New R1600, GTX 1060 6gb rig for gaming. Need help with parts

[derppanzer]

Hello there lads,

 

I'm new to this forum, but I've been watching Linus for a long time. Been a subscriber since before they burned down their servers

 

I am planning on upgrading my current pc, which is half new parts, half used parts atm. 

Specs:

• Asus p7p55d evo (2nd hand, pretty old)
• i7 860 @2,80 GHz (2nd hand, pretty old)
• CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO (Of course :D) (few months old)
• XMS 3 4 x 2 GB 1600 MHz (running at 1333 MHz) (2nd hand, pretty old)
• MSI Gaming X GTX 1050 2GB (few months old)
• Sea Sonic S12II 520 Watt PSU (few months old)
• Cooler Master N400 casing (budget casing really, couldn't spare money for anything else. It has pretty decent ventilation, air filters and came preinstalled with 2 case coolers) (few months old)
• WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD @7200 rpm (few months old)

What I am planning to build:

• Some B350 board, but not sure which
• Ryzen 5 1400/1600 (1400 is enough for my needs, but 1600 is better bang for buck and will last me longer)
• CPU Cooler: hyper 212 evo is probably staying, since it is good (I am aware of the brackets for AM4). I will get a free wraith spire, which is nice. 
• Some DDR4 RAM. Considering buying 1 8GB stick and purchasing one along side it later because of budget.
• GTX 1060 6 GB. I'm leaning towards the MSI gaming X one, but Zotac AMP! looks promising too.
• PSU and casing: current PSU and Case are staying for a while, but I will upgrade them later, as they are still new and are doing their job really well for now. It's just a mess with cable management, as the case has no room to hide the cables and the PSU is not modular.
• Storage: Current HDD is obviously staying, but I am planning to pickup a 120 or 250 GB SSD in the future to help with booting and loading times.

I plan to use this PC for gaming, Microsoft Office, light multitasking and possibly dabble into video editing/streaming, although that is not a priority. Also, I plan to build this PC well from the ground up and use it for at least 3 years once it has been built. As such, I want to get the best bang for buck, but I also want to splash bits and pieces of premium here and there into the look of the PC. I would prefer a red/black color scheme, as it looks really neat IMO and suits the AMD/MSI theme.

 

I don't have a defined budget atm, but I am on the look for all the best deals in the price ranges for these parts. I would like to however stay at around 400 euros for the platform upgrade. The GPU will come next, I will be on look out for the best 1060 6gb deals. Anything other than that, is secondary and will come later.

 

So, now comes your part, guys! Tell me if this setup is balanced and help me with finding a suitable MoBo, RAM, GPU and possibly a case and PSU later on down the line!

 

Regarding the MoBos, I am seriously considering the MSI Gaming plus and the Gigabyte gaming 3. Gaming 3 is basicly a tad bit better regarding heat and audio, but MSI is my favorite brand, it looks way better and still has all the requirements I want.

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

I personally would start by upgrading the platform, so make the jump to Ryzen or whatever you want. Then save up some money and upgrade the GPU, a 1050 is pretty capable for gaming. Stay away from MSI boards for Ryzen, they're garbage currently.

 

My case recommendations are:

-NZXT S340

-Corsair 400C

-Corsair 460X(if you like tempered glass panels)

[samcool55]

Mobo, anything from MSI or Asrock will be fine.

RAM, anything that runs at 3000-3200Mhz is fine, capacity, 8GB is fine for now but i wouldn't wait too long with an upgrade to 16GB. It's imo a better deal to go straight for 16GB.

GPU, MSI is fine, zotac, don't really know. I would get the MSI

PSU, it's really good, no need to replace it. You will be fine for years and years with that one

CPU Cooler, make sure it actually fits, afaik you need AM4 mounting hardware and i don't know if you already have that. AM3 mounting won't work btw.

[samcool55]

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Stay away from MSI boards for Ryzen, they're garbage currently.

Could you explain why? O_o

I have one and it works just fine with an R5 1600...

[derppanzer]

Quote

 

Stay away from MSI boards for Ryzen, they're garbage currently.

 

My case recommendations are:

-NZXT S340

-Corsair 400C

-Corsair 460X(if you like tempered glass panels)

 

Thx for the input! Any recommendations on the MoBo? I love MSI design, especially of the gaming plus and the Tomahawk. I am considering the Gigabyte AB350 gaming 3 atm, since it is around 100 euros, has good audio and more powerphases, so less overheating. Not really a fan of the look, though...

