
Personally I’m already waiting for the 10 series consumer chips before replacing my current 3770, for me it will either be a 9900k or a a 10th series chip but that does not mean that a 3700 or 3500 or even something "weaker" is a bad choice or a bottleneck, especially if you already got the motherboard for it.

I don't see much reason to really upgrade your current system as any CPU you can fit on that socket will still be “crap” for gaming and at most be a very marginal upgrade to what you already have. If you can get your hands on the Athlon X4 880K or similar for 50$< then it's maybe worth it, kinda if you are really, really on a tight budget.
Alternatively you could look into overclocking your CPU, if the motherboard allows it.
 
Personally I would not invest in your current system anymore.
Upgrading the CPU outside of your available motherboard should set you back 300 - 500$, unless you want to buy used and that's still w/o a GPU, plus you need to disassemble your entire PC basically and know how to configure a BIOS - or pay somebody to do it. 
For 600/700$+ you could already buy some entry level gaming laptop or a pre-built desktop PC with a 6th or 7th series intel chip and something along the lines of a 1050 to 1060. Which will lack the streaming and rendering power of any ryzen or 8000 series system but if gaming is all you care abou they should still do fine and will definitely be a massive upgrade to what you are currently using.

This is most likely a hardware issue. Especially if it only happens under demanding GPU loads.
 
I see 3 causes for this:
1.) the powerbrick
2.) the battery (as some gaming laptops use the battery for additional power in high-demanding scenarios, so if it's broken/damaged the system will crash)
3.) VRAM overheating of the GPU.
 
What you can do:
1.) Buy a new powerbrick / verify if yours is broken using a multimeter.
2.) Buy a new battery / verify by taking a “guess” if your is broken or not by runing windows battery check and using the device on the battery, especially booting it up on the battery.
3.) Send the device in for repair, you won't be able to fix this yourself. / you cant really verify this, you can only “guess” towards it by downclocking the VRAM with afterburner or similar and see if it fixes or delays it, for overheating VRAM on a 1060m I would suggest a downlock of at least -1.000.
 
 
Obviously it could also be simple overheating but the system should still not crash, especially not like this. Can't hurt to verify temps neither and cross reference those with review sites and what they got (I suggest notebookcheck.com)
 
In theory, a factory windows reset could not hurt - in reality, I’m 98% certain it wont do anything unless you are one of those people who literally knows near to null about computers and yet fiddles around with everything.

Afterburner is equally fine as HWMonitor and so is Hwinfo64. 
Intel XTU (even though that's far from the use case we are looking at here) is also very reliable in terms of CPU readouts.
 

Win7 support stops with next year, yes.
In reality this just means that there won't be any windows updates anymore apart from “critical” ones. So for the average home user this basically won't matter for another year or two, depending on how software developers choose to still include win7 or how many new vulnerabilities get detected.
Personally, I don't think that I really “needed” any of the win7 updates within the past several years anyway, so who cares really. Though if it turns out that you “just” got the broke task manager bug, there really is no reason to switch back anyway. Win10 is the future, its a grim and stupid looking one but its the one our microsoft overloards have chosen for us. At least Win10 is not as bad as  windows ME or Vista (yet).

Re-install Windows 10 Pro; it's the easiest solution.

City skylines has always been an, lets just say wired game to benchmark or talk about performance on, as updates are frequents and so are mods & DLC's.
If you are interested in why it is taxing & how it uses available hardware, this is a rather interesting video on the topic in general with skylines being taken as the test subject basically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBmtIW5zns  (plus he got a 9900k for FPS "comparesion" :P)
 

Well given your rather “widely spread” game selection it's hard to generalise it as the games differ a lot, as examples:
 
Anno1800 would still most likely be GPU limited even by a 2070 on your computer monitor and, if run maxed, struggle to stick above 65~ FPS.
On larger cities you on the other hand would be limited by the CPU instead, however this is quite normal in these kind of games.
 
While for Assassin's Creed Odyssey your CPU will be the limiting factor most of the time. Though keep in mind that this game literally crushes even an 8700k… For the one in egypt (however it's called) you should be fine and get around 65 - 80 almost always. And anything prior to that game should be able to run a fairly locked 100FPS on both your TV or monitor.
 
Cities Skylines would basically result in 0 performance gain. The game is CPU bound, hard, almost always and not even putting an 9900k in your system would net you much performance gain here. In fact, the game is most likely “bottlenecking” your system already.
 
