What would you change?

[Krisp-kiwi]

Hey everyone,

 

This is my first build I made from 2016, it's held up quite well but with the 30 series on its way, I'm seriously considering an upgrade so I thought I'd put it out there to people with far more knowledge than me. At the time I tried to find a comfortable position between performance and price, I cared somewhat about looks but not as much as I did performance.

 

What do you think? What would you change? 

Here's my thoughts on the parts so far: 

• CPU: I7 6700K - This has held up quite well. It's handled everything I've thrown at it with the exception of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 which is known to have CPU bottleneck issues. I believe some of this is game related as most of the player base is having problems with the larger airliners but I do believe upgrading would help. This week I've overclocked this to 4.5ghz at 1.325 volts. I'm slowly trying to bring this down upon testing but I've got a few days to go until I find the mark.
   
• Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S - This has been a beast. Before the overclock I was getting between 19 on idle and 59C under load. With the overclock I'm between 26C at idle and 68C under load which from what I've seen online should be fine? I'm still worried I'd spill water on my components so I haven't gone with watercooling yet.
   
• Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 - This I've been a little disappointed with. It doesn't give much room to play with, no RGB fan headers for the cooler master fan I purchased and the bios presets for OC don't work and the lack of a bluetooth connection is something I've regretted.
   
• Mushkin Blackline 16 GB - Ram is ram, it works well as does the Crucial Ballistix Sport
   
• EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750 W 80+ Gold - The only complaint I have is the size of the cables. Some are bigger than my thumb wide which has made cable management hard.
   
• Case: I'd switch this case out on a new build. I need more room at the back and I've gone off the design.
   
• With the noctua covers for the heatsink, they don't fit properly because of the fan connectors.
  
  There's a few other parts which you can find here: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/K4YH99 
  
  I know I need to improve the cable management, probably upgrade the CPU and the GPU soon. 
   

What do you think? 

 

[GDRRiley]

new CPU+board+more ram and then new GPU when they are out (wait for RDNA2). I really don't like QLC drives but thats just cus I hit my drives hard at times.

I'd move to the 4900x (or whatever the 12 core zen3 will be called) on a b550, 32-64gb of ram

 

[Krisp-kiwi]

10 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

new CPU+board+more ram and then new GPU when they are out (wait for RDNA2). I really don't like QLC drives but thats just cus I hit my drives hard at times.

I'd move to the 4900x (or whatever the 12 core zen3 will be called) on a b550, 32-64gb of ram

 

Yeah definitely looking at new CPU and board. I was thinking Intel over AMD though, I know AMD has more cores but doesn't Intel have the clock speed at the moment? Most FPS comparisons I've seen show Intel just above at the moment. Am I missing or not considering something here?

You mention more ram, is 32GB not enough? I can't think of anything I do currently that requires more. I need to update the thread, I also need a new case which gives me more room for sure.   

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, Krisp-kiwi said:

Yeah definitely looking at new CPU and board. I was thinking Intel over AMD though, I know AMD has less cores but doesn't Intel have the clock speed at the moment? Most FPS comparisons I've seen show Intel just above at the moment. Am I missing or not considering something here?

You mention more ram, is 32GB not enough? I can't think of anything I do currently that requires more. I need to update the thread, I also need a new case which gives me more room for sure.   

and that just above part is what should change with 4000 ryzen chips based on zen3.

32gb is often enough now for most users, you got to figure out how much you use.  I leave too much stuff open while doing things like video editing. I just moved up to 32gb and I want to move now to 64

[Krisp-kiwi]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

and that just above part is what should change with 4000 ryzen chips based on zen3.

32gb is often enough now for most users, you got to figure out how much you use.  I leave too much stuff open while doing things like video editing. I just moved up to 32gb and I want to move now to 64

Just realized I said less not more for cores, my bad. Is there a release date on these chips? Would I need a new PSU for this additional power? I'm also still a bit hesitant to go watercooling. I'm nervous one day it'll leak and go onto the components and just destroy everything. That's why i went for a fan on my first build. I was thinking the black noctua DH15 for the next build. 

[GDRRiley]

14 minutes ago, Krisp-kiwi said:

Just realized I said less not more for cores, my bad. Is there a release date on these chips? Would I need a new PSU for this additional power? I'm also still a bit hesitant to go watercooling. I'm nervous one day it'll leak and go onto the components and just destroy everything. That's why i went for a fan on my first build. I was thinking the black noctua DH15 for the next build. 

late this year, they get announced in 4 weeks

likely no

you don't have to, large air coolers do just fine.

your current cooler will likely be fine for most CPUs

[Krisp-kiwi]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

late this year, they get announced in 4 weeks

likely no

you don't have to, large air coolers do just fine.

your current cooler will likely be fine for most CPUs

Sweet and do you have any board recommendations or things i should be looking for? 

[Aereldor]

I'd hold off on upgrading till Ryzen 4000 and RDNA2, less than a month till we have more info.

 

You can reuse your RAM, PSU, Storage, and case if you want, so you can put potentially your entire budget towards the components that matter the most.

 

1 minute ago, Krisp-kiwi said:

Sweet and do you have any board recommendations or things i should be looking for? 

 

How much can you afford to spend on an upgrade?

[Krisp-kiwi]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

I'd hold off on upgrading till Ryzen 4000 and RDNA2, less than a month till we have more info.

 

You can reuse your RAM, PSU, Storage, and case if you want, so you can put potentially your entire budget towards the components that matter the most.

 

 

How much can you afford to spend on an upgrade?

Sweet I'll keep the ram, psu and storage. I do want to replace the case though As you can see the back cable photos, especially with that thick PSU to motherboard cable, it's not that easy to work with. I'd be looking for a motherboard with more fan headers than this one, possibly an RGB header and also bluetooth and at least 6 sata slots for sure. I want to give myself room this time to make it more fancy over time with good lighting 

[Aereldor]

3 hours ago, Krisp-kiwi said:

Sweet I'll keep the ram, psu and storage. I do want to replace the case though As you can see the back cable photos, especially with that thick PSU to motherboard cable, it's not that easy to work with. I'd be looking for a motherboard with more fan headers than this one, possibly an RGB header and also bluetooth and at least 6 sata slots for sure. I want to give myself room this time to make it more fancy over time with good lighting 

Naw you just need to get better at cable management. I've been hiding cables behind motherboard trays in cases like that since 2013, it can be done.

[Krisp-kiwi]

7 hours ago, Aereldor said:

Naw you just need to get better at cable management. I've been hiding cables behind motherboard trays in cases like that since 2013, it can be done.

Where would you recommend putting that cable through? It's the one thats applying pressure against the case.