New "Futureproof" Mid Range Ryzen Build

[DerG4mer01]

Hello Guys,

I'm really new to this community and just spend the last weeks with researching nonstop for computer parts for a pc with a weird requirement for myself and just want some constructive critisim and ideas

 

Budget (including currency): <500€ (without graphics card)

Country: Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Some 3D Design, Gaming (from Esport to maybe heavier Games later on), some video editing -- should be capable of at least the basics of every purpose i might come up with

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Im upgrading my old, old Rig (AMD Phenom II X4 840, GTX 670) now completly for the first time.

 

My goal is to build an upgradeable base platform that will serve me well for at least 5 years. (only with upgrading graphics / maybe ram)

 

I don't want anything fancy, as you see my standards aren't high as you can see from my old rig. But i want to experience some new things. (Esport titles at 144HZ - Plan to get an 144Hz display later on, as well as high graphic settings in some more demanding titles, maybe even get an 1440p Display at some point..)

 

Case: 35€

Fractal Define R5

I went for a case, that will be criticized by a lot of you (dust filters and probably low airflow) but i found it pretty cheap (35€) from a local guy and just loved it simplicity and style on first sight and wanted to test it out. I might add 1 Fan in the front or swap it completly later on if it creates a lot of problems. https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-r5/white/

It also fullfilled my desires for enough disk space, graphics clearence (for later on), solid material, plain design, useable I/O, room for some cablemanagement etc.

 

Mainboard: ~80€

MSI B450 A Pro Max

I just really wanted a good value for buck there. I don't want to overclock my CPU or add some super fancy cards or peripherals so i went with plain good simplicity.

I wanted an ATX Board for upgradeability (more Ram Slots, SATA Ports etc.) and just a little more space while building. I see no point in a mini-ATX board.

Only other thing i kind of wanted was the extern button to flash the bios, which this board has. Just for peace of mind, so i never run into the problem of a missing CPU for a bios flash.

 

Processor:

Here I'm not really decided yet, I will probably by a used one, so I will list the common prices:

Ryzen 3 3300X 120-140€

Ryzen 3 3100 90-95€ (new)

Ryzen 5 3600 150-160€

Ryzen 5 3500X 90-100€

I'm really struggling with the decision between the upper choices. (You can recommend any other CPU if you think it suits me better as well).

The 3100 has the best value i feel, but i'm not sure if it's as future proof as i hope, due to the only 4 cores.

The 3600 on the other hand, seems way to expensive for the little increase in power compared to the others.

The 3500X is kinda weird to me, because it has 6 Cores but only 6 Threads as well, but I didn't really see any Disadvantages in comparison in the "benchmark" (https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-3600X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3500X/4041vs4052)

So I'm kinda leaning towards the 3300X as a middle way, but it only has 4 Cores as well, I'm kinda lost in this decision...

 

RAM: ~40€ (used as well)

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz C16

I'm aiming for 2x8Gb, so i can easly upgrade later on with another set and never have to worry about RAM again in this rig, but im pretty certain that even the 16gb are gonne last me a good while.

I didn't really put a lot of hours in research here, I feel like the 3200MHz C16 is a good deal between speed and price and especially those sticks were mentioned a lot in a good way.

 

PSU: 60-70€ (used again)

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 650W Platinium semimodular

On the choice of PSU my main goal is safety, I don't want a cheap China one that fries my rig, or gives up after only 1-2 years. The second goal is that I don't want to touch it even if I heavly upgrade on graphics / harddrives later on.

I'm certain I would be more than fine with a 500W as well, but the 650W (this one in particular) is crazy cheap here, so I don't really see a point in giving up so much for saving like 10€. On Efficency I would prefere Gold or above, because I want to use it for quite some years and feel it's gonne repay for itself anyways. (Power isn't that cheap with 0.3€/kWh)

 

Drives:

Here I'm not really decided yet, I think I want to go for a dedicated System SSD with 256GB (M.2 or not, I'm open to your oppinion).
A 2nd reliable 500GB SSD for all Applications and smaller Games.