 
Like Crunchy Dragon said, these “bottleneck” sites are basically not to be trusted.
Personally I view them as equally trustworthy as that ad which tells me that I just won an free iphone because i'm the 1.000th visitor. 
 
These days you are better off to go to youtube and type in “game name CPU GPU”, so for example: “metro exodus 4790k 2070”
One of the top results should be this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnNsGq9iy_8 
OSD overlay on the left side is the important thing and you can get a somewhat realistic expectation of how the game will run for you.
Obviously never trust one single source/video and always check video descriptions for possibly additional informations on hardware and/or graphic settings.

It depends what your goal is with the card.
 
If you want to buy it to play recent & upcoming triple A games on pretty much the highest settings, with an FPS range somewhere between 50 - 100, than it should be pretty much just as crunchy dragon said.
 
If you want the card to get more FPS in “esport” games, so 120+ you will overall see just a tiny improvement over your current 980, if at all. (Unless you play said games on ultra settings for w/e reason)
 
If you want high FPS, to say 100 stable while also maxing graphics, it will depend a lot on the game you are playing but mostly you would run in CPU bottlenecks.

Could be a lot of things, I would start with a fresh install of Windows 10

Loose ribbon cable from the battery most likely.
Screw the device open and reseat the cable. Utterly easy as far as laptop repairs go.

 
If it's not that you are either looking at a dead battery or a dead charger.

(1) Would the two partition merge together to become a new D:/ ? Can I delete the old OS files there?
 -> While installing the new system, keep your current HDD out of it. Once windows is setup in its core functions and you set the SSD as your primary boot drive in the BIOS you can plug the HDD in the system. (Usually) the PC will normally boot up into windows and you'll see your HDD as D; drive. At this point you could access it normally over the file explorer and delete the old windows installation on it.
 
In fact you could even run a "dual system". IDK how well win 8 deals with hardware changes, but in theory you could freely switch between your old & new OS installation by either setting up a dual system boot or changing the boot device. Not that its necessary or recommended in any way or form.. but you could.
 
However sooner or later you should still format your HDD, unless you know exactly what you are doing, which you dont, else you would not be here asking about it ;). Because at some point it is bound to cause issues in some way, especially if you intend to boot programs from the old drive which were previously installed for the old OS.. One will f* the registry sooner or later because it still thinks its on D; or files will "disappear" and similar shenanigans.
 
 
(2) What about the non-OS-related files, software and apps in my old C:/ drive? Can it still be used like normal? Do I need to migrate them over to the new C:/ drive on the SSD (like copy paste)?
-> Depends on the program, for some it will work, for others it wont. There is no real way of knowing which will and won't work however.
You can either paste them over to the new drive or keep them on the current one.
 
(3) Would my games (non-steam) inside the D:/ needs to be reinstalled or would they work like normal? (I do know however, that I need to reinstall all the redistributables because it's a fresh OS..)
-> same answer as for (2). B.net games usualy work, so do (most) epic scam, eh store games.
 
(4) I have my Steam and its folders installed on the old HDD under D:/ drive as well, so do I need to reinstall it?
-> Steam as an application, most likely yes. The game folders can be "located" within steam afterwards
 
(5) Do I need to know anything else that you think might be crucial?
In case you are stuck with slow internet, putting a partition on your HDD might be a worthwhile idea. You can do this right now on your current system, this way you can move the games over to one partition to keep them there and then when the new system arrive simply format partition A , move games over, format partition B and you still got the games “core files” on partition A, so no need to re-download.
Partition can be reversed afterwards. However for a 2 TB HDD this will take a while..
 
 

Welcome to windows 10, a garbage OS.
 
I had a simililar problem after using only an external monitor on an laptop, with the same resolution though.
Ultimately how I fixed it was plugging the external monitor back in again, mirroring the screen first only on the external one, then on both and then disabling the peripheral monitor. It was fixed after that. You can might try something similar.
 
However if you cant, try these:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/stop-desktop-icons-changing-position-after-screen-refresh/
https://winaero.com/blog/fix-windows-10-does-not-save-desktop-icon-position-layout/
 
Neither of them worked for me, but maybe it they do for you.
 
 
If all fails, display fusion offers a function to re-load desktop icons.
Or if you want to go the free route, try "DesktopOK", it also has said featuer.
Though neither will fix it, they will just reload your desktop icons in the way you want them to within a few clicks.

Aida64, paid program. There is a trial version though.
Intel XTU also has a built in stress test.
 
