the ol' upgrade question............again

cichy1012

current build
amd fx-8350 8 core black edition
evga 1080 ti founders edition memory 11GB
Asus sabertooth 990 fx r2.0 motherboard
16 gb of corsair vengeance 1866 pcs15000

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB x2
asus monitor 144hz 27 inch
 EVGA Supernova 850 P2, 80+ Platinum 850W

looking to build

keeping the PSU-- or should I?
keeping the GPU--or should I?
Asus rog strix x470 -f gaming am4 amd x470 sata 6gb/s
Amd ryzen 5 3600x 6-core 3.8 ghz (4.4 max boost) 
Corsair LPX (2x16gb) 3200mhz c16 ddr4 dram

any suggestion? 
thanks

Cleffy

Get a 1tb nVME while you can. They are going to go up in price. They are easier to work with than sata drives and they are ALOT faster. Something like a Sabrent or Samsung. 

Vrika

cichy1012 said:

keeping the PSU-- or should I?
keeping the GPU--or should I?
Asus rog strix x470 -f gaming am4 amd x470 sata 6gb/s
Amd ryzen 5 3600x 6-core 3.8 ghz (4.4 max boost) 
Corsair LPX (2x16gb) 3200mhz c16 ddr4 dram

That's a good plan. 1080 ti is still really good GPU, and that PSU was really good when you bought it so it's still more than good enough, but your CPU is getting old and is due to an upgrade.


EDIT: I've never seen any game that would recommend more than 16 GB of RAM. If you're planning to buy 32 GB just to have extra for future, then I'd also buy an 8 core Ryzen to have bit extra CPU power for future. Or alternatively stick to that Ryzen model and 16 GB of RAM for a more balanced computer.

This is assuming you're only gaming. I don't know if you're doing something else that requires extra RAM.

13lake

Cleffy said:

Get a 1tb nVME while you can. Something like a Sabrent or Samsung. 

No need to get a QLC Sabrent nor over-expensive Samsung, Kingston A2000 1TB is the best bang-for-buck drive atm, so is it's 500MB brother.

And I agree with the keeping the PSU, and the GPU.

Quizzical

That sounds like a fine upgrade plan.

I don't see a problem with spending a little over $100 on memory when you're also spending more than that on a motherboard, more than double that on a CPU, and spent several times it on a video card.  Even if few games will need more than 16 GB today, there are some that prefer a ton of memory (due to memory leaks), and that will become more common in the future.  And memory isn't that expensive at the moment.

The only reasons I'd question reusing the GPU or power supply are:
1)  if you have some reason to believe that they're somehow defective,
2)  if the power supply is already several years old, or
3)  if you want to keep the old computer functional for other reasons.

I didn't look it up, but the power supply probably didn't launch long enough ago for its age to be a problem.

cichy1012

Quizzical said:

That sounds like a fine upgrade plan.

I don't see a problem with spending a little over $100 on memory when you're also spending more than that on a motherboard, more than double that on a CPU, and spent several times it on a video card.  Even if few games will need more than 16 GB today, there are some that prefer a ton of memory (due to memory leaks), and that will become more common in the future.  And memory isn't that expensive at the moment.

The only reasons I'd question reusing the GPU or power supply are:
1)  if you have some reason to believe that they're somehow defective,
2)  if the power supply is already several years old, or
3)  if you want to keep the old computer functional for other reasons.

I didn't look it up, but the power supply probably didn't launch long enough ago for its age to be a problem.




above statement said 16 gb for a more balanced system? will the 32gb give me a hit?

Quizzical

He's saying that you won't see much benefit of 32 GB over 16 GB for a while.  Too much memory never hurts you much unless you do something outlandish.

Ridelynn

Only thing I will question is why x470 and not x570?

Not a ding - there could be legit reasons, I’m just curious 

Cleffy

I would x470 over x570 unless I needed the extra pci-e lanes. AMD also set it up like that. 

botrytis

Cleffy said:

I would x470 over x570 unless I needed the extra pci-e lanes. AMD also set it up like that. 

