Finally doing an upgrade -> advice needed

[avector]

So my current pc sucks -> 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i5-2500 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard	Intel - DH67BLB3 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory	Corsair - XMS3 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) DDR3-1333 Memory	£94.60 @ SmartTeck.co.uk
Storage	Intel - X25-M 160 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage	Western Digital - RE3 500 GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£71.25 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	GTX 750 Ti 2Gb (Edit)
Power Supply	XFX - XTR 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	£120.75 @ Amazon UK
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-F12 PWM 54.97 CFM 120mm Fan	£16.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£303.59
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 13:46 BST+0100

Doing an upgrade as follows:

1. Budget & Location

UK, around £800

2. Aim

I do a lot of things so it's multi-purpose. I sculpt, model and render in Blender and kept running out of GPU memory. Note currently rendering in Blender is faster in Cycles so Vega is out. I game and want to be able to stream. I also design and illustrate. #allthethings

3. Monitors

I currently run a single ultra-wide monitor but it drives me mad so in the future will be switching (back) to dual monitors probably 1440p.

4. Peripherals

Don't need any, will be running Windows, have a Thermaltake mATX case with decent cooling.

5. Why are you upgrading?

Machine is so old gaming is not running well and have to run most things on low settings, rendering in blender ram out of ram a lot which is a pain and want to stream.

 

Here's my parts list:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	£286.98 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	Asus - TUF B450M-PLUS GAMING Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£82.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£101.50 @ Aria PC
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£99.00 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	Zotac - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Mini Video Card	£229.97 @ Ebuyer
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£800.44
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 13:51 BST+0100

I've already bought the GPU as the price was so good, I haven't bought the other parts yet. You can see some predicted stats on userbenchmark https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuilder/Custom/S93988-M475904.141989.700020.89269vsS93462-M475904.141989.700020.89269?tab=MBD

 

Questions

1. I want to make sure the motherboard can handle the ryzen 2700x, I'm not planning on overclocking it myself.
2. The M.2 specs on the motherboards confuse me, I could spend an extra £20 to get the Pro version of the motherboard that has 2 M.2 slots but it seems like the second slot doesn't get the full set of PCI lanes in which case isn't it pointless?
3. I'm planning on using the existing XFX 550W PSU, I think that's enough power for now?
4. Expandability I may at some point buy a second GPU not for SLI but for rendering power, I think the motherboard is fine for this, the transfer rate doesn't really matter as most of the time is taken up rendering.
5. At some point I'll buy another set of RAM if I run into issues running out.

 

Guess that's it, seems like a seriously good build for the money, but wondering what other people think?

 

[Dedayog]

I'm sorry, you had a 1080 and are upgrading to a 1070 because the 8GB of RAM on the 1080 wasn't enough? 

 

I'm lost here.

[avector]

Oops my bad that's a mistake in the list, it was a 750Ti 2Gb -> corrected.

[Dedayog]

Just now, avector said:

Oops my bad that's a mistake in the list, it was a 750Ti 2Gb -> corrected.

Whew, okay.

 

Can you wait a month to see what Ryzen 2 is about?  Since you're looking at Ryzen's top CPU, it may behoove you to see what their next flagship can do.

 

If you have to upgrade now, I'd go 2700 (not X) and overclock it a little.

 

I want to say people don't like the ASUS TUF motherboards, look at Gigabyte AORUS B450's instead.

 

RAM Looks good.  I think you may actually get a benefit out of NVMe drives too.

[Herman Mcpootis]

get an MSI mortar/bazooka or asrock steel legend motherboard instead, the TUF board are generally crappy. i'd get a 1660ti instead of the gtx 1070.

[paddy-stone]

I would definitely wait at this point... it's another 3 months at most until we see the Ryzen 2 CPUs (3000 series), that should at the very least have a higher core count and clock speed than current gen... just not sure of how much ATM. For the streaming and gaming those benefits could be substantial.

[trevb0t]

You could certainly shave some off of your M.2 drive for a SATA SSD and repurpose that into the MOBO budget. Frankly for gaming and render times, you're not going to be looking at a huge benefit with NVMe there. 

 

The MOBO tier list is a solid resource, and the TUF makes the bottom tier. Generally this is based on the VRM power delivery and cooling systems built in. 

 

The Tomahawk is a loved board of this forum.

 

[avector]

Thank you for all the help, much appreciated!

 

@trevb0t great resource thank you, I've switched to the mortar, and thanks to all who pointed out the mobo was no good! The mortar is actually the same price so I can leave the rest as is. Gaming nexus seems to indicate the mortar has the best VRM in the mATX form factor which is why I went with it. Would be good to have the mobo comparison in form factors too. FWIW I couldn't find a Tomahawk in mATX, although I guess the mortar kinda is that.

 

@Herman Mcpootis I looked at this comparison which seemed to indicate the 1070 was faster, although not by much, but it was a lot cheaper.

 

@paddy-stone @jstudrawa Holding off for 3000 -> Yes you are correct I should do that *hovers mouse over buy button* (but I probably can't wait)

 

The SSD is really too much on this build, but the next down the rung it £63 for 45% less effective speed (according to this if it is to be believed, how much real world difference that'll make I don't know) so may just stick with it.

 

Thanks again for all the responses, super useful!

[trevb0t]

2 hours ago, avector said:

The SSD is really too much on this build, but the next down the rung it £63 for 45% less effective speed (according to this if it is to be believed, how much real world difference that'll make I don't know) so may just stick with it.

That's technically true. I guess if you're decoding 4K video files a lot, or something like that, the NVMe is going to be a boost. But there are a ton of videos (including an LTT video!) testing the difference between NVMe, SATA and NAND SSDs in gaming performance, and the answer in all cases is that it makes no difference. The way games calculate in your PC are slower than even a SATA SSD's low operating speed, so you see no gaming benefits for your money. 

 

Again unless you're using this to move large ass files around, I'd repurpose that cost into either a nice big SATA SSD, or just get what you realistically will use, and invest a few into a storage HDD. You'll likely get much more bang for your buck.

[avector]

Fair point, I downgraded the M.2 to something reasonable and stuck an HDD in. I also (probably unwisely) paid a couple extra for GB memory as everything else was coming tomorrow and well hey I get to build it tomorrow now

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	£287.99 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	MSI - B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£82.96 @ Amazon UK
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£116.98 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Crucial - P1 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£63.59 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£34.50 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	Zotac - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Mini Video Card	£229.96 @ Amazon UK
Case	Thermaltake - Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	Purchased For £0.00
Power Supply	XFX - XTR 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	Purchased For £0.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-F12 PWM 54.97 CFM 120mm Fan	Purchased For £0.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£815.98
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 23:29 BST+0100

Thanks again for all your help, great 1st experience on the forum