Finalizing build before Black Friday

[emeril322]

So it's time to upgrade my i5 2500k, and this seems like a good time of year to do so. Most of the insides of my rig are about 9 years old so yeah.... I'm gonna be keeping some things, but replacing most of the guts. The GPU is staying the same for now, as I'll likely upgrade that bit next year when Nvidia releases their 3000 series cards. I mostly game, though typically running 2 games at a time while watching 1-2 HD streams on my second monitor.
 

• case - Thermaltake Armor +
• HDD - got a couple of those already
• GPU - EVGA GTX 970 4GB SSC
• PSU - OCZ ZX-Series 850w fully-modular Gold+

Here's the parts I've got lined up. Thoughts? Feedback? This is my first time even considering team red, everyone I know has always been team blue. Will the Wraith Prism stock cooler suffice? Overall the upgrade definitely has to stay under $1000 (also I'm in the US by the way) but I sure wouldn't mind keep it under $900 if possible haha. Saving a bit here will go towards my GPU next year!
 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor	$499.99 @ Best Buy
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard	$179.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$124.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$59.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$864.96
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 20:42 EST-0500

 

[PopsicleHustler]

If you're playing games, what do you need 12 cores for? Get 3700x and save a ton of money.

[emeril322]

1 minute ago, PopsicleHustler said:

If you're playing games, what do you need 12 cores for? Get 3700x and save a ton of money.

Even though I intend on going to the Nvidia 3000 series next year? Also, I'd like to stream games (and stream just webcam sometimes).

[PopsicleHustler]

1 minute ago, emeril322 said:

Even though I intend on going to the Nvidia 3000 series next year? Also, I'd like to stream games (and stream just webcam sometimes).

3700x will be sufficient even for streaming. Ryzen 9 is more of a workstation CPU when you need as many cores as you can get.

[LogicWeasel]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($326.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  ($164.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $771.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 21:24 EST-0500

 

-Started with a 3700x as 3900x is overkill for gaming (even with streaming), 12+ cores are really more for professional work or rendering/compiling
-Upgraded Storage to 1TB (why not at that price)

-Upgraded RAM to CAS Latency 16 kit (tighter timings for DDR4-3600, when you're paying that much for RAM, may as well go quality too), It just so happens the best kit to price was RGB I'm not trying to force that on you (if you don't care for RGB).

[emeril322]

11 minutes ago, PopsicleHustler said:

3700x will be sufficient even for streaming. Ryzen 9 is more of a workstation CPU when you need as many cores as you can get.

Including 1080p@60fps camming? Or even potentially 4k camming?

[dizmo]

8 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

Including 1080p@60fps camming? Or even potentially 4k camming?

Yes. How do you think people have been doing it until now?

[LogicWeasel]

39 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

Including 1080p@60fps camming? Or even potentially 4k camming?

You know that NVENC encoder is a thing right?  Most streamers now who make huge money on twitch have given up their 2nd computer "dedicated" for the stream handling.  They do their whole stream on just 1 computer either with a dedicated capture card or newer-CPU (better than 4 core/ 4 thread) or via Graphics card feature like NVENC.

[emeril322]

47 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($326.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  ($164.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $771.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 21:24 EST-0500

 

-Started with a 3700x as 3900x is overkill for gaming (even with streaming), 12+ cores are really more for professional work or rendering/compiling
-Upgraded Storage to 1TB (why not at that price)

-Upgraded RAM to CAS Latency 16 kit (tighter timings for DDR4-3600, when you're paying that much for RAM, may as well go quality too), It just so happens the best kit to price was RGB I'm not trying to force that on you (if you don't care for RGB).

 

Whoops I already added a 1tb SSD but I guess it didn't update? Here's it updated with the right SSD (which has an extra $30 discount on Amazon right now). As far as the RAM goes, is that little CAS latency difference gonna be noticeable for a $40 price bump?
 

32 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yes. How do you think people have been doing it until now?

Heh fair enough  no idea
 

  

2 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

You know that NVENC encoder is a thing right?  Most streamers now who make huge money on twitch have given up their 2nd computer "dedicated" for the stream handling.  They do their whole stream on just 1 computer either with a dedicated capture card or newer-CPU (better than 4 core/ 4 thread) or via Graphics card feature like NVENC.

Not familiar with that, but sounds like something I might want to look into!

[LogicWeasel]

15 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

but I guess it didn't update?

If you mean you edited your PCPartPicker saved list, that's not going to update here on the forum, you need to edit your post for that.  Also you must not have been using a persistent link, as your current link still shows a 512GB SSD.

 

15 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

As far as the RAM goes, is that little CAS latency difference gonna be noticeable for a $40 price bump?

