Red Team builder awakens from slumber

[Ejolmos]

Hello all, 

Im a long time fan of the channel(s) but new to the forum. When I was putting together a new build for the first time in nearly a decade I knew I needed to verify my research. Where better to confirm all my bias than the source of most of my information? 

1. Budget & Location

500-600 $USD, Oregon

2. Aim

Games: Path of Exile, Rend, Pubg, Overwatch, light-VR

Software: Solidworks, Revit, Inventor, Fusion360, Photoshop, Premier, Flash

I play a lot of older games or new games with retro graphics. My most demanding and favorite game is Path of Exile, which my current system has been struggling with lately. I missed out on the whole overwatch and fortnight/pubg craze. Both are games I would surely love, and Im a mostly recovered hardcore mmo addict (though I still have to get a fix of the ol' EQ occasionally), so Rend has caught my eye like nothing else in many many years.

Im about to graduate from a mechanical engineering program so will need a more powerful workstation for 3D modeling and rendering. I would like to do some photo and video editing as well, but the gaming and 3D software requirements will take care of that. 

3. Monitors

1, 1080x1920

4. Peripherals

None, I plan to continue using Win7

5. Why are you upgrading?

Its been around 10 years since my last build, and Ive been itching to do it for awhile now. However, I hesitated around the time GPUs and RAM prices skyrocketed and just havn't been able to bring myself to do it since. Things have finally deflated at least to the point I dont feel like Im being robbed just by looking at prices, so Im thinking about pulling the trigger.

 

Old PC:

Phenom II 965 @3.4Ghz

16 GB 1600 DDR3

2 GB DDR5 GT 740 @993Mhz

 

Planned PC:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/sn9M4q

 

The goal here is that I cannot afford to build the new system I need right now, nor am I fully comfortable with the current mid-range GPU prices. So I plan to stick with my current 2GB GT 740 for now, and upgrade several other parts later.

CPU: Ryzen 5 2600                                                                           (Chosen as the most powerful 6 core within my budget)

MB: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX                                            (the cheapest 450 with 4 RAM slots, and Gigabyte has never let me down)

RAM: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200           ( I currently have 16GB, its hard to justify getting less)

SSD: Inland - 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive                                      (temporary stop gap, current drives are old, new boot drive priority)

CASE: Fractal Design - Focus G Mini (Black)                                   (my favorite within the 40-60 range, the front intake fans are what I love)

PSU: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Fully-Modular ATX    (Gold+ important for overnight render, 550 enough after upgrade?)

FAN: ARCTIC - F12 PWM 74.0 CFM 120mm                                    (for exhaust)

 

total ~$560 US

 

The Upgrade

Ill be graduating spring 2019, hopefully GPU and memory prices will return to non-ludicrous levels by then, potentially even a new generation! But In any case, Ill be able to afford to finish off the platform. I plan to get another 16GB of RAM, another monitor (potentially a 1440), for storage, likely a 2TB 7200 hdd and a larger/faster SSD, and of course, the gpu. Id like to grab a 1080 at least a 1070, but that depends a lot on the future of the market. Ill have a separate budget for the Upgrades, ~1000  not including monitor, Ill worry about that later.

 

The end result is a Ryzen 5 2600, 32 GB 3200, GT1080, 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD, 120 GB SSD, 550W PSU.

 

A few questions

550W seems low to me for a 1080 and a 2nd monitor, but most of the power estimates Im seeing for it are based around a Liquid cooling set-up with Intel systems. Im planning on sticking with air, and Ryzen runs a lot cooler.

I went with 3200Mhz over 3000Mhz RAM because Ive heard that it makes a big difference with Ryzen and 32GB capacity should be enough for my purposes for a few years.

Does anyone foresee any issue with using quad channel vs dual channel for any of my applications, the ease of upgrading my RAM was the primary factor in choosing my motherboard. I could alternatively get a board with 2 slots and invest in 32GB directly, but I felt that was an inferior path for a number of reasons and it would hurt the budget.

 

The Big Question

With all of these considerations in mind, given todays market, should I continue to wait? There are children in middle-school not born yet when this thing was built, and yet it runs better than anything prebuilt you could buy today for around 500US. I take good care of it, but the PC is a ticking time bomb, Im not just worried its reaching the end, it deserves retirement. It certainly works well enough for me now, even in Solidworks (you'd be impressed to see it, im sure) but I could do so much more both professionally and in leisure for relatively cheap.

After much patience, I feel like now is finally a good time to build again, but I wonder how much of that is real, and how much of it I am convincing myself of because I want new toys. Im long out of the building game, any advice on what to do or things I missed, and opinions on the build would be appreciated. Thank you!