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

Could you explain why? O_o

I have one and it works just fine with an R5 1600...

I've heard they have a bunch of VRM issues. I haven't personally experienced any as I'm still trying to get off the FM2 platform, I'm just repeating what I've heard. It might be one of those hit or miss type things that tends to miss more often.

[seon123]

5 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Could you explain why? O_o

I have one and it works just fine with an R5 1600...

They have crap VRMs and tend to be overpriced, as well as bad boot times and RAM compatibility. And a buggy BIOS, for me at least. 

[samcool55]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I've heard they have a bunch of VRM issues. I haven't personally experienced any as I'm still trying to get off the FM2 platform, I'm just repeating what I've heard. It might be one of those hit or miss type things that tends to miss more often.

 

3 minutes ago, seon123 said:

They have crap VRMs and tend to be overpriced, as well as bad boot times and RAM compatibility. And a buggy BIOS, for me at least. 

The VRM's on most of their B350 boards aren't great, true, but they aren't crap either. (B350 gaming pro carbon and B350 krait gaming have one of the best vrm's out there btw, but they are an exception tho)

 

Gigabyte is the one with crap VRM's actually...

 

Overpriced, don't know how it is now but back when i bought my ryzen system MSI had the cheapest motherboard.

RAM compatibility, haven't looked into it anymore, they are usually behind with AGESA updates compared to most other manufacturers but then again i prefer that above getting a crappy BIOS that applies too much vCore and blows up the CPU. (yeah i'm talking about gigabyte again and their overvolting BIOS)

 

Buggy bios, haven't really seen any bugs? It derped once with the first or second bios (didn't find the SSD) but since then everything has been fine.

 

The general rule is go X370 if you get an R7 unless you know for sure the B350 board you are getting has a decent VRM. if you get an R5 or lower, B350 is usually fine.

Also, VRM heatsinks are a must, doesn't matter what you get, just make sure it has the heatsink, big, small, doesn't really matter. This is also true for A320 boards btw.

[TVwazhere]

25 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

GPU, MSI is fine, zotac, don't really know. I would get the MSI***

As long as it's not the armor aftermarket design .The gaming x version is good

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2927-msi-1080ti-armor-review-high-temps?showall=1

[samcool55]

Just now, TVwazhere said:

As long as it's not the armor aftermarket design .The gaming x version is good

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2927-msi-1080ti-armor-review-high-temps?showall=1

Does the 1060 6GB has an armor aftermarket design?

 

And tbh that card is designed for a very specific market but markted as a normal 1080ti, i sort of understand why but i'm still  a bit confused why they did this O_o

[RAM555789]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

As long as it's not the armor aftermarket design .The gaming x version is good

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2927-msi-1080ti-armor-review-high-temps?showall=1

Yeah I have had some MSI card that just run way to hot in the past.

[TVwazhere]

2 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Does the 1060 6GB has an armor aftermarket design?

 

And tbh that card is designed for a very specific market but markted as a normal 1080ti, i sort of understand why but i'm still  a bit confused why they did this O_o

MSI was being lazy and just using an existing design on a card that could easily overpower it. Meanwhile Gigabyte, Asus, EVGA and Zotac redesign their coolers to fit the actual needs of the card. (Even the gaming X fails to meet expectations on a 1080ti chip)

[seon123]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

-snip-

The Carbon and Krait have a VRM similar to the one Asus uses on all of its B350 boards. MSI uses that same thing on all of its X370 boards, afaik. @dave_k

Gigabyte is just even worse than MSI. Doesn't make MSI boards any good. 

The B350M Gaming Pro, with its 3 phase VRM was the cheapest B350 board quite often. 

MSI boards have Agesa code 1006, but compatibility isn't as good as on Asus. You won't hit 3200 with Hynix reliably. 

My Tomahawk posts with RAM at 2400 MHz when it's set to 3000 sometimes, and the fan control is really buggy, messing up the fan curves I set, and resetting all of them randomly. It's also unable to run the fans at 0RPM, as inset the fan curve to. 

The general rule is get a motherboard with decent VRMs. For overclocking an 8 core to what the stock cooler can handle is usually fine on better B350 boards. Anything more than that, and you want better VRMs. 