Well seeing as you weren't batting an eye at paying for a 12-core CPU and springing for 32GB of RAM it seemed only natural that anyone going that "all out" would want RAM that is not 2 steps of CAS Latency worse than slightly more expensive RAM.  I mean the build I posted is still almost $100 cheaper than where you started and I still put some of the money back into the SSD being 1TB and better memory. 
 

I haven't tested how big a difference lower CAS latency makes on Ryzen 3rd Gen but I do know it's higher quality memory and Ryzen does perform better with high speed memory with tightest capable timings.  Also if you don't like to do memory overclocking (few people do, I know I don't) than getting a kit with high speed and tight timings means you can just turn on XMP mode and be done with it, knowing you're squeezing every last drop of system (and FPS) performance out of your memory to keep your Ryzen infinity fabric well-fed.

[emeril322]

2 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

Well seeing as you weren't batting an eye at paying for a 12-core CPU and springing for 32GB of RAM it seemed only natural that anyone going that "all out" would want RAM that is not 2 steps of CAS Latency worse than slightly more expensive RAM.  I haven't tested how big a difference lower CAS latency makes on Ryzen 3rd Gen but I do know it's higher quality memory and Ryzen does perform better with high speed memory with tightest capable timings.  Also if you don't like to do memory overclocking (few people do, I know I don't) than getting a kit with high speed and tight timings means you can just turn on XMP mode and be done with it, knowing you're squeezing every last drop of system (and FPS) performance out of your memory to keep your Ryzen infinity fabric well-fed.

Yeah I don't wanna bother with OC'ing my RAM. I wanted to lean into a beefy CPU + 32gb of RAM so I can rock the system out for quite a while (I think I went to this i5 2500k like 7 years ago, I'd like to take that long upgrading next time).

Think the 3700x will last that long for me again? If so then I'd be down with going with that CPU and some speedier RAM. Regardless of which CPU I go with, the included heatsink will suffice?

[LogicWeasel]

12 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

the included heatsink will suffice?

Do you care extra about noise (it'll be noticeable but not that bad with fan at full blast when it gets hot) and do you want overclocking headroom?

 

If Yes:  get at least a $30-50 CPU Cooler

 

If Meh/No:  included cooler is fine (for 3700x).

[emeril322]

Just now, LogicWeasel said:

Do you care about noise and do you want overclocking headroom?

 

If Yes:  get at least a $30-50 CPU Cooler

 

If Meh/No:  included cooler is fine (for 3700x).

Noise - kinda yeah, the tower is approx 6ft from my head when I sleep
OC headroom - not really
 

My current heatsink is a Hyper 212+ and the noise is fine with me, so if the included one is the same I'll stick with the included heatsink. Here's my revised list. I have BOTH RAM options on there, so I can keep an eye on the price shifts during Black Friday / Cyber Monday. That lands the total between $750 - $790
 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$326.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard	$179.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$164.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$124.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$147.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$944.95
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 22:54 EST-0500

 

[emeril322]

Aaaaand now this SSD just went on sale for $83  is it just as good as the one in my list?

https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167462

[LogicWeasel]

12 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

Aaaaand now this SSD just went on sale for $83  is it just as good as the one in my list?

https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167462

Nope, it's QLC which is why I avoided it (cheaper SSD cell than 3D TLC NAND).  The Intel could be fine for just some games and a drive you don't write much data to, but for using it as boot-drive and for long term reliability (and for best performance) you're better off with the 8200 Pro.

Edit:  Looks like you bumped up the SSD but it's $47 more.  This SSD I picked is still NVMe and uses 3D TLC, so I'd go with it if the price diff is that high vs the 8200 Pro : https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mr8j4D/adata-xpg-sx6000-pro-1-tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-asx6000pnp-1tt-c

Edited November 27, 2019 by LogicWeasel
added link to other SSD

[LogicWeasel]

59 minutes ago, emeril322 said:

so I can keep an eye on the price shifts during Black Friday / Cyber Monday.

I would honestly just eyeball PCPartPicker's sorting options for cheapest NVMe SSD (1TB size, non QLC drives), and the same for RAM, sort it by 2 x 16GB and DDR4-3600 (or even 3200 if we're being honest here, as long as it's C16 DDR4-3200 is fine), and then you'll find the best deal.  If you're hoping for a sale/hot deal.

[emeril322]

21 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

Nope, it's QLC which is why I avoided it (cheaper SSD cell than 3D TLC NAND).  The Intel could be fine for just some games and a drive you don't write much data to, but for using it as boot-drive and for long term reliability (and for best performance) you're better off with the 8200 Pro.

