Planning a build upgrade

[bionicgeekgrrl]

So, it has finally come time to think about upgrading from the i7 6700K system(s)¹ I have.

 

The current specs are

 

• Intel i7-6700K
• 16Gb DDR4@2400Mhz
• Gigabyte GeForce 970 4Gb
• 500-600W PSU (forget which is in which system at present)²
• 4Tb WD Black HDD
• 480Gb SSD SATA
• Define R5 Case

My thinking is the following to upgrade both systems:

 

• AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF
• 16Gb 3200Mhz/3600Mhz Trident Z depending upon final budget
• MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
• 1Tb NVMe SSD
• 4Tb/6Tb HDD
• 1x 550W-600W PSU (might decide to just replace both PSUs however, again this depends upon the final budgets)

 

The following will carry over:

 

• Gigabyte 970GTX
• PSU in one system as it is newer
• Cases
• 4Tb HDDs (plus a couple of 2Tb HDDS in my system, which will be retired by the new HDD)
• 480Gb SSD

The thinking above is to get a slightly weaker CPU for a great price (£88 atm iirc) and upgrade to a Ryzen 3xxx CPU at a later time and spend the budget on the NVMe SSD and faster memory instead. The graphics cards do need upgrading, but there is currently not the budget for doing those at the same time as the base system.

 

The i7 6700Ks will be repurposed for replacing a couple of Q9550 and i5-4460 systems which currently act as Plex/NAS servers.

 

¹ There are two gaming desktops, one for me, one for my other half, my system has more HDDs for extra storage and an older PSU however, otherwise they're currently identical.

² My other halfs desktop has a 550W EVGA PSU iirc (without taking the side panel off to double check) and my system has an older Antec 600W PSU. The PSU in my system will be replaced.

[SavageNeo]

country and budget?

[bionicgeekgrrl]

3 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

country and budget?

 

Country is UK, budget is around £500 (give or take a bit) per system initially, the likelihood is one system will get done then the other a bit later to let the credit card recover a bit first. Then the same again for upgrading the graphics cards later.

 

(looking on pcpartspicker shows the 1600AF out of stock most places now however, so some rethinking might have to happen!)

[SavageNeo]

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
Motherboard	MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	£103.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	£150.50 @ Alza
Storage	Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£101.49 @ CCL Computers
Storage	Seagate IronWolf Pro 4 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£137.99 @ Box Limited
Power Supply	Cooler Master MWE Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Custom	ryzen 5 1600 AF
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£493.97
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-29 16:38 BST+0100

+ the ryzen 5 1600af which is around 60 bucks

 

 

The ryzen 5 1600 af. adn the motherboard. Cheap but decent 1tb nvme ssd and 4tb hdd. 

[bionicgeekgrrl]

1 minute ago, SavageNeo said:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
Motherboard	MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	£103.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	£150.50 @ Alza
Storage	Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£101.49 @ CCL Computers
Storage	Seagate IronWolf Pro 4 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£137.99 @ Box Limited
Power Supply	Cooler Master MWE Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Custom	ryzen 5 1600 AF
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£493.97
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-29 16:38 BST+0100

+ the ryzen 5 1600af which is around 60 bucks

 

 

The ryzen 5 1600 af. adn the motherboard. Cheap but decent 1tb nvme ssd and 4tb hdd. 

That matches what I was looking at for the most part, the Seagate HDD aside.

[SavageNeo]

Just now, bionicgeekgrrl said:

That matches what I was looking at for the most part, the Seagate HDD aside

you said you wanted the 4tb hdd? well that saves you a lot of money for the gpu upgrade later on

[bionicgeekgrrl]

1 minute ago, SavageNeo said:

you said you wanted the 4tb hdd? well that saves you a lot of money for the gpu upgrade later on

 

The HDD is one of those things where it would be useful to have, but not essential. The 3xxx series nvidia cards and RDNA2 card from AMD will probably be out by the time the graphics cards get upgraded (atm the monitors are 1080P, so for most titles, except the most recent the 970 can cope well enough for now).

[SavageNeo]

Just now, bionicgeekgrrl said:

The 3xxx series nvidia cards and RDNA2 card from AMD will probably be out by the time the graphics cards get upgraded

Later this year or early next year we will see.

Just now, bionicgeekgrrl said:

(atm the monitors are 1080P,

when you upgrade your gpu you should have atleast 144hz 1080p or 75+ hz 1440p

[bionicgeekgrrl]

14 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

Later this year or early next year we will see.

when you upgrade your gpu you should have atleast 144hz 1080p or 75+ hz 1440p

Yes, everything is in flux with new products most likely.

