CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade time: suggestions please!

[ono]

I'm upgrading my i7 3770 (non-K). This means new mobo + DDR4 too, but the big choice is what CPU? As far as budget, I'm trying to keep it under $800 US for CPU, mobo, RAM combined.

 

With this new build, I'm looking to combine tasks I'm doing on two separate computers currently. Should save some bucks not having to maintain two computers. My old job I used a personal MacBook Pro (expensive!) for work and this doubled as my photography machine at home. The other computer is the desktop I'm upgrading that was exclusively for gaming. Now my current job provides me hardware, so going forward, I think it would be overkill to maintain a laptop for just the photography stuff.

 

Some details on the two use cases:

 

Gaming

- I currently have a GTX 1080. I aim for 30 or 60 fps at 4K resolution. Pretty much GPU bound case, so i5/i7 or R5/7 is not so relevant.

- Emulated gaming. Current rig struggles on some PS2 games, for example. This is not a multicore friendly use case and favors the Intel higher clocks and IPC. This is pretty important case for me since I have a backlog of retro games, my PS2 optical drive is on the verge of death and I really don't want to deal with finding functional original hardware.

 

Photography

- Adobe products. Mostly Lightroom. A little Photoshop. Lightroom in particular is very lame in the multithreaded dept and users have to jump through hoops to get stuff done in parallel. E.g. starting multiple image export batches is faster than one large export because Adobe doesn't implement parallel work in their expensive products  So Puget Systems analysis suggests Intel is better here.

- Some sort of image duplicate/similarity app. I use PhotoSweeper on my Mac and will need to find a Windows alternative. Basically a program to scan a directory of photos and group together the ones that are duplicates or visually very similar and present them in a nice UI that allows me to pick which ones to keep and delete. In theory this can be highly parallel and more I/O bound, but who knows in actual implementation. 

 

Individually, my use cases are pointing to Intel. But I'll probably be doing both: playing a game smoothly while waiting for Lightroom to process something. So I don't know if that changes the equation enough to point to an 8c/16t Ryzen 7 over say a 6c/12t Coffee Lake i7. I'm going to start with 16 GB of RAM, I think. I'll need to track my typical Lightroom and game usage to be sure. I'm not considering X-series or Threadripper. Those are probably overkill and probably over my budget.

[Princess Luna]

Yeah the i7 8700k most likely even though the 1700 wouldn't be too bad either, just wait the release this 21th and we can know for sure if Intel finally has woke up or not.

[ono]

Unless I missed something, looks like Intel only announced mobile processors today? Oh well. I think that's fine anyway since I'm beginning to lean toward picking up a Ryzen 7 for 8c/16t. I'm not necessarily sure if I'll make full use of that now over just 6, but I anticipate with more cores appearing in products across all tiers there will be more multicore optimized software over the coming years, I'll be more comfortable going with 8 now since ideally I'll be keeping this processor for a comparable length that I've had my i7 3770.

 

Now the question for me is 1700, 1700x or 1800x? Base clock on the 1700 is low, so maybe 1700x for less of a gamble on the silicon lottery? I'll probably buy a cooler anyway. Something that comes with a AM4 out-of-the-box like one of the Noctua's offerings. Depends on what I can find on Amazon Prime so I don't have to deal with the expensive shipping to my city. 1800x would be less of a gamble, but at cost. I think it will doable at the $800 cap I stated above, but it depends on how availability of items on Amazon Prime to keep my shipping costs near 0.

[ono]

First pass on a build using Amazon Prime pricing. I'll consider other sellers if cheaper even with shipping to Hawaii.

 

Ryzen 7 1700X $348.65
ASUS Prime X370 Pro $159.95
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz $147.99
Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 $89.99
Total $777.43 (with taxes)

 

For cooling, I want something supporting AM4 out-of-the-box to avoid having to request an AM4 kit. I was looking at the cheaper and smaller Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 but that's now out-of-stock at Amazon and Newegg. The NH-D15 looks huge and I'll need to double check if my Fractal Designs Define R5 and mobo and RAM choice can take it. And could make maintaining the computer a pain after it is mounted. I guess I should throw in some Artic MX-4 of whatever to the above order for to have something on hand in the future should I need to remount. Any AM4 out-of-the-box coolers suggestions are welcomed.

 

Well, there is the little guy Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 for $44.90. Would that be sufficient even if I decide to try to OC the 1700x closer to the 1800x speeds?

 

Would it be worth considering cutting costs on cooler and RAM to put toward an 1800x instead?