RAM died. Upgrade time?

[Guest]

TL;DR

what’s a good cheap CPU, MoBo, ram upgrade from my current PC on the cheap? I’m not buying used. 

 

I have an i5 3450, 750 watt seasonic psi, R9 390, good storage. 

 

I had 3x 4GB dimms but the mystery to why my PC always froze has been made apparent. 2 of my 4GB dimms now won’t let my PC display anything to my monitor if they’re inserted to anyplace in my motherboard. I’m down to 4GB. I can live with it. 

 

I was going to buy a new pc from main gear (best customer support from buyers video) since I’d appreciate shadowplay supported GPU. (Relive sucks.) I’m not dropping 800 + though. They have a killer sale going on though BTW. 

Newegg has these combo packages. Idk if they save money but for 250 USD they had a ryzen 5, 8gb ram and some motherboard.

https://m.newegg.com/combo/combodetail?comboId=3647552&comboType=2

I’m not going to fine tune overclock nor mess with the bios. 

 

Is that a good solution? Is it overkill? 

 

I use my pc for email, programming, game development using unity 3D (fairly lightweight tool. I’ve seen it run well on an i5 & gtx 1050 on a real steam release big top selling project) light gaming (titanfall 2, arma 3 modded, stalker, rainbow six siege) I hardly play anything but stalker though & barely ever. That’s basically it all I do. Basic HDMI 1920x1080p 59-60 hertz 16:9 Monitor. I’m fine with 40 FPS in medium settings. I’m not competitive nor hardcore. Halo 3 looks like crysis to me & halo 1, half life 1 and quake 1996 are just fine. 

My GPU is Fine & I’ll keep it till I buy an NVIDIA 1070 or better. I’ve been fine with my current cpu & ram, I just don’t know if I need a ryzen 5 or if I can sell my gpu and be fine with the ryzen 3 APU. Imo an okay computer that can run visual studio, Firefox & file explorer without hitch is fine with me. 

If it can game 2000s games without a problem, I’m good. 

 

Not a variable but quiet is pretty sweet. (I only say that because I unplugged the 1990s fans in my PC today & I had no idea that’s why I always felt like I needed headphones.) another plus is being able to run Unity which isn’t much of a competition. I’ve other engines if need be. I might end up making my own anyway. 

 

2 main variables are can it do visual studio & Firefox simotaniously? 

I’m not doing complex stuff right now in VS. Arma 2 (yes 2010 arma) is more CPU demanding than my programs. 

Is it cheap? 

Musts: be new & available in the US, have 8GB ram or more. 

 

I’d try and figure out if it’s my motherboard ram slots or the dimms but I don’t think it’s worth the time of day to decipher which. I’m just going to upgrade and sell the system noting the faults for a bid starting at like 10 bucks. It’ll reach $75+ no problem. If I can get a decent APU, I’d sell my GPU as well and upgrade when I had more money. The CPU in the APU will likely be decent enough. 

Don't sent me offers for my PC parts, I’m going to ignore them. 

[mxk]

I wouldn't get that bundle. I don't usually recommend people to buy b350 motherboards, and plus, the RAM bundled is too slow for Ryzen. Ryzen likes fast ram with low timings (cas latency) so 3000 is ideal when buying ryzen cpus.

[Brooksie359]

With the r5 2600 being about 160 dollars I can't really recommend getting anything less. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$164.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard	$114.57 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$92.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$372.55
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-18 14:09 EST-0500

Yeah it's a bit more expensive but you get a much better quality motherboard, 6 cores 12 threads on the newer Zen+ architecture, and 16 of faster ram compared to 8gb of slower ram. With a system like this you wouldn't have to upgrade for a long time.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, mxk. said:

I wouldn't get that bundle. I don't usually recommend people to buy b350 motherboards, and plus, the RAM bundled is too slow for Ryzen. Ryzen likes fast ram with low timings (cas latency) so 3000 is ideal when buying ryzen cpus.

What would you recommend? 

Would you say anything about intel’s i3 or pentiums? 

12 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

With the r5 2600 being about 160 dollars I can't really recommend getting anything 

 

Yeah it's a bit more expensive but you get a much better quality motherboard, 6 cores 12 threads on the newer Zen+ architecture, and 16 of faster ram compared to 8gb of slower ram. With a system like this you wouldn't have to upgrade for a long time.

Is the 60 dollar difference really worth it over the ryzen 3? 

I recall linus talking about the i5 vs the i7. He said unless you’re streaming, the i5 is fine. Is the difference as moot or is it night & day? Is intel’s low price APU offering that much worse? 

[mxk]

48 minutes ago, fpo said:

What would you recommend? 

Would you say anything about intel’s i3 or pentiums? 

Is the 60 dollar difference really worth it over the ryzen 3? 

I recall linus talking about the i5 vs the i7. He said unless you’re streaming, the i5 is fine. Is the difference as moot or is it night & day? Is intel’s low price APU offering that much worse? 

If you're looking to not spend that much money, Intel really shouldn't be in your mind (unless you got lucky like me, I got a 9700k for $190).

 

I don't know why someone would buy a pentium or i3 when the 2200G is an amazing deal and amazing value. Pentiums are pretty shit value, so is the i3-8100 right now.

 

A really great combo right now is a ryzen 2600, 3000mhz RAM, and a good b450 motherboard.

[Brooksie359]

58 minutes ago, fpo said:

What would you recommend? 

Would you say anything about intel’s i3 or pentiums? 

Is the 60 dollar difference really worth it over the ryzen 3? 

I recall linus talking about the i5 vs the i7. He said unless you’re streaming, the i5 is fine. Is the difference as moot or is it night & day? Is intel’s low price APU offering that much worse? 

The apu is on the older 14nm architecture and has no hyperthreading and 2 less cores. A 4 core without hyperthreading vs a 6 core with hyperthreading is a huge difference. We are talking well over 50% increase in performance if you can use it to its fullest. The i5 vs i7 has always been about a 25% increace in performance at max if they had the same clocks. Programs and games are becoming more multithreaded and a 6 core 12 thread cpu is going to set you up for a long time. If you want to run 2 to 3 demanding programs at the same time the 2600 will walk circles around the 2200g. 

[Guest]

@mxk.@Brooksie359 thanks for the help!

I won't mark solved in case anyone else has any further input but I'll heed your advice unless anyone has any notable information.