Planning an Upgrade, Considering Switch to AMD

[Pool Float]

1. Budget & Location

Located on the East Coast US, likely shopping at Micro Center, aiming to spend less than $600 (will be carrying forward quite a bit, details below)

 

2. Aim

I build my machines to last a few years, with non-AAA gaming in mind. Most commonly played is WoW and WoW Classic, emulation, and a ton of Legend of Zelda Randomizer, which I also stream on Twitch

 

3. Monitors

I have 2 monitors - 32" Samsung 1440p 144Hz gaming monitor connected via DP (dedicated GPU) & 27" Dell 1080p connected to HDMI (on board)

 

4. Peripherals

Will be carrying forward all peripherals (need USB A and C ports, but not necessarily Thunderbolt since I don't use external drives or other peripherals that require it)

 

5. Why are you upgrading?

My original plan (for the past few months) was to de-lid my i7700k and upgrade the heatsink/fan. Temps sit around 80-85C under load, occasionally hitting the low 90s. I got the Noctua NH-D15 for Christmas, and while it will fit my case, it will be tight and I think ultimately have little effect since the case itself has some questionable fans (and it's also slowly falling apart). I decided I would get a new case, and since that requires a full transfer of parts, I figured that it may be in my interest to also make some upgrades at the same time. Currently I am only streaming Zelda on Twitch, I do want to get into streaming WoW, maybe Hitman 2, but not any FPS or other war-type or MMO games. My understanding back when I was shopping for the i7700k was that AA/AAA streaming should be done from 6+ core processors for the smoothest performance. Here is what I have now:

 

ROG Strix Z270E board

Intel i7700k - stock speeds

32GB G.Skill DDR4 PC-3200 - running at 3200 using XMP 2.0 profile

512GB NVMe SSD for OS/games

12TB (3x4TB HGST NAS SATA) RAID 0 for data

Asus ROG GeForce GTX1080 OC 8GB

 

I think that covers the main components. What I am trying to figure out is what CPU, if I decide to upgrade, would make the most sense. The Ryzen 5 3600x (currently $199) appears to smoke the i7700k in multi core, but is almost even in single core. The Ryzen 7 3700x (currently $299) appears to be a 10-15% upgrade in single core, and multi core exceeds the Ryzen 5 as well. For the motherboard, X570 seems to be the way to go. For a case, I'd like one that allows for nice cable routing, and preferably the option to hide my 3 HDDs down where the power supply is.

 

My largest concern is whether or not there's a way to avoid rebuilding my RAID with a change to AMD. Otherwise I'd need to increase my cost to include an 8TB external drive.

 

Opinions/Suggestions welcome. I've been Intel since getting burned by the AMD Athlon XP 1800+ was current.

[Rhythm8503]

Try the Ryzen 9 3900x its said to be really good for gaming and others. 

[SupaKomputa]

Quote

My largest concern is whether or not there's a way to avoid rebuilding my RAID with a change to AMD. Otherwise I'd need to increase my cost to include an 8TB external drive.

If controller is different, you may need to rebuild the array, back it up!

[GeoHandle]

I would definitely recommend the switch from intel to AMD, and $600 should be enough to let you make that switch (though i'm in the uk so i'm doing very sketchy maths to approximate prices). 3600x is the sweat spot for price for performance, 3700x is a slight improvement (though i'm not sure how much those extra cores and threads would benefit your streaming) and would be additional future proofing. Since you need to upgrade the motherboard and want to upgrade the case as well i'd recommend saving a bit of the budget and going for the 3600x, so you don't have to skimp on the motherboard or case.

[Pool Float]

1 minute ago, Rhythm8503 said:

Try the Ryzen 9 3900x its said to be really good for gaming and others. 

That's a bit out of my budget, and likely overkill for what I use my PC for.

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

If controller is different, you may need to rebuild the array, back it up!

Yeah, I'm already planning for it, but really hoping I won't have to. Everything is backed up in Carbonite and I have gigabit internet, but I'd prefer to not have to download 7TB.

[Pool Float]

3 minutes ago, GeoHandle said:

I would definitely recommend the switch from intel to AMD, and $600 should be enough to let you make that switch (though i'm in the uk so i'm doing very sketchy maths to approximate prices). 3600x is the sweat spot for price for performance, 3700x is a slight improvement (though i'm not sure how much those extra cores and threads would benefit your streaming) and would be additional future proofing. Since you need to upgrade the motherboard and want to upgrade the case as well i'd recommend saving a bit of the budget and going for the 3600x, so you don't have to skimp on the motherboard or case.

My main concern with the 3600x is how it compares directly to the i7700k. Reddit was quite direct in telling me that's a silly upgrade, since single core is so close with the two.

[Rhythm8503]

Hmm Maybe than the Ryzen 7 3700x or 3800x its only 339

 

[SupaKomputa]

1 minute ago, Pool Float said:

My main concern with the 3600x is how it compares directly to the i7700k. Reddit was quite direct in telling me that's a silly upgrade, since single core is so close with the two.

In games, the same. In everything 30%, 2 extra cores is no joke.

And games are moving from 4 cores max to 6 or 8.

[GeoHandle]

24 minutes ago, Pool Float said:

My main concern with the 3600x is how it compares directly to the i7700k. Reddit was quite direct in telling me that's a silly upgrade, since single core is so close with the two.

If you were just using it for gaming they would be right, but the extra cores and threads will provide additional benefit for you because you stream, and as new games come out that require more cores it will start to have an impact there too. Still if you can afford it 3700x and 3900x are definitely worthy upgrades. The 3800x is a bit more iffy, if it's not much more expensive than the 3700x then its worth it, but i've seen some massive price differences between the two that aren't justified by how much it improves over the 3700x.

[Pool Float]

17 hours ago, GeoHandle said:

If you were just using it for gaming they would be right, but the extra cores and threads will provide additional benefit for you because you stream, and as new games come out that require more cores it will start to have an impact there too. Still if you can afford it 3700x and 3900x are definitely worthy upgrades. The 3800x is a bit more iffy, if it's not much more expensive than the 3700x then its worth it, but i've seen some massive price differences between the two that aren't justified by how much it improves over the 3700x.

All of the CPUs are on sale currently, with the 3700x being $299 (down from $329) and the 3800x being $329 (down from $399).

 

Looking around on eBay, it seems like my i7700k still go for close to $250, so I think I'll take the big jump to 3800x and just hope to make back ~$400 with all the components I'll sell later (CPU, mobo, 2x16GB 2400 RAM).

[GeoHandle]

2 hours ago, Pool Float said:

All of the CPUs are on sale currently, with the 3700x being $299 (down from $329) and the 3800x being $329 (down from $399).

 

Looking around on eBay, it seems like my i7700k still go for close to $250, so I think I'll take the big jump to 3800x and just hope to make back ~$400 with all the components I'll sell later (CPU, mobo, 2x16GB 2400 RAM).

For an extra $30 i'd consider the jump from 3700x to 3800x worth it.

[Pool Float]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up going with the 3700x, and putting the $30 towards a better case. I haven't done a proper stress test for temps yet, but while running PC Mark, the hottest the CPU got was 52C, before quickly dropping back into the 40s when the Noctua fans ramped up.

 

Sadly it was a bit of a PITA to get Windows up and running on my selected board. Wasn't a BIOS compatibility issue, but from what I read online (sadly after the fact), the X570 chipset has been a little problematic with some CPU/RAM combos on this board.