A 1TB Hard Drive for the steam library and other larger Games. (I wanted to aim for a fast spinning hard drive to maybe make up for the fact that it isn't a SSD, if you say the game performance would increase a lot by putting it on a SSD, I would buy a cheaper branded 1TB one)

Lastely as the 4th Drive an good old reliable 512 GB HDD for all my data, like photos etc. (I'm not intrested in a Cloud, so i feel thats a pretty save place for my data with a Backup to an external drive from time to time)

Here again I don't really want to have to upgrade that later on. At the moment I got 2x 7200RPM 512GB Hard Drives, where 300Gb are still empty, and a lot of trash on them which is propably not gonne transition over.

 

Graphics:

Thats the tricky question. As mentioned earlier I got a GTX 670 in my system at the moment and I think I wanna take that into the new system until January 2021. I know it's gonne be a terrible bottleneck, but with the release of the new Nvidea 3000 Series used prices for graphics are dropping quite heavily and if they are back in stock, will keep dropping pretty drasticly i hope.

I don't have a lot of budget lying around for it at this moment, but the goal with this build is not to get the most optimized PC in performance per buck right now, but an upgradeable platform. ( Please no general discussion on future "proofing" in a fast changing world like computers ).

If I would have to get a graphics card right now, I would either get an GTX 1660Super which you can get for like 160-170€ used, or a 1080 if i get my hands on it for 200€ or less, it still sells for like 220-240€.

But as i sayed earlier I want to wait for the new year, because I feel you can get much bettern than for way less.

The goal than is maybe a cheap 1080 / 1080Ti or even go into the 2000 Series, if they are avaible used at a price point of around 200€, maybe my budget changes a bit and i can get an even more expensive one. Maybe you have special recomandations in that region as well for me.

 

My goal with this post is as i said no general discussion about why my idea with trying to future proof a system for my self is dumb, but instead some more precise feedback on single choices (with my intend in mind) and recommandations for the parts i didn't decide on yet like drives, CPU, "future" graphics etc.

Or just better choices.

 

Thank you for reading through all that mess, english isn't my native language as you can probably tell, so I hope everything is atleast somewhat understandable.

If you have any questions I will answer them as fast and good as I can.

 

I hope all of you have a great day and please keep that post friendly and constructive!

[Orange1]

11 minutes ago, DerG4mer01 said:

MSI B450 A Pro Max

I do not know about that motherboard, but it is 80 euro so you arent cheaping out on that.

https://youtu.be/ti38JS8RuPU?t=2244

 

 

I'd go with 3600 cpu

 

 

[Guiltyxz]

18 minutes ago, DerG4mer01 said:

...

For the CPU, if you can afford it/need the extra cores, go for the 3600, if not go for the 3100. Ignore the 3300x as you can overclock the 3100 to be the same speed/faster on the stock cooler. Everything else seems to be good parts, make sure they are in fully working order before buying and try to pay with PayPal if possible. If you are looking for GPU power now then go for the 1660 Super, but I would advise waiting and trying to get a used 2060 etc when prices drop.

[Aereldor]

The 3500x is easily the best deal here, since its performance is comparable to a 3600 even without hyperthreading. 

 

I wouldn't get a 250gb nvme ssd and a 500gb sata ssd AND a 2tb drive. I'd just get the biggest SSD you can afford. NVMe doesn't really have tangible benefits for gaming anyway.

 

I gotta ask, if you're going to wait till January to get a GPU, why are you upgrading now? Between now and January, AMD will have released the majority of their new CPU lineup, which are going to be significantly faster. Also, with the release of the new chips, the prices for these will go down pretty hard. 

 

Also, 'future proofing' in general isn't smart, it's difficult to predict the direction or speed of hardware development. The reason people have been able to get away with 10-year old PCs with GTX 580s and i5 2500ks is because it took 10 years for hardware to make that huge leap, but more has happened in a year than the ten before it. The top end Kaby Lake chip was a 4-core, 8-thread chip that sold for $300. That had been the same for 6 generations.