Edit:  Looks like you bumped up the SSD but it's $47 more.  This SSD I picked is still NVMe and uses 3D TLC, so I'd go with it if the price diff is that high vs the 8200 Pro : https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mr8j4D/adata-xpg-sx6000-pro-1-tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-asx6000pnp-1tt-c

Whew reassuring. The 8200 is actually $117 from an Amazon coupon, so I think I'm gonna snag it just in case. Seems like a really got price for that particular SSD? 

[LogicWeasel]

1 minute ago, emeril322 said:

Whew reassuring. The 8200 is actually $117 from an Amazon coupon, so I think I'm gonna snag it just in case. Seems like a really got price for that particular SSD? 

That's around what I paid for it via a MassGenie deal about 8+ months ago, so not amazing, but it's a decent deal when on-sale.  The 8200 Pro happens to be the SSD I went for in 1TB size.  It almost compares to the benchmark speeds of the Samsung 970 EVO so it's a good budget step down from that, it's rated pretty well on SSD User benchmarks (not a super accurate site, but I still like it for rough comparisons):  https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Adata-XPG-SX8200-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB-vs-Samsung-970-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB/m638791vsm497261

[emeril322]

16 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

That's around what I paid for it via a MassGenie deal about 8+ months ago, so not amazing, but it's a decent deal when on-sale.  The 8200 Pro happens to be the SSD I went for in 1TB size.  It almost compares to the benchmark speeds of the Samsung 970 EVO so it's a good budget step down from that, it's rated pretty well on SSD User benchmarks (not a super accurate site, but I still like it for rough comparisons):  https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Adata-XPG-SX8200-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB-vs-Samsung-970-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB/m638791vsm497261

Compared the SX6000 Pro vs SX8200 Pro on there just now, and it looks like the $18 difference is worth it IMO. Now fingers crossed for the rest of the components. I wonder, if the 3900x has a big price drop, should I maybe still go with it afterall? I think the trick will be comparing sales prices between the 3900x and the 3700x to see which to go with, since I don't really "need" the 3900x.

Do you think the 3700x will have the same useful (approx 7 yrs) lifespan I got out of my i5 2500k?

[LogicWeasel]

8 hours ago, emeril322 said:

Do you think the 3700x will have the same useful (approx 7 yrs) lifespan I got out of my i5 2500k?

For just gaming?  Sure, assuming your use cases don't heavily change.  Predicting 7 years is hard.  Part of why that intel CPU lasted so long is Intel just strung us along for years with no major improvements since Sandy bridge, only minor IPC bumps even in Skylake/Kaby/Coffee Lake and so games tended to keep running ok as Devs couldn't bump the CPU requirements that hard (same 4 core / 4 thread every year, no help from Intel).  But for trying to squeeze time, if future needs really needed more than 8 core / 16 thread, than you'd be better off waiting anyway as something newer will replace the 3900x in workload.

[emeril322]

2 hours ago, LogicWeasel said:

For just gaming?  Sure, assuming your use cases don't heavily change.  Predicting 7 years is hard.  Part of why that intel CPU lasted so long is Intel just strung us along for years with no major improvements since Sandy bridge, only minor IPC bumps even in Skylake/Kaby/Coffee Lake and so games tended to keep running ok as Devs couldn't bump the CPU requirements that hard (same 4 core / 4 thread every year, no help from Intel).  But for trying to squeeze time, if future needs really needed more than 8 core / 16 thread, than you'd be better off waiting anyway as something newer will replace the 3900x in workload.

So tl:dr - should last a long while, and no matter what something newer/faster/better will come along regardless?

[LogicWeasel]

1 hour ago, emeril322 said:

So tl:dr - should last a long while, and no matter what something newer/faster/better will come along regardless?

That's what CPUs have done up till now, that's how it is.  That's how the industry defines progress when it comes to new CPU releases.

[emeril322]

8 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

That's what CPUs have done up till now, that's how it is.  That's how the industry defines progress when it comes to new CPU releases.

Well, if neither the 3700x nor 3900x have price drops over the weekend, I'll wind up going with the 3700x I think. Thanks for the help & input thus far! 

[emeril322]

On 11/27/2019 at 12:19 PM, LogicWeasel said:

 

@LogicWeasel aaah the Trident Z RAM is sold out now

[LogicWeasel]

2 hours ago, emeril322 said:

@LogicWeasel aaah the Trident Z RAM is sold out now

 

Equivalent but still kinda pricey:  https://pcpartpicker.com/product/w3FKHx/gskill-trident-z-neo-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr4-3600-memory-f4-3600c16d-32gtznc

DDR4-3200 CL16 (so still very good, and less pricey for a 2 x 16GB kit):  https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kXbkcf/gskill-memory-f43200c16d32gvk