upgrading Multiple questions about upgrading

[Salty_Gamer]

Hello there!

 

I would like some advice about an upgrade I'm going to do soon.
I mainly use my PC for gaming.

 

TL;DR - Any feedback on my current upgrade plans?

I am upgrading from:

• i5-4590
• GTX 970
• 2x4 GB RAM
• MSI H97 PC Mate

To:

• Ryzen 5 3600
• MSI RX 5700 MECH GP OC (possibly another brand)
• 2x8 GB RAM (Not sure which DIMMs yet tho)
• ASRock B450M Steel Legend

Stuff I'll keep:

• 1 TB HDD
• 250 & 120 GB SSD's
• Hyper 212 EVO (Black)
• NZXT S340
• Corsair CS550M PSU
• 2x Corsair AF120 fans + 2 stock case fans
• Asus VG248QE Monitor (1080p & 144Hz)
• Oculus Rift S

I hope to play: Alyx, RDR2 & Cyberpunk 2077 (and some other games but I'm quite sure I can run them)

 

More info & further questions

I've been wanting to upgrade for a while now, but I held off. First because I wanted to focus on my studies, second because I hoped there would be some new stuff once my first year was done, and finally because of the whole COVID thing.

 

Unfortunately there have been no new CPUs or GPUs released while I was patiently waiting to upgrade, but I'm done waiting and have decided to upgrade nonetheless. I know it's not the best time and I will not have ray-tracing and DLSS, but I can live with that.

 

So I put together the above mentioned parts to upgrade my PC. I do still have a bunch of questions though. I should mention that I live in The Netherlands, so prices are probably very different from other parts of the world.
I will leave some links below where you can see the price in my area for parts, if you want to recommend different ones.

 

The questions:

1. GPU
   I picked the MSI MECH GP OC because it's one of the cheapest RX 5700's in my area, and it's also black-white (I know...) I'm hoping to be able to flash the XT bios to it, but I find it hard to predict how the temps and noise will be impacted. Other cheap cards in my area are the ASRock Challenger and the ASUS Dual EVO. Of course I'm willing to sacrifice my coherent colour scheme if any of these cards is better, so should I?
2. Mobo
   For the motherboard I chose mATX B450 because I don't really need the extra features of other chipsets and ATX, and it's just cheaper. I did want a decent one though, so at first I settled on the ASRock B450M Pro4. Then I noticed that for only €10 more I could get the Steel Legend. Now I don't really care about the RGB (especially since I heard the software is rubbish), but overall it seemed like a better board and worth the extra money. Also, it has 5x4 pins fan headers, instead of 3 for the Pro4. Now I'm not sure if that even matters, as I still have 2 stock fans which are 3 pins. But I might switch those fans out in the future anyway. So my questions here is: is it worth the extra money?
3. RAM
   I decided on 2x8 GB 3200 MT/s CL16 RAM, as that's a pretty good speed with Ryzen (I think) for a very affordable price. However, none of the modules with those specs that are affordable in my area are on the QVL's of the Mobo's I mentioned here above. I know that doesn't mean they won't work at all, but should I take the risk?
   My choice is one of the following:
   1. HyperX (HX432C16FB3K2/16) These are the cheapest and I think they look pretty cool, so these have my preference.
   2. Corsair (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 or CMK16GX4M2D3200C16) Reviews say these don't always play nice on B450
   3. G.Skill (F4-3200C16D-16GVGB or F4-3200C16D-16GVKB) 
4. Any other feedback is always appreciated of course

Part Prices - My budget for this upgrade is around €700

• RAM 
• GPU 
• Mobo
• Other (Price comparison site)
• And then there's the CPU of course, but I'm pretty much definite that I want the R5 3600.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Edited July 4, 2020 by Salty_Gamer
removed unnecessary enters

[Bombastinator]

GPUs are unusually high up in the air atm. 

[WkdPaul]

1 hour ago, BlueScope819 said:

Looks good and well thought out. As for the memory you can really get anything you want, as long as it's DDR4 3000mhz+

Do not quote the whole OP, this makes it very difficult to scroll, especially on mobile. I've edited the quote for readability.

Edited July 4, 2020 by wkdpaul

[Salty_Gamer]

46 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

GPUs are unusually high up in the air atm. 

Sorry, what exactly do you mean?

[Salty_Gamer]

1 hour ago, BlueScope819 said:

Looks good and well thought out. As for the memory you can really get anything you want, as long as it's DDR4 3000mhz+

Okay, thanks dude!

[Salty_Gamer]

1 minute ago, BlueScope819 said:

I believe he means that prices are inflated due to shortages.

Ah okay, I thought so. He's absolutely right though, because the cheapest RX 5700 a couple months ago was around € 300, and I believe I even saw the Red Dragon for a price close to that. Now the cheapest one starts at €350... And that's if they're in stock, because they've been going in and out lately, in all of Europe I think even.

[Bombastinator]

31 minutes ago, Salty_Gamer said:

Sorry, what exactly do you mean?

There are new GPUs coming out very soon.  It was expected that they would fundamentally alter the gpu landscape and the assumption that GPUs would lower drastically in price was expected, but the stuff coming out of Nvidia has been less than promising, so there’s an even larger than normal amount of “I don’t even know” going around.  For awhile there was the thought that the 5700x would be enough, but Xbox stuff came out saying it wouldn’t, then amphere stuff was leaked implying it could be simply because Nvidia looked weaker and more expensive than earlier claimed.  I got no idea if a 5700x will hold up in 2021 or not.

[Salty_Gamer]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There are new GPUs coming out very soon.  It was expected that they would fundamentally alter the gpu landscape and the assumption that GPUs would lower drastically in price was expected, but the stuff coming out of Nvidia has been less than promising, so there’s an even larger than normal amount of “I don’t even know” going around.  For awhile there was the thought that the 5700x would be enough, but Xbox stuff came out saying it wouldn’t, then amphere stuff was leaked implying it could be simply because Nvidia looked weaker and more expensive than earlier claimed.  I got no idea if a 5700x will hold up in 2021 or not.

Okay thanks for that explanation. I guess I will find out if it holds up