 

And now the i3 10100 is the same, but faster and only $100. 

 

It's on a different level with Ryzen chips. A 3700x equivalent (8c, 16t) would cost thousands earlier, look at it now. $275. 

 

So just get the best you can afford, don't worry too much about future proofing beyond leaving some room for upgrades (getting a nice PSU, getting the platform that has the best upgrade path, which at this point might be LGA1200 rather than AM4)

[DerG4mer01]

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

The 3500x is easily the best deal here, since its performance is comparable to a 3600 even without hyperthreading.

So there is no downside to no hyperthreading? It seems so uncommon today that i have no clue on this topic..
Because yes than its easily the best deal

 

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

I wouldn't get a 250gb nvme ssd and a 500gb sata ssd AND a 2tb drive. I'd just get the biggest SSD you can afford. NVMe doesn't really have tangible benefits for gaming anyway.

Thanks, so I don't have to worry about M.2 anymore.

To the 2nd point: I'm more oldschool in this regard, I like my data on a piece of hardware I can trust, a HDD has a chance of recover, a failing SSD to my knowledge not at all. Thats the reason for the small HDD as the last drive.

With your advice I assume you are saying that games benefit noticeable from a SSD? Than thank you and I will look into one affordable big SSD: (I like to keep a small one seperate for the System just to always have a bootable disk thats pretty clean and I dont see any downside in that, please correct me if i'm wrong)

 

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

I gotta ask, if you're going to wait till January to get a GPU, why are you upgrading now? Between now and January, AMD will have released the majority of their new CPU lineup, which are going to be significantly faster. Also, with the release of the new chips, the prices for these will go down pretty hard. 

Thats pretty simple, I'm picking these parts since summer this year, but due to some budget things it got so late.

I'm pretty certain a 3500X or a 3600 is a CPU thats gonne last me quite some time, due to gaming not being that CPU sided. As well as the base price not being as high, as seen on graphics. So if they go down even by 40% I save in the best case like 50 Bucks, while on a graphics card it seems more.
Also even after release it takes quite some time for the used prices to drop, the impact of the Nvidea 3000 isn't that hugely noticeable yet as well.

The last and easily most important one. I'm more than happy with this System without the graphics update, it will perform worlds better than my current system and achieve everything I want from my System right now. Following question will be, why than the graphics? Simply because I can than test much more demanding games which aren't even in reach at the moment. "You don't miss, what you don't know" and i have to start at some point

 

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

Also, 'future proofing' in general isn't smart, it's difficult to predict the direction or speed of hardware development. The reason people have been able to get away with 10-year old PCs with GTX 580s and i5 2500ks is because it took 10 years for hardware to make that huge leap, but more has happened in a year than the ten before it. The top end Kaby Lake chip was a 4-core, 8-thread chip that sold for $300. That had been the same for 6 generations.

Future Proofing might be the wrong term here to be honest. I just want a kind of lasting System, with a path for the nearby future, for mine in particular, room for more storage, better graphics card if needed, more ram if needed, without worrying about space, wattage, RAM slots, Sata ports etc. (Maybe even a new Ryzen that still fits on the AM4? But i could happily live without that option)

I mean I'm on a Chip from like 2008, not happy but still on it

 

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

So just get the best you can afford, don't worry too much about future proofing beyond leaving some room for upgrades (getting a nice PSU, getting the platform that has the best upgrade path, which at this point might be LGA1200 rather than AM4)

Thank you for this suggestion, I actually really appreciates it a lot, because you hit my spirit with the system At this point I'm sadly not willing to change the entire platform and I kind of find Ryzen more easy regarding termionology, cooling, mainboards etc. But thats my personal preference and in the end problem..

 

Thank you for your feedback and sorry for the long answer, I appreciate it a lot!