 

The monitors will need upgrading at some point as well really, especially mine as I have a rather assorted collection connected (as well as gaming I do video editing and DTP for a magazine), with 3 monitors (1 is very old that I had laying around, the other two one is fairly old now, but has decent colour reproduction so is good for the DTP work, the other is 60Hz, but is decent enough at present for gaming (obviously it could be a lot better).

 

Ideally, going to 1440P is the plan, but again it depends upon budgets and how finances hold up with the aftermath of the current situation, etc.

 

The Plex/NAS systems are the most desperate for needing upgrades, but it makes more sense to me to upgrade the gaming/workstation desktops to give them the ryzen platform rather than spending that money on a system that won't make much use of it. The jump from Q9550 to i7-6700K should be pretty significant however I am suspecting (especially as it will also have 4x the memory), the Q9550 really struggles if it is asked to transcode video!, the 4460 copes with transcoding a lot better (plus it has 24Gb of RAM vs 8Gb).

 

Budgeting means about £500 a time can be spent, and then repeat for each step. Less ideal than doing it in one go, but it is what it is.

 

(it should be noted that the Q9550 and i5-4460 are in two separate locations as are the two desktops)

 

Thanks for the advice.

[cobalt77]

Rather than the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, have a look at the MSI B450-A PRO MAX. Besides the colour, the style of heat sink on the VRM, and the Tomahawk having a USB-C port on the back, they are pretty much the same board (down to even having the exact same VRM chips) but the A PRO is around £15 cheaper.
Also look at 3200 memory vs 3600 memory, as 3200 costs around 50% less than 3600.

If you can't find a 1600 AF for below £90 shipped, go for the Ryzen 5 2600 as they can be had for £108.95 shipped.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (12nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£98.40 @ Alza)
Motherboard: MSI B450-A PRO MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£86.46 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£72.01 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£101.49 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £358.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-29 18:20 BST+0100

[SavageNeo]

1 minute ago, cobalt77 said:

as 3200 costs around 50% less than 3600.

no. 3200 does not cost 50% less. It is usually between 10-25%

[cobalt77]

4 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

no. 3200 does not cost 50% less. It is usually between 10-25%

Yes and no, notice I said have a look at. I would normally agree with 25% or less but hop on to PCpartspicker and see if you can find a CAS 16 or less 3600 2x8GB set for £144 or under in the UK. Lots of CAS 18 3600 with prices close to that of 3200, and yes speed is more important than a lower CAS when it comes to performance but what I have found (no raw data to back this up besides experience) is that lower CAS ram generally (yes it is a weasel word) is less problematic over the life of a system, and that it is better to spec up RAM with a lower CAS when it is for another person. I would hazard a guess a say you have found this as well, hence the £150.50 CAS 16 G.Skill Trident Z Neo set rather than a set of £83.47 CAS 18 Thermaltake TOUGHPOWER Z-ONE RGB.

[bionicgeekgrrl]

Looks a good call on the Pro Max. I've no particular brand loyalty however, so it doesn't have to be an MSI board (though I've been pretty happy with the Z170A Gaming M7 I currently have).

 

RAM pricing is so volatile that it is probably a little bit likely that pricing will be very different when ordering happens (probably in a week or two depending upon when other half gets paid and how much gets paid off the credit card for next month), so I'll compare sets/speeds then and go from there with a min. of 3200, but ideal of 3600.

 

RGB isn't important (the Define R5 has no window, so RGB won't be seen, though I do have an airbrush and do have plans to mod the panels a bit at some stage when the current situation has calmed down again).

 

Obviously, ideally I'd love a 3950X, but it isn't viable atm, but it could be in the future when 4xxx chips start appearing and prices of 3xxx chips fall, so the VRMs should be capable of handling it ideally.

 

One thing I'm wondering about is B550 boards and whether they'd be worth waiting for over 450.

[cobalt77]

12 hours ago, bionicgeekgrrl said:

One thing I'm wondering about is B550 boards and whether they'd be worth waiting for over 450.

Probably not as there are no major changes in the pipeline that are going to make the 450 functionally obsolete, what could be worth waiting for is that with B550 arriving the prices of B450 could drop like B350 did with B450. But at the same time with the gap in the AM4 market (in regards to pricing) between X570 and B450 (where the X470 sits at the moment), production issues, economics, and who knows what, the B550 may come in slotted between X570 and B450 and marketed as a cheaper X570 and a better B450 (with a price tag to match). That would mean the end of X470 (which is mostly gone anyway) and there would be only slow movement in B450 prices until a replacement for the X570 chip set started to loom. Who knows.