Ryzen CPU to pair with GTX 1080

[-ism]

This thanksgiving my cousin & I decided to play LEGO Star Wars & Gran Turismo on the PS2 for old times sake and we ended up playing for hours, and after about an hour of awful graphics I realized "We could be playing this on my gaming PC" but I didn't feel like disconnecting everything and bringing it downstairs. Then I thought about how awesome it would be to have tons of emulators, my entire steam/origin library, movies, and streaming all in one box in my living room. This inspired me to build a little mITX rig to stick behind my TV for situations just like this. 

 

I want this machine to be powerful enough to run moderately demanding games in ultra 4k 60fps. I don't plan on playing Witcher 3, Skyrim mods, or anything crazy on this machine - just some racing games like Forza Horizon 4, Project Cars 2, retro console emu, the upcoming LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga (*cant imagine this will be an issue lmao) so I was thinking of putting a GTX 1080 in there since one can be had for around $300 on Craigslist at the moment and should keep me satisfied for a few years at least. I haven't built a PC since before Ryzen came out or really kept up with processor technology at all so I am at a loss for which CPU to pair with the 1080. I just don't want the 1080 to be bottlenecked by the cpu in any situation. I know games are now able to take advantage of multiple cores & threads so the more the merrier, yea? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks !

[SavageNeo]

7 minutes ago, -ism said:

This thanksgiving my cousin & I decided to play LEGO Star Wars & Gran Turismo on the PS2 for old times sake and we ended up playing for hours, and after about an hour of awful graphics I realized "We could be playing this on my gaming PC" but I didn't feel like disconnecting everything and bringing it downstairs. Then I thought about how awesome it would be to have tons of emulators, my entire steam/origin library, movies, and streaming all in one box in my living room. This inspired me to build a little mITX rig to stick behind my TV for situations just like this. 

 

I want this machine to be powerful enough to run moderately demanding games in ultra 4k 60fps. I don't plan on playing Witcher 3, Skyrim mods, or anything crazy on this machine - just some racing games like Forza Horizon 4, Project Cars 2, retro console emu, the upcoming LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga (*cant imagine this will be an issue lmao) so I was thinking of putting a GTX 1080 in there since one can be had for around $300 on Craigslist at the moment and should keep me satisfied for a few years at least. I haven't built a PC since before Ryzen came out or really kept up with processor technology at all so I am at a loss for which CPU to pair with the 1080. I just don't want the 1080 to be bottlenecked by the cpu in any situation. I know games are now able to take advantage of multiple cores & threads so the more the merrier, yea? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks !

What cpu budget you have (storage, ram, motherboard etc)

[-ism]

3 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

What cpu budget you have (storage, ram, motherboard etc)

I'd like to keep things as cheap as possible. Haven't really set a budget yet. Whatever it takes to keep a 1080 happy!

[SavageNeo]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ B&H
Motherboard	MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	$114.99 @ B&H
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$94.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$69.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Ultrastar 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$34.95 @ Amazon
Case	KOLINK OBSERVATORY RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$66.75 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$44.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$646.64
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$626.64
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-29 03:10 EST-0500

That cpu has better stock cooler than 3600 (non-x) for only 5 bucks more. That motherboard has already bios for third gen ryzen, so no need to bios update.

That rum is pretty good for ryzen.

 

[xg32]

4 minutes ago, -ism said:

I'd like to keep things as cheap as possible. Haven't really set a budget yet. Whatever it takes to keep a 1080 happy!

2700x black friday, or 3600 would be my picks.

[flashiling]

2700x is super cheap right now on many stores

[TheSLSAMG]

21 minutes ago, -ism said:

This thanksgiving my cousin & I decided to play LEGO Star Wars & Gran Turismo on the PS2 for old times sake and we ended up playing for hours, and after about an hour of awful graphics I realized "We could be playing this on my gaming PC" but I didn't feel like disconnecting everything and bringing it downstairs. Then I thought about how awesome it would be to have tons of emulators, my entire steam/origin library, movies, and streaming all in one box in my living room. This inspired me to build a little mITX rig to stick behind my TV for situations just like this. 

 

I want this machine to be powerful enough to run moderately demanding games in ultra 4k 60fps. I don't plan on playing Witcher 3, Skyrim mods, or anything crazy on this machine - just some racing games like Forza Horizon 4, Project Cars 2, retro console emu, the upcoming LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga (*cant imagine this will be an issue lmao) so I was thinking of putting a GTX 1080 in there since one can be had for around $300 on Craigslist at the moment and should keep me satisfied for a few years at least. I haven't built a PC since before Ryzen came out or really kept up with processor technology at all so I am at a loss for which CPU to pair with the 1080. I just don't want the 1080 to be bottlenecked by the cpu in any situation. I know games are now able to take advantage of multiple cores & threads so the more the merrier, yea? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks !

I run my GTX 1080 alongside a Ryzen 5 3600X and I couldn't be happier with the performance. I can attest to Forza Horizon 4 running great at 1080p Ultra ~80-100FPS. The 2700X wouldn't be a poor choice either, but the worse single-core performance will lead to the 3600X being faster in most games.

 

8 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ B&H
Motherboard	MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	$114.99 @ B&H
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$94.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$69.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Ultrastar 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$34.95 @ Amazon
Case	KOLINK OBSERVATORY RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$66.75 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$44.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$646.64
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$626.64
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-29 03:10 EST-0500

That cpu has better stock cooler than 3600 (non-x) for only 5 bucks more. That motherboard has already bios for third gen ryzen, so no need to bios update.

That rum is pretty good for ryzen.

 

This would be a reasonable route to go, however I wouldn't touch that hard drive with a 10 foot pole. Some refurbished parts can certainly be trusted, but hard drives are low on that list. I highly doubt Amazon has machinery, clean rooms and technicians capable of actually refurbishing a hard drive, so I'd guess that they just visually inspect drives for any blemishes and send them out. 

[-ism]

17 minutes ago, TheSLSAMG said:

I run my GTX 1080 alongside a Ryzen 5 3600X and I couldn't be happier with the performance. I can attest to Forza Horizon 4 running great at 1080p Ultra ~80-100FPS. The 2700X wouldn't be a poor choice either, but the worse single-core performance will lead to the 3600X being faster in most games.

 

This would be a reasonable route to go, however I wouldn't touch that hard drive with a 10 foot pole. Some refurbished parts can certainly be trusted, but hard drives are low on that list. I highly doubt Amazon has machinery, clean rooms and technicians capable of actually refurbishing a hard drive, so I'd guess that they just visually inspect drives for any blemishes and send them out. 

I'm not worried about storage I have some SSDs around that I can cannibalize, just trying to figure out which CPU to get. This deal is pretty nuts and with a free game to boot... looking at benchmarks of the 2700x with a 1080 vs an i7-8700k just seals it. Slightly fewer frames for half the price, can't argue with that. I'll go with the 2700x. Thanks for the help!