Though I see no problem in using prime95.
IDK how you define "is not good for" but it will stress your CPU to its maximum and it wont damage anything unless temps or voltages are too high. Or you run it for several weeks on loop for w/e reason.
In terms of OC stability, one single stresstest will never give you a guaranteed 100% stable system, no matter which one you choose. Every workload is different and even if you go through a 24h prime95 loop, there is no guarantee that the system wont crash in 3dmark physics test.

Apart of the thermal paste it could also be an uneven mount.
 
Also depending on what you are using to measure the temps, it may “averages” them badly. The average core temperature of 12 (theoretical) cores can easily be off by a huge amount if it's just one single core that's heating up.
To be sure check single core temperatures and also make sure you are reading the core temps and not the TCase / CPUTin temp.

I’m not into water cooling so take what I say next with a grain of salt:
Perhaps the loop is bad, pump is broken or too weak or the water is contaminated.
If I recall correctly, as it takes some time for water to heat up, from a cold start you could easily go 10+min in prime95 even w/o a pump until everything heats up and the core temps rise - or rather shoot up.

You solved the problem there, I believe

First of all, I need to point out that I never played overwatch so I have no idea what you should or could have in terms of performance but out of my experience blizzard games and performance are two things that rarely come combined.
 
Secondly, if you use the task manager to check for system utilisation or rather look for the bottleneck and/or performance problem, you are just doing it utterly wrong. (more on why later)
Close task manager and get yourself an OSD program with logging function such as MSI afterburner or HWInfo64 +rivatuner and set that up (guides are all over the internet).
Than benchmark both your and your friends system, both in real time with OSD as well as with logging the system activity in the background. (and make sure to set the Hardware polling rate to at least 300MS while doing so as the default is usually set to 800ms, which is 0,8 seconds, which is far too high to get proper measurements.)
 
 
Taskmanager is “ok” to do a quick check for basic stuff but it fails to show informations such as: GPU core & memory clocks, Vram utilization, powerdraw, temperature, thermal/power limitations, vcore and and and...  Oh and it's also rather slow in refreshing (or polling) the hardware for new info, which is good for performance but not so good if you want to know what's going on precisely. 
All of this is vital information in figuring out what is happening when and why if you feel your performance is not on par with what it should be.
It is also equally vital, as mentioned before, to actually setup a proper benchmark & FPS program. And no, having an FPS counter on top of your screen that refreshes itself every second or so, like fraps or (generally) a games ingame FPS counter, is not proper. This is what semi proper looks like: https://i.imgur.com/hqABHrW.jpg  (upper left corner) - still missing CPU core utilisation for each single core as well as CPU clock speed but it should still paint the picture.
 
Also keep in mind that frametimes > framerate. As a harsh example: 60FPS with a flat 16.6ms frametime will “beat” 100FPS with frametimes variating between 9 and 15ms in terms of actual gameplay smoothness and/or stutterfree experiance. Perfect frame times are always your current FPS divided by 1.000 - and yes, variating FPS = variating frametimes.



The bottom line being:
read yourself into what your hardware actually does and how to show & measure it properly. I’ve already given you the starter guide above. If after that you still feel your system is underperforming, you will now have the basic understanding on what you are looking at and more importantly you will be able to actually provide more information that anybody would ever need to assist you properly.

IF what you are aiming for is a locked 60-70 FPS experiance, the CPU will (in most games) still do the trick.
 
just watch this for reference:
 
Your CPU is not on there, but I dont imagine it would be doing worse than an 2600k.
For the GPU a Titan X (maxwell) is just a bit weaker than a 1070, so this should be a somewhat reliable baseline for you.
 
 
Will your CPU hold you back sometimes, outside of engine limiations? Yes, it will.
But as long as you dont shoot for above 70FPS, you will not really notice it much.
Unless you really like CPU heavy games, like GTA5 or Tombraider, there I could imagine the CPU could be the cause of dips below 60FPS, sometimes.
 
You can always aim to OC the CPU - even if its not a K version, if you got a board that supports overclocking you can usualy even push even non-K CPU's to around 4 GHZ.
Alternatively higher clocked RAM, 1866mhz+ could increase FPS too.
 
 
 
But to also answer your question with supersampling and such, this will not effect the bottlnecking itself, it will just put "more stress" on the GPU, resulting in better quality but lower FPS.
 
Bottom line, I see no problem pairing this CPU with a 1070.
Just look at notebooks, they get 1070's & 1080's with CPU's that are just now around the "power" an overclocked desktop I7 2600 or 3770 would be and still do fine.