X570 is\f you want a little more future proof MD and getting PCI 4.0 (which will help with faster SSD drives).

Ridelynn

PCI 4 and better RAM compatibility where what I was looking at specifically - not a lot for PCI 4 now and the chipset fan is annoying but RAM compatibility and speed is what had me buy one on my most recent build

Future proofing in a good consideration especially now that we are seeing NVMe taking advantage of PCI 4 already, and there have been some reports of PCI 4 giving better GPU performance (although I expect that is more likely a driver bug on PCI 3)

But I also wouldn’t fault anyone overly for a well equipped x470...

cichy1012

one question should i still use my 

Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1Gaming Soundcard? 

or use the onboard?

Ridelynn

cichy1012 said:

one question should i still use my 

Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1Gaming Soundcard? 

or use the onboard?

Given that the card is ... 14? years old. I would start with onboard sound and see if that's good enough for you -- odds are it will at least be close, if not better given how long the Razer has been around. Asus ROG line is a fairly high end line and usually has better-than-average sound options

If it doesn't get you what you want, then I'd play around trying to get this card running or looking for an upgrade there. I don't think Win10 drivers officially exist for it, and you have to use Asus Xonar or C-Media 8788 drivers to get it to work any longer.

Quizzical

DMKano said:

Quizzical said:

He's saying that you won't see much benefit of 32 GB over 16 GB for a while.  Too much memory never hurts you much unless you do something outlandish.

If you are running a bunch of VMs like I am - there is no such thing as too much ram

By "something outlandish", I meant, in order to go above 256 GB, you'll probably have to use a server processor with low clock speeds, which would hurt a gaming rig.  You can easily get to 128 GB with mainstream consumer platforms or 256 GB with HEDT.

Memory is largely a case of, either you have what you need or you don't.  If you have what you need, adding more doesn't give you any benefit.  And if you don't, performance will be terrible until you get what you need.  How much you need depends very strongly on what you do with the computer.  Running a bunch of VMs at once isn't a common consumer use.

Ozmodan

With the big price differentials between 470 and a 570 board, I would stick with the 470 board unless you really see a need for PCIE 4.0.  You won't see a huge increase is storage access like you do going from a disk drive to a SSD.   I currently have 24gb of memory and never see any more than 50% memory usage no matter how many programs I have running, but then I do not run VMs like DMKano does.

Connmacart

cichy1012 said:

keeping the PSU-- or should I?

keeping the GPU--or should I?
Asus rog strix x470 -f gaming am4 amd x470 sata 6gb/s
Amd ryzen 5 3600x 6-core 3.8 ghz (4.4 max boost) 
Corsair LPX (2x16gb) 3200mhz c16 ddr4 dram

any suggestion? 
thanks

Like others have said keep the PSU and GPU. Your ram choice is fine. It's better to have too much than too little.

As for your motherboard choice. Any particular reason you chose the Rog Strix x470-f? It will probably require a biosflash at the store as there is a good chance it won't support Ryzen 3000 out of the box. The board doesn't have bios flashback so you can't flash it yourself without a compatible CPU. Also around here it is the same price as an Asus x570 TUF Gaming or a Gigabyte x570 Elite, which do support Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

Ryzen 3600x is only worth it at 20 or less difference in price over the 3600. The chips will behave the same under good cooling.

On that note get an aftermarket cooler. Something like Be Quiet Dark Rock Slim would be nice. Unless you are reusing an old cooler.

You didn't mention your case so I assume you want to reuse it, but is it up to modern standard still?

You could get an NVMe drive, but it really doesn't make that much more difference when gaming. If you are already planning on buying storage do get NVMe otherwise you could just stick to the 2 sata SSDs.

Vrika

Connmacart said:

On that note get an aftermarket cooler. Something like Be Quiet Dark Rock Slim would be nice. Unless you are reusing an old cooler.

Stock coolers for Ryzen CPUs are good enough. Personally I would consider buying an aftermarket cooler for Ryzen if I wanted to make the computer run quieter, but if you just want to have more performance it's not really worth the money.

