A Little Predicament...help! :(

[NotOnMyComputer]

So about 6 years ago or so I had built my first and only PC out of spare parts I had found in my families basement, my cousin at the time had an IT job and would come home with unwanted pieces.

Fast forward to today; my PC is pretty outdated. My girlfriend gave me $200 worth to spend on Best Buy so I could update my PC, and so that's what got me thinking about it.

I was wondering what parts I could save for a new build or if I would have to start from scratch.

The parts that I do know...the CPU does not have a logo anywhere.

MotherBoard: Biostar TA970

Power Supply: TR2 600W

The cooler is just a bulky fan made by AVC I was thinking of maybe switching to water cooling down the line since my PC sounds like a jet's engine.

My Ram is... an ASINT 4gb DDR3 and a Kingston 2gb DDR3. Top of the line ram here.

for my storage I have a a hard drive with 320 GB and an SSD, will def upgrade these.

and the only part i believe I will not need to upgrade is the graphics card, at least for a year or two, which is the EVGA Geforce GTX980, which I obtained through a friend for super cheap.

I am not the most hardware savvy person, but i can get around :/ I just don't know what my next steps should be, help would be greatly appreciated!

[Jumballi]

Heard to break it to you, but everything but the power supply and case may be trash.
And depending on what parts you decide to go with, those parts may also need to be update.

As for the 980, the $200 1660 outperforms it, so when you get to making the new pc, it might not be up to snuff for the games you want to play.
 

For now just increase ram and do a clean install of windows on an ssd and you should get another year or 2 on this machine.

[Bitter]

That, being a Thermaltake TR2 PSU I assume, is a terrible PSU. The 750W version blew up on the test bench TWICE when reviewed ages ago when it was new, at only around 500W load and had HORRIBLE voltage ripple on all the rails under load up until it popped. It's an avoid at all costs line of power supply units, please get something else before it damages a new PC build.

[kelvinhall05]

The only thing that you could probably keep from it is storage, case, and your GPU, but with all of those there are much better options new.

 

 

For now, I would throw in an SSD and save some more money to get a completely new system.

[Bitter]

The 980 isn't a bad card still, just a bit power hungry for what it does but still a solid card.

[NotOnMyComputer]

3 hours ago, Jumballi said:

Heard to break it to you, but everything but the power supply and case may be trash.
And depending on what parts you decide to go with, those parts may also need to be update.

As for the 980, the $200 1660 outperforms it, so when you get to making the new pc, it might not be up to snuff for the games you want to play.
 

For now just increase ram and do a clean install of windows on an ssd and you should get another year or 2 on this machine.

I didn't even think to price check for the graphics cards :') I recently bought the 980 for $200, kinda depressed about it now.

[NotOnMyComputer]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

That, being a Thermaltake TR2 PSU I assume, is a terrible PSU. The 750W version blew up on the test bench TWICE when reviewed ages ago when it was new, at only around 500W load and had HORRIBLE voltage ripple on all the rails under load up until it popped. It's an avoid at all costs line of power supply units, please get something else before it damages a new PC build.

I've had it for the past 6 years so it has lasted me! BUT thank you for the heads up! I have no plans on keeping the power supply the same haha

[NotOnMyComputer]

Thats exactly what I was thinking too, i dont have many friend that are into computers so I appreciate the confirmation!

[Bitter]

Me too for my TR2 750W, googled it to see if it was ok to reuse and found out it is not ok to even use in the first place!

[NotOnMyComputer]

6 hours ago, Bitter said:

Me too for my TR2 750W, googled it to see if it was ok to reuse and found out it is not ok to even use in the first place!

I was thinking of either going with a MSI or Gigabyte B450, what would you suggest for power supply?

[boggy77]

4 minutes ago, NotOnMyComputer said:

I was thinking of either going with a MSI or Gigabyte B450, what would you suggest for power supply?

Msi make better b450 boards. For psu, a corsair cx, tx or rm series, bitfenix gold or bequiet gold

[Bitter]

I'm not too up to snuff on what's good now. I snipe ebay deals and look around for what's for sale and then research that specific model to see if it's what I want and what I want to pay for it. Recently I bought a BitFenix Whisper M for my HTPC and it seems well reviewed and rated from JonnyGuru.com but it's now discontinued and subsequent models seem to be lesser. My latest purchase was a 1000W RM1000X Corsair for $100 shipped but that would be serious overkill. If the other PSU in the RMX series are as good at the 1000W unit then one of those may be good buy if you can get it at the right price. Check out the PSU tier list here!