[samcool55]

1 minute ago, TVwazhere said:

MSI was being lazy and just using an existing design on a card that could easily overpower it. Meanwhile Gigabyte, Asus, EVGA and Zotac redesign their coolers to fit the actual needs of the card. (Even the gaming X fails to meet expectations on a 1080ti chip)

I think MSI just wanted to release a card with a reference design and a cooler that's easy to take off so people that want to go custom WC with their 1080ti can pick up the armor edition, take of the cooler and slap on the GPU block, because it's a reference PCB it's really easy to get blocks for them.

 

But then again, bit weird that they went through the effort of doing that in the first place and Nvidia likely doesn't allow them to market it like that.

[katoptrys]

41 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I personally would start by upgrading the platform, so make the jump to Ryzen or whatever you want. Then save up some money and upgrade the GPU, a 1050 is pretty capable for gaming. Stay away from MSI boards for Ryzen, they're garbage currently.

 

My case recommendations are:

-NZXT S340

-Corsair 400C

-Corsair 460X(if you like tempered glass panels)

I have a Corsair 400C and it's very good. I'd pick the NZXT S340 if available though.

 

I also have an MSI mobo and it works just fine.

[TVwazhere]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

I think MSI just wanted to release a card with a reference design and a cooler that's easy to take off so people that want to go custom WC with their 1080ti can pick up the armor edition, take of the cooler and slap on the GPU block, because it's a reference PCB it's really easy to get blocks for them.

 

But then again, bit weird that they went through the effort of doing that in the first place and Nvidia likely doesn't allow them to market it like that.

I've always prefered AIB designs anyways with custom PCB's, since I'm not worried about water-cooling my GPU's yet. Hence the reason why I like that EVGA custom makes each cooler for each generation of GPU (the other three also do this too, I'm just a bit of a fanboy)

[samcool55]

2 minutes ago, seon123 said:

The Carbon and Krait have a VRM similar to the one Asus uses on all of its B350 boards. MSI uses that same thing on all of its X370 boards, afaik. @dave_k

Gigabyte is just even worse than MSI. Doesn't make MSI boards any good. 

The B350M Gaming Pro, with its 3 phase VRM was the cheapest B350 board quite often. 

MSI boards have Agesa code 1006, but compatibility isn't as good as on Asus. You won't hit 3200 with Hynix reliably. 

My Tomahawk posts with RAM at 2400 MHz when it's set to 3000 sometimes, and the fan control is really buggy, messing up the fan curves I set, and resetting all of them randomly. It's also unable to run the fans at 0RPM, as inset the fan curve to. 

The general rule is get a motherboard with decent VRMs. For overclocking an 8 core to what the stock cooler can handle is usually fine on better B350 boards. Anything more than that, and you want better VRMs. 

About the fan curve, that's really weird O_o

Mine is fine, i've set them after the latest bios update (which is actually not the latest bios that's available, i'm a bit behind) and they still work fine. Also 0rpm is perfectly possible.

The fans spin up when i start gaming and stop when i stop like i want to.

 

Again, haven't tried ram and don't know about ram speeds, should probably give it another try.

Neither do i know what's going on with X370 vrm's

 

And i'm not saying msi VRM are good, they just aren't bad and they are sufficient for an overclocked R5. 3+2 with a heatsink and a bit of airflow will get you quite far.

AGESA wise, there's 1.0.0.6 and 1.0.0.6b, the b version has been available for almost a month now for my B350m mortar (that's the one i have btw, not the gaming pro), same for the tomahawk btw so you might want to update

[just_dave]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

About the fan curve, that's really weird O_o

Mine is fine, i've set them after the latest bios update (which is actually not the latest bios that's available, i'm a bit behind) and they still work fine. Also 0rpm is perfectly possible.

The fans spin up when i start gaming and stop when i stop like i want to.

 

Again, haven't tried ram and don't know about ram speeds, should probably give it another try.

Neither do i know what's going on with X370 vrm's

 

And i'm not saying msi VRM are good, they just aren't bad and they are sufficient for an overclocked R5. 3+2 with a heatsink and a bit of airflow will get you quite far.

AGESA wise, there's 1.0.0.6 and 1.0.0.6b, the b version has been available for almost a month now for my B350m mortar (that's the one i have btw, not the gaming pro), same for the tomahawk btw so you might want to update

3+2 is total garbage and will run hot even with 6 core OC

[just_dave]

I'd recommend Asus Prime B350 Plus if you need the color scheme.