Connmacart

Vrika said:

Connmacart said:

On that note get an aftermarket cooler. Something like Be Quiet Dark Rock Slim would be nice. Unless you are reusing an old cooler.

Stock coolers for Ryzen CPUs are good enough. Personally I would consider buying an aftermarket cooler for Ryzen if I wanted to make the computer run quieter, but if you just want to have more performance it's not really worth the money.

I disagree. The stock coolers are adequate for stock settings. You will boost a lot less and shorter than with a good aftermarket cooler though, which will also be more quiet yes. AMD cheapened out on the stock coolers after first gen Ryzen. I would be more forgiving if the Wraith Spire that comes with the 3600x still had the copper baseplate and if the 3600 still came with the Wraith Spire instead of the Wraith Stealth.

cichy1012

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

Quizzical

Connmacart said:

Vrika said:

Connmacart said:

On that note get an aftermarket cooler. Something like Be Quiet Dark Rock Slim would be nice. Unless you are reusing an old cooler.

Stock coolers for Ryzen CPUs are good enough. Personally I would consider buying an aftermarket cooler for Ryzen if I wanted to make the computer run quieter, but if you just want to have more performance it's not really worth the money.

I disagree. The stock coolers are adequate for stock settings. You will boost a lot less and shorter than with a good aftermarket cooler though, which will also be more quiet yes. AMD cheapened out on the stock coolers after first gen Ryzen. I would be more forgiving if the Wraith Spire that comes with the 3600x still had the copper baseplate and if the 3600 still came with the Wraith Spire instead of the Wraith Stealth.

The stock cooler that came with my 2700X is pretty good.  The stock cooler for a 2200G is less so, but generally fine.

Ryzen CPUs will clock higher if the temperatures are kept low, but it's not a big difference.  Even if an $80 cooler will commonly allow the CPU to clock 100 MHz higher, you'd probably get bigger gains by just spending that $80 extra to get a faster CPU.

So for example, a Ryzen 5 3600X with the stock cooler would make more sense than a Ryzen 5 3600 and spending the price difference on an aftermarket cooler.  The latter seems to be what you're advocating.

Ridelynn

Stock coolers from AMD are miles better than those from Intel, but yeah, are just enough to keep the chips operating. It's comparable to a typical $20-30 air cooler, so unless you are going to jump up into the mid-high end aftermarket coolers, which will get you better cooling, then just adding in a CM 212 won't necessarily buy you anything over what comes in the box.

That will get you more time at Turbo, so better performance when you are pushing the CPU very hard (video encode, etc), but most times a CPU is at a lot less than maxed out, and then the difference in coolers won't amount to a whole lot.

Quizzical

cichy1012 said:

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

X470 motherboards typically launched before the Ryzen 3000 series parts existed, so their initial BIOS didn't support the new CPUs.  Once they knew what the 3000 series CPUs would do and how to update the BIOS to support them, motherboard vendors generally released a BIOS update to support it.  The question is whether that particular motherboard will have the newer BIOS when you get it.  That depends on when it was physically assembled.

In some cases, the motherboard manufacturer can make a slightly different SKU whose only significant difference is that the newer SKU is guaranteed to have the newer BIOS.  Without that, if a stock person just grabs a motherboard off the shelf, it might come with a newer BIOS that already supports the 3000 series CPUs, or it might not.  At some point in time, the stock was likely mixed so that some motherboards had the newer BIOS and some didn't.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to update the BIOS yourself.  In some cases, this would require putting a CPU into the motherboard that is supported by the old BIOS in order to do the BIOS update.  You don't have such a CPU, so that would be a big problem.

If you look through the details of the particular motherboard you're looking at, it might give you a way to update the BIOS without a CPU, or it might guarantee you that the particular SKU already has a newer BIOS.  Or it might do neither of those, which could potentially be a big problem.