[NotOnMyComputer]

1 minute ago, boggy77 said:

Msi make better b450 boards. For psu, a corsair cx, tx or rm series, bitfenix gold or bequiet gold

what make the msi better than Gigabyte?

[boggy77]

1 minute ago, NotOnMyComputer said:

what make the msi better than Gigabyte?

On the b450 boards they have better vrms that run cooler and allow for higher cpu boosts, core counts and overclocks. However, on the x570 boards for example, the asus and gigabyte ones are better.

[boggy77]

3 minutes ago, NotOnMyComputer said:

what make the msi better than Gigabyte?

 

[Bitter]

The Tomahawk and Mortar (and Max versions of both) are some of the best B450 boards around. Good component quality, good VRM with heatsinking. I'd say they're on par with most mid range X470 boards from what I've read.

 

So there's a trick to buying AM4 boards I've found that I'll share. It's not uncommon to find them with broken socket tops, that part IS replaceable! As long as the pins are not damaged the socket is fine. Order the correct Lotes of Foxconn socket for about $8 from China and snap the plastic locking cover onto the motherboard. You can score boards for 1/2 off that way.

[NotOnMyComputer]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I'm not too up to snuff on what's good now. I snipe ebay deals and look around for what's for sale and then research that specific model to see if it's what I want and what I want to pay for it. Recently I bought a BitFenix Whisper M for my HTPC and it seems well reviewed and rated from JonnyGuru.com but it's now discontinued and subsequent models seem to be lesser. My latest purchase was a 1000W RM1000X Corsair for $100 shipped but that would be serious overkill. If the other PSU in the RMX series are as good at the 1000W unit then one of those may be good buy if you can get it at the right price. Check out the PSU tier list here!

checking out that tier list! Have not fully navigated the forums so that helps! thank you!

[NotOnMyComputer]

2 minutes ago, Bitter said:

The Tomahawk and Mortar (and Max versions of both) are some of the best B450 boards around. Good component quality, good VRM with heatsinking. I'd say they're on par with most mid range X470 boards from what I've read.

 

So there's a trick to buying AM4 boards I've found that I'll share. It's not uncommon to find them with broken socket tops, that part IS replaceable! As long as the pins are not damaged the socket is fine. Order the correct Lotes of Foxconn socket for about $8 from China and snap the plastic locking cover onto the motherboard. You can score boards for 1/2 off that way.

Woah I would never think of that, and probably not many do haha I appreciate the trade secret!

[Bitter]

No problem. The Asus X470 board I got used a Foxconn socket so I just assumed that the MSI B450 Tomahawk I got used the same Foxconn socket, no it uses a Lotes so now I have to wait another month for the correct part from China. I'm not sure if all Asus use Foxconn or all MSI use Lotes, if you find yourself in that situation I can help you figure it out. Make a thread and tag me or message me and I'll respond when I can.

[NotOnMyComputer]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

No problem. The Asus X470 board I got used a Foxconn socket so I just assumed that the MSI B450 Tomahawk I got used the same Foxconn socket, no it uses a Lotes so now I have to wait another month for the correct part from China. I'm not sure if all Asus use Foxconn or all MSI use Lotes, if you find yourself in that situation I can help you figure it out. Make a thread and tag me or message me and I'll respond when I can.

HMMM not sure what a foxconn socket is...a little bit of googling it tells me thats the type of CPU you can put into the motherboard?

 

[Bitter]

Different manufacturers of PC components. Foxconn makes a lot of CPU slots and sockets and so does Lotes. Both make AM4 sockets but they're built slightly differently so you can't use Foxconn parts on Lotes or vice versa.

[NotOnMyComputer]

13 minutes ago, Bitter said:

No problem. The Asus X470 board I got used a Foxconn socket so I just assumed that the MSI B450 Tomahawk I got used the same Foxconn socket, no it uses a Lotes so now I have to wait another month for the correct part from China. I'm not sure if all Asus use Foxconn or all MSI use Lotes, if you find yourself in that situation I can help you figure it out. Make a thread and tag me or message me and I'll respond when I can.

OKAY today i learned about sockets haha I didnt know there were different ones, i found a good article explaining them, also the more pins on the cpu means better to my understanding? so does that mean I would need the required socket and CPU to match?

[tech.guru]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$120.98 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$63.98 @ Newegg
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$29.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$29.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Silicon Power A80 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$41.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$286.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-01 12:26 EST-0500

 

[tech.guru]

A little over budget but should be a good upgrade

[tech.guru]

600w is fine. While there is better PSU out there you can reuse until you have more money. Same for case and graphics card