So that means the card did work prior?
Because if thats the case you either messed up somewhere or some windows update did. In some cases windows actually pushes display drivers over the standard windows update, which can be both proper nvidia drivers (though usualy outdated) or some garbage ones.
(Systemproperties -> windows updates -> installed updates) and see if you maybe find some Nvidia update or something that hints to be a GPU driver in there & uninstall it.
 
If that does not help try this:
boot up in safemode, use DDU again to kill everything nvidia ever installed. (also remove gforce experiance).
Reboot
go into safemode again and go to device manager, where you rightclick on the 970 and choose "uninstall device".
Boot the PC down ->  remove the GPU from the system -> boot up again using your Intel onboard GPU & let the system sit for a few minutes, if some background windows process starts working up, let it run untill its done - if not power down the pc again.
Install your 970 again and download this driver for it: http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/110603/en-us
Only install GPU Driver & if you need it HDSounddriver.
 
If after all this the problem is still there, you can still try a fresh OS install but if that does not help either, its most probably a hardware problem with, as allready mentioned, probably even the motherboard.
 
Also keep in mind that if you bought the PC and also paid for assembly / windows install or it stated "comes pre-installed with windows" and/or is was a full pre-built system or something, you can just send it back and let the company deal with the problem and ask for a price reduction or something due to them delivering you a non working product.

BIOS screenshot or picture/video plx.
So how exactly did you/he look at the temperatures then? In BIOS after the PC rebooted, right?
 
 
 
Anyway, swap the plug from a casefan & the CPU cooler and see if BIOS recognizes the Case fan as the CPU fan. Like put your CPU fan into a case-fan header and your case fan into the CPU fan header and see which ones get recognized afterwards.
 
If the CPU fan gets recognised on the case fan header, see if you have a free case-fan header and simply plug the CPU in there - should fix it. (if he runs a custom fan curve for cooling he needs to revisit it obviously)
 
If the case fan does not get recognized on the CPU fan header either, the thing is most likely broken. In which case you either need to find a case fan header to plug in the CPU or get an adapter.
 

Well you will have to format your current HDD and start from scratch. There is a chance it would work with 2 OS drives but thats not advisable at all. (Hint for the future: partition your drives and make a partition for windows, so you dont have to format everything)
 
If it would actually work to boot 2 drives that both have windows, the programms installed on the secondary drive or rather your current HDD, will almost exclusively NOT work, because you still have windows on that drive and thats where the registry is written to. Some maybe figure that out and re-write the regestry and such, but most simply wont.
 
 
For your update problem in general, what Delicieuxz posted is probably worth a read.
There are various ways to manually install updates, semi and full manual. Going from searching the number on windows homepage up to just setting the installer & searcher to manual only & killing the allready downloaded files, which are (I belive) in %TEMP%.
Start - run - "sfc /scannow" maybe could fix the problem itself.
Try this: http://plugable.com/2016/06/08/windows-7-wont-update-what-to-do/
And worst case, you could try and see if some torrent sites or such provide update packs or so (carefull, always scan for viruses). You would not do anything illegal in that case, as you do own a legitimate copy of win7 (i assume) and hence are eligable for the update either way, its just from a 3rd party.
 
 
 
 

Out of my personal experiance with avast (free version), from around half a year ago, its a disgustingly bad AV. Both in detection aswell as software "quality".
 
I have never seen that popup though but what DolphinOps posted seems about right.
Avast has no / or no proper anti-maleware, assuming you use the freeware.
Get these two programms:
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/adware-removal-tool-for-pc.html
and let them scan for maleware.
(be a bit carefull with adwcleaner though, it has a very high heurisk and hence false-positive and will, for example, even mark Pokki start menu on win 8.1 as maleware. So dont just blindly delete everything )
 
Afterwards I would suggest you to download either Avira or Bitdefender and get rid off avast or get a paid virusprogramm. In which case I would recommend bitdefender or kaspersky.

Out of my personal experiance with avast (free version), from around half a year ago, its a disgustingly bad AV. Both in detection aswell as software "quality".
 
I have never seen that popup though but what DolphinOps posted seems about right.
Avast has no / or no proper anti-maleware, assuming you use the freeware.
Get these two programms:
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/adware-removal-tool-for-pc.html
and let them scan for maleware.
(be a bit carefull with adwcleaner though, it has a very high heurisk and hence false-positive and will, for example, even mark Pokki start menu on win 8.1 as maleware. So dont just blindly delete everything )
 
Afterwards I would suggest you to download either Avira or Bitdefender and get rid off avast or get a paid virusprogramm. In which case I would recommend bitdefender or kaspersky.