One argument for getting an X570 motherboard rather than X470 is that you're guaranteed that it will support the newer CPUs right out of the box.  There never was a BIOS for an X570 motherboard that didn't support the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, or at least not the ones available at the initial launch.  That's the biggest reason why I'd recommend getting an X570 motherboard unless you have some good reason not to.

cichy1012

Quizzical said:

cichy1012 said:

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

X470 motherboards typically launched before the Ryzen 3000 series parts existed, so their initial BIOS didn't support the new CPUs.  Once they knew what the 3000 series CPUs would do and how to update the BIOS to support them, motherboard vendors generally released a BIOS update to support it.  The question is whether that particular motherboard will have the newer BIOS when you get it.  That depends on when it was physically assembled.

In some cases, the motherboard manufacturer can make a slightly different SKU whose only significant difference is that the newer SKU is guaranteed to have the newer BIOS.  Without that, if a stock person just grabs a motherboard off the shelf, it might come with a newer BIOS that already supports the 3000 series CPUs, or it might not.  At some point in time, the stock was likely mixed so that some motherboards had the newer BIOS and some didn't.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to update the BIOS yourself.  In some cases, this would require putting a CPU into the motherboard that is supported by the old BIOS in order to do the BIOS update.  You don't have such a CPU, so that would be a big problem.

If you look through the details of the particular motherboard you're looking at, it might give you a way to update the BIOS without a CPU, or it might guarantee you that the particular SKU already has a newer BIOS.  Or it might do neither of those, which could potentially be a big problem.

One argument for getting an X570 motherboard rather than X470 is that you're guaranteed that it will support the newer CPUs right out of the box.  There never was a BIOS for an X570 motherboard that didn't support the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, or at least not the ones available at the initial launch.  That's the biggest reason why I'd recommend getting an X570 motherboard unless you have some good reason not to.

what 570 model? and is it more expensive?
and if it get the 470 with updated bios (just stick with it?)

Vrika

Quizzical said:

cichy1012 said:

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

X470 motherboards typically launched before the Ryzen 3000 series parts existed, so their initial BIOS didn't support the new CPUs.  Once they knew what the 3000 series CPUs would do and how to update the BIOS to support them, motherboard vendors generally released a BIOS update to support it.  The question is whether that particular motherboard will have the newer BIOS when you get it.  That depends on when it was physically assembled.

In some cases, the motherboard manufacturer can make a slightly different SKU whose only significant difference is that the newer SKU is guaranteed to have the newer BIOS.  Without that, if a stock person just grabs a motherboard off the shelf, it might come with a newer BIOS that already supports the 3000 series CPUs, or it might not.  At some point in time, the stock was likely mixed so that some motherboards had the newer BIOS and some didn't.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to update the BIOS yourself.  In some cases, this would require putting a CPU into the motherboard that is supported by the old BIOS in order to do the BIOS update.  You don't have such a CPU, so that would be a big problem.

If you look through the details of the particular motherboard you're looking at, it might give you a way to update the BIOS without a CPU, or it might guarantee you that the particular SKU already has a newer BIOS.  Or it might do neither of those, which could potentially be a big problem.

One argument for getting an X570 motherboard rather than X470 is that you're guaranteed that it will support the newer CPUs right out of the box.  There never was a BIOS for an X570 motherboard that didn't support the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, or at least not the ones available at the initial launch.  That's the biggest reason why I'd recommend getting an X570 motherboard unless you have some good reason not to.

Asus advertises ROG Strix 470-F Gaming as Ryzen 3000 desktop ready, so it should be ok to buy that model.

Quizzical

Vrika said:

Quizzical said:

cichy1012 said:

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

X470 motherboards typically launched before the Ryzen 3000 series parts existed, so their initial BIOS didn't support the new CPUs.  Once they knew what the 3000 series CPUs would do and how to update the BIOS to support them, motherboard vendors generally released a BIOS update to support it.  The question is whether that particular motherboard will have the newer BIOS when you get it.  That depends on when it was physically assembled.

In some cases, the motherboard manufacturer can make a slightly different SKU whose only significant difference is that the newer SKU is guaranteed to have the newer BIOS.  Without that, if a stock person just grabs a motherboard off the shelf, it might come with a newer BIOS that already supports the 3000 series CPUs, or it might not.  At some point in time, the stock was likely mixed so that some motherboards had the newer BIOS and some didn't.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to update the BIOS yourself.  In some cases, this would require putting a CPU into the motherboard that is supported by the old BIOS in order to do the BIOS update.  You don't have such a CPU, so that would be a big problem.

