Upgrading CPU / Mobo / RAM

[Dendroit]

Budget (including currency): $600-700 USD for CPU/mobo/RAM

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: All games - I play a huge variety.  I'm a Software Architect by trade, so I would like something to mess around with a wide variety of modern software development workloads as well, including running many containers, perhaps beginning to explore machine learning, and very rarely some Blender.  At some point I may want to get a sound card as well for playing and making music with external instruments.

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): 

 

Here's my current setup.  I built this in 2016 and upgraded some parts.

 

Current Build

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mrMpy4

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($210.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($99.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($406.49 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL15 Memory  ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($107.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($40.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB GAMING AMP Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA G1 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($61.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus VX238H 23.0" 1920x1080 Monitor  ($499.00 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus VX228H 21.5" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor
Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz Monitor  ($373.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $1991.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-19 23:43 EDT-0400

 

 

I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and RAM.  I'm hoping the case and power supply can remain the same, but please let me know if either of those should be upgraded as well.

 

CPU

I'm leaning toward an AMD build this time around.  I'm thinking the Ryzen 7 5800X, but I'm open to suggestions.  I know I don't need many cores for gaming, but with the other workloads (see above), I'm not sure I'd want to drop down to the 5600X, although I could be convinced otherwise.  I haven't been keeping up with CPUs the past few years, so I'm not totally familiar with the current landscape.

 

CPU Cooler

I just updated my cooler to the Noctua NH-D15 a couple months ago because my Corsair H60 died, so I would like to be able to use the NH-D15 with my new CPU.  I still have the fittings for the AM4 socket that came the cooler.  I think this is a very decent cooler, but is it reasonable for the 5800X (or another CPU that you'd recommend)?

 

Motherboard / RAM

I saw a similar post today where the following were recommended with a 5700G:

Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($124.95 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($116.99 @ Amazon) 

 

Would these be good pairings with the 5800X (or another recommended CPU)?

Is this brand of RAM decent, or does that matter much nowadays?  I definitely want 32 GB.

Any other recommendations?

 

Thank you in advance!

[RONOTHAN##]

If you can wait an extra couple of weeks or until early 2022, you can upgrade to Alder Lake or Ryzen 6000. Both of them will be great upgrade, or if you decide not to go with one of those, you will probably be able to get a last gen CPU for a great deal.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, Dendroit said:

i5-6600K

For now overclock this cpu, would be stupid not to anyways cause of the cooler and mb choice

 

Absolute max "safe" volt ~1.6v

Reccomended max safe volt 1.52 (intel spec)

Do not go over 85c but 80c and under is preffered

 

Id suggest ocing it as much as possible till it hits ~85c

[Dendroit]

6 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you can wait an extra couple of weeks or until early 2022, you can upgrade to Alder Lake or Ryzen 6000. Both of them will be great upgrade, or if you decide not to go with one of those, you will probably be able to get a last gen CPU for a great deal.

Thanks for the heads up, I will consider that.

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

For now overclock this cpu, would be stupid not to anyways cause of the cooler and mb choice

 

Absolute max "safe" volt ~1.6v

Reccomended max safe volt 1.52 (intel spec)

Do not go over 85c but 80c and under is preffered

 

Id suggest ocing it as much as possible till it hits ~85c

Thanks, I am already overclocking it, but it's still bottlenecking occasionally, so I'm looking to future-proof into an upgraded build.

[RodrigoRS]

About the cooler, if you do not intend to OC the CPU, the best cooler (for me) is the Scythe Fuma 2. I have it with a 5900X and works great. If you don't care about money, go with the Noctua. For the ram, it's almost always better 2x16 than 4x8.

[Dendroit]

2 minutes ago, RodrigoRS said:

About the cooler, if you do not intend to OC the CPU, the best cooler (for me) is the Scythe Fuma 2. I have it with a 5900X and works great. If you don't care about money, go with the Noctua. For the ram, it's almost always better 2x16 than 4x8.

Thanks for the reply.  I already have the Noctua, so I plan on keeping it unless it's not good enough.  However, your reply implies that it's better than I need, so maybe my concern doesn't apply.

[KKLawrence]

Hey, looks like a great build! So if you want to upgrade now, then I'd go:

Ryzen 7 5800X

MSI B550 A-Pro

The cheapest branded kit with 32GB 3600MHz CL18.

That all should be had for under 600$. With the noctua D15 you can cool a 5800X comfortably.

 

Later this fall or winter the intel 12th Gen series is supposed to come out. Nobody knows how it'll perform, but it may be a bit until you can afford one with DDR5 Ram and if noctua sends you the new mounting kit. So very uncertain.

 

If you want to make music tho, get a good audio interface. They only need USB 2.0 so very easy to run and the good ones start at 100$ for the Focusrite Solo 3rd Gen, basically an industry standard at that point. It's quite easy to start there and you don't need a heavy CPU, 8 Cores should be enough. (I ran a Ryzen 7 1800X and never had any stutters in my projects, even with a bunch of vst's).

[Dendroit]

On 10/20/2021 at 8:48 AM, KKLawrence said:

The cheapest branded kit with 32GB 3600MHz CL18.

Is there really no difference in brand for RAM?  Any recommendations in particular?

 

On 10/20/2021 at 8:48 AM, KKLawrence said:

Later this fall or winter the intel 12th Gen series is supposed to come out. Nobody knows how it'll perform, but it may be a bit until you can afford one with DDR5 Ram and if noctua sends you the new mounting kit. So very uncertain.