Other than that, MSI B350 Carbon/Krait or Asus B350-F Strix.

No other boards

[samcool55]

3 minutes ago, dave_k said:

3+2 is total garbage and will run hot even with 6 core OC

No, it's fine. If you OC the r5 1600 to 4Ghz at 1.42V the VRM kicks out 11W of heat. Nothing to worry about. It only draws about 70A through the VRM which is fine.

If you get an overclocked R7 1700@3.8Ghz it will pull 100A through the VRM at 1.42V and the VRM kicks out 22W of heat. That's getting into dangerous territory but then again it's a B350 board and an R7, not really meant to go together when overclocked.

 

If you disagree, provide prove

[seon123]

8 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

No, it's fine. If you OC the r5 1600 to 4Ghz at 1.42V the VRM kicks out 11W of heat. Nothing to worry about. It only draws about 70A through the VRM which is fine.

If you get an overclocked R7 1700@3.8Ghz it will pull 100A through the VRM at 1.42V and the VRM kicks out 22W of heat. That's getting into dangerous territory but then again it's a B350 board and an R7, not really meant to go together when overclocked.

 

If you disagree, provide prove

 

[boiboi69]

Anyone know how good is Asus Prime B350M-A VRMs? i may plan to OC it with R5 1600x.

[Kawaii Besu]

15 hours ago, boiboi69 said:

Anyone know how good is Asus Prime B350M-A VRMs? i may plan to OC it with R5 1600x.

Avoid af. There are no VRM heatsinks at all on it, which will heat it up hotter than hell, especially with a heavily OC'd 1600X

 

Not sure if you only want an mATX board, but, I'd recommend the Asus Strix B350-F, or the MSI B350 Gaming Carbon (Asus supposedly has better BIOS, but either has pretty good VRM) for that level of CPU, if you can stretch it to ATX.

 

if you are exclusive to mATX, well, there is the Asus TUF B350M Plus. Basically the B350M-A, but with the much needed VRM heatsinks.

[derppanzer]

So, thanks for all the discussion, guys. Really, didn't expect this degree of engagement. However, what Mobo would you recommend to me? The highest I will push it for now would be R5 1600 OC'ed, but not heavily. I imagin something like 3,7 GHz on an aftermarket air cooler in the league of hyper 212 evo. Is there a MoBo that will be up to that task, for around 100 euro max? VRM heatsinks would be nice, but not really required I think. I will have, as stated, 1 aftermarket CPU cooler, probably 3 case fans and I won't do anything overly stressing, besides games. But then again, the GPU will be the bottleneck, even on a 1060 6gb, so I don't expect CPU to hit 100% usage. Something that is black/red, alternatively matte black/carbon would be nice.

 

As for the GPU, I will most likely go for the MSI Gaming X 1060, with my alternative being the Zotac AMP! Freeze 1060 6gb. I heard very good things about the Zotac company, but the look doesn't quite match and the MSI X version seems to be a better performer.

 

Also, any recommendation on RAM? How about the Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz?

[seon123]

1 hour ago, derppanzer said:

So, thanks for all the discussion, guys. Really, didn't expect this degree of engagement. However, what Mobo would you recommend to me? The highest I will push it for now would be R5 1600 OC'ed, but not heavily. I imagin something like 3,7 GHz on an aftermarket air cooler in the league of hyper 212 evo. Is there a MoBo that will be up to that task, for around 100 euro max? VRM heatsinks would be nice, but not really required I think. I will have, as stated, 1 aftermarket CPU cooler, probably 3 case fans and I won't do anything overly stressing, besides games. But then again, the GPU will be the bottleneck, even on a 1060 6gb, so I don't expect CPU to hit 100% usage. Something that is black/red, alternatively matte black/carbon would be nice.

 

As for the GPU, I will most likely go for the MSI Gaming X 1060, with my alternative being the Zotac AMP! Freeze 1060 6gb. I heard very good things about the Zotac company, but the look doesn't quite match and the MSI X version seems to be a better performer.

 

Also, any recommendation on RAM? How about the Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz?

The Asus Prime Plus and Strix are affordable, and with decent VRMs and they have heatsinks. 

Most 3000 MHz kits should be able to hit ~2933 MHz, so don't worry too much about RAM.