If you look through the details of the particular motherboard you're looking at, it might give you a way to update the BIOS without a CPU, or it might guarantee you that the particular SKU already has a newer BIOS.  Or it might do neither of those, which could potentially be a big problem.

One argument for getting an X570 motherboard rather than X470 is that you're guaranteed that it will support the newer CPUs right out of the box.  There never was a BIOS for an X570 motherboard that didn't support the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, or at least not the ones available at the initial launch.  That's the biggest reason why I'd recommend getting an X570 motherboard unless you have some good reason not to.

Asus advertises ROG Strix 470-F Gaming as Ryzen 3000 desktop ready, so it should be ok to buy that model.

New Egg reviews of it date to April 2018, more than a year before the launch of Ryzen 3000 series CPUs.  So if you buy one at random, you don't necessarily know that that particular board won't have been sitting on a shelf for a year and have an old BIOS.

Again, it might be fine.  But it's something that you'll need to look into in order to find some particular reason why that motherboard is known to be fine.  "There is a BIOS update that you don't have a way to install without an old CPU" isn't good enough.

It's also $190 on New Egg, so unless you're finding it somewhere else for much cheaper, it's not like you're saving money on the motherboard, either.

Vrika

Quizzical said:

Vrika said:

Quizzical said:

cichy1012 said:

i bought the noctuna dh15 and have the Fractal Design Define C Tempered Glass ..
also per the asus website that the board im getting at this date and year should be amd ryzen 3000 ready.. so not sure where flashing bios etc applies.. (at least I hope)

X470 motherboards typically launched before the Ryzen 3000 series parts existed, so their initial BIOS didn't support the new CPUs.  Once they knew what the 3000 series CPUs would do and how to update the BIOS to support them, motherboard vendors generally released a BIOS update to support it.  The question is whether that particular motherboard will have the newer BIOS when you get it.  That depends on when it was physically assembled.

In some cases, the motherboard manufacturer can make a slightly different SKU whose only significant difference is that the newer SKU is guaranteed to have the newer BIOS.  Without that, if a stock person just grabs a motherboard off the shelf, it might come with a newer BIOS that already supports the 3000 series CPUs, or it might not.  At some point in time, the stock was likely mixed so that some motherboards had the newer BIOS and some didn't.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to update the BIOS yourself.  In some cases, this would require putting a CPU into the motherboard that is supported by the old BIOS in order to do the BIOS update.  You don't have such a CPU, so that would be a big problem.

If you look through the details of the particular motherboard you're looking at, it might give you a way to update the BIOS without a CPU, or it might guarantee you that the particular SKU already has a newer BIOS.  Or it might do neither of those, which could potentially be a big problem.

One argument for getting an X570 motherboard rather than X470 is that you're guaranteed that it will support the newer CPUs right out of the box.  There never was a BIOS for an X570 motherboard that didn't support the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, or at least not the ones available at the initial launch.  That's the biggest reason why I'd recommend getting an X570 motherboard unless you have some good reason not to.

Asus advertises ROG Strix 470-F Gaming as Ryzen 3000 desktop ready, so it should be ok to buy that model.

New Egg reviews of it date to April 2018, more than a year before the launch of Ryzen 3000 series CPUs.  So if you buy one at random, you don't necessarily know that that particular board won't have been sitting on a shelf for a year and have an old BIOS.

Again, it might be fine.  But it's something that you'll need to look into in order to find some particular reason why that motherboard is known to be fine.  "There is a BIOS update that you don't have a way to install without an old CPU" isn't good enough.

It's also $190 on New Egg, so unless you're finding it somewhere else for much cheaper, it's not like you're saving money on the motherboard, either.

Ryzen 3000 desktop ready means it will boot Ryzen 3000 to desktop without BIOS update.

Likely ASUS has calculated that if someone manages to buy a motherboard that doesn't yet have BIOS update, they'll update the BIOS free through their warranty system.