 

I'm really struggling with whether to upgrade now or wait for the next generation to be released so I can get a better deal on the 11th gen intel or Ryzen 5000 series.  I'm leaning more toward AMD, but I'm not loyal to either side.  I know the 6000 series is projected to be in a new AM5 socket and have DDR5 support, but I doubt I would want to fork out the cash as soon as it's released, so I'd probably be going for the 5000 series when the 6000 series is released. Looking at price history, when the Ryzen 5000 series was released, the Ryzen 3000 chips actually increased in some cases.  Although maybe chip shortages or other factors played into that, I'm not convinced there will be a price drop in the 5000 series when the 6000 series is released.  Does anyone have a crystal ball (jk), or at least some additional thoughts on whether it's better to wait or upgrade now?

 

On 10/20/2021 at 8:48 AM, KKLawrence said:

If you want to make music tho, get a good audio interface. They only need USB 2.0 so very easy to run and the good ones start at 100$ for the Focusrite Solo 3rd Gen, basically an industry standard at that point. It's quite easy to start there and you don't need a heavy CPU, 8 Cores should be enough. (I ran a Ryzen 7 1800X and never had any stutters in my projects, even with a bunch of vst's).

Thanks for the tips!

 

 

Also, is 650W enough for this build, or do I need to upgrade my PSU?

[Jonathan Lee]

41 minutes ago, Dendroit said:

Is there really no difference in brand for RAM?  Any recommendations in particular?

nah, they all basically come from 3 different factories. So they're performances are all the same. I would go with the one you like the look of the most.

 

41 minutes ago, Dendroit said:

I know the 6000 series is projected to be in a new AM5 socket and have DDR5 support

I think 7000 series is going to be on AM5. 6000 series might be a refresh of Zen3 with 3D vcache or something like that. I'm going out on a limb and assume DDR5 will be expensive af and not too much faster than DDR4 on launch. I wouldn't really worry about DDR5 just yet. That's projecting from previous jump from DDR3 -> DDR4. Most likely though AM5 will have both DDR4 and DDR5 boards like when DDR4 first launched.

 

41 minutes ago, Dendroit said:

it's better to wait or upgrade now?

 You can upgrade now. Today's CPU's will probably be good for a few years before being completely irrelevant. Also, with the new big, little core structure with Intel's new chips you will have to use Windows 11 which is pretty much an experimental version right now. There will probably a lot of weirdness and problems for the first few months of the new stuff cause it really hasn't been field tested to a large scale. If you get something like zen3 or 11th gen, they are very stable platforms and will have little issues. So if you want a fuss free experience, upgrade now. If you want to be bleeding edge of tech, wait a bit.

[KKLawrence]

2 hours ago, Dendroit said:

Is there really no difference in brand for RAM?  Any recommendations in particular?

I'd take just the cheapest Ram from a notable brand like G.Skill, Crucial, Corsair, Team Group or a brand you know and trust.

 

2 hours ago, Dendroit said:

it's better to wait or upgrade now?

I'd upgrade now, if I were you. If you really want to upgrade now and will keep the system at least 2 years, then go for it.

 

2 hours ago, Dendroit said:

Also, is 650W enough for this build, or do I need to upgrade my PSU?

The 5600X is a chip where I wouldn't worry. But if you want to go 5800X, then I'd consider a 750w or 850w PSU, just to be futureproof.

But thats just to be safe, if you don't overclock and are caucious about your power settings on the GPU and CPU.

 

[Finnegan]

On 10/20/2021 at 12:17 AM, Dendroit said:

Budget (including currency): $600-700 USD for CPU/mobo/RAM

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: All games - I play a huge variety.  I'm a Software Architect by trade, so I would like something to mess around with a wide variety of modern software development workloads as well, including running many containers, perhaps beginning to explore machine learning, and very rarely some Blender.  At some point I may want to get a sound card as well for playing and making music with external instruments.

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): 

 

Here's my current setup.  I built this in 2016 and upgraded some parts.

 

Current Build

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mrMpy4

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($210.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($99.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($406.49 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL15 Memory  ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($107.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($40.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB GAMING AMP Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA G1 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($61.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus VX238H 23.0" 1920x1080 Monitor  ($499.00 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus VX228H 21.5" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor
Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz Monitor  ($373.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $1991.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-19 23:43 EDT-0400

 

 

I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and RAM.  I'm hoping the case and power supply can remain the same, but please let me know if either of those should be upgraded as well.

 

CPU

I'm leaning toward an AMD build this time around.  I'm thinking the Ryzen 7 5800X, but I'm open to suggestions.  I know I don't need many cores for gaming, but with the other workloads (see above), I'm not sure I'd want to drop down to the 5600X, although I could be convinced otherwise.  I haven't been keeping up with CPUs the past few years, so I'm not totally familiar with the current landscape.

 

CPU Cooler

I just updated my cooler to the Noctua NH-D15 a couple months ago because my Corsair H60 died, so I would like to be able to use the NH-D15 with my new CPU.  I still have the fittings for the AM4 socket that came the cooler.  I think this is a very decent cooler, but is it reasonable for the 5800X (or another CPU that you'd recommend)?

 

Motherboard / RAM

I saw a similar post today where the following were recommended with a 5700G:

Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($124.95 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($116.99 @ Amazon) 

 

Would these be good pairings with the 5800X (or another recommended CPU)?

Is this brand of RAM decent, or does that matter much nowadays?  I definitely want 32 GB.

Any other recommendations?

 

Thank you in advance!

would suggest waiting another month or so for alder lake

 

or if you are an AMD simp, ig you can wait like 5 months or whatever for the Ryzen 6000 or whatever, but that's sort of a long wait

 

 

for both of those, it's kind of pointless to ask for specific parts, bc they will all change by then

for storage, look at capacity, speed, and cache, that's basically it

for RAM, look mainly at capacity, speed, and CL, take the CL, then divide by the speed (in MT/s) then multiply by 2,000 to get the true latency