Upgrade and new(ish) rigs

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

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Sometime between now and autumn, I'm planning to build myself a new PC and also put together two light gaming PCs for my kids.

For myself I have been dithering about going Intel or AMD for my new PC. For this I will still use the 980Ti and storage drives from my current rig, but want everything else, including an M2 SSD for OS ideally.

For one kid I am planning on just buying a monitor and slotting another GFX card and smallish SSD into my current PC.

For the other kid I am planning to use an old HTPC case and PSU but will need monitor, CPU, mobo, RAM, SSD and possibly GFX card (or iGPU if feasible).

Neither of the kid's rigs have to be high-end by any means. The most demanding game they play at the momemt is Fortnite. Whilst it would be nice to have an upgrade path, the immediate priority is to give them a nice 1080p experience for this game.

For myself, I'd like to have a PC capable of 1440p60/1080p120 gaming even though I'm not actually playing anything at the moment (might go back to it and always want a capable PC...). I'll also be doing a bit of transcoding.

Current ideas/dilemmas:
My rig - Ryzen 2600X build or wait for 8-core Coffeelake? Leaning towards 2600X right now. I'd want RAM capable of 3200+ speeds with good timings to get the most from it, and good boost performance as priorities.

Kid 1: Not sure on ideal GPU. 1030 seems a bit lightweight. Everything else seems a bit expensive.

Kid 2: Looking at an A10-9700 build as it's AM4 so allowing future Ryzen upgrade pathways, and it should manage without a dGPU in the short-term at least. Ryzen 2200G is also a possibility here. Main concern is the cost of RAM I'd need.

Total budget is currently £1400, but could rise to £1500+ in a month or two.

Is all this possible for this amount? My current research suggests it will be very tight (mostly due to ridiculous RAM prices) and I'm not sure which of the wide range of possible options are best.
 
List exactly what you have and what you're intending to reuse?

£1500 isn't a lot of money for 3 systems, seeing as you also need peripherals and all that...
 
tamzzy said:
List exactly what you have and what you're intending to reuse?

£1500 isn't a lot of money for 3 systems, seeing as you also need peripherals and all that...
Click to expand...

Yes, good point!

  • System 1 (mine) - reuse 980Ti & storage drives. Need rest of system - CPU, mobo, RAM, PSU, case, M2 SSD.
  • System 2 (kid 1) - reuse all of my current system minus graphics card. Need GFX card, SSD, monitor.
  • System 3 (kid 2) - resuse old case and PSU. Need CPU, mobo, RAM, SSD, iGPU/dGPU, monitor.

I've seen these monitors for £75 a pop, which should (?) do as i'm only going for their first basic gaming-capable pcs. i have spare keyboards and mice and also have some old copies of windows 8 i can reuse (for now).

current plan is something like this:
my basket at overclockers uk:
Total: £1,433.84 (includes shipping: £23.10)​
​

So that does come in under £1500, BUT... I'm not 100% sure about all the choices. Obviously I will look on the MM for second-hand mid-range GFX cards and DDR4, but otherwise is that okay?

Particular points of concern:
  • Is the Asus Strix X470-F a good enough board to really get the most out of a new Ryzen, letting it boost to its max?
  • Is the Teem Group 4000MHz DDR4 okay? It doesn't list Ryzen compatability on the page, but it is fast Samsung B-Die.
  • Is that a decent PSU? I seem to remember Silverstone were a decent make, but not sure if I'm confusing them with Seasonic?
  • Is that Asrock B350 board going to be okay for a mid-range Ryzen build even if we upgrade the CPU down the line?

Anything that stands out as a bad choice?
 
@strumpusplunket

Aours 5 board, more features for your cash, specially if you happen to be running BT/Virgin routers . 3200hz kit as its a bit of a pain using 4000hz kit if its not on sale. lot of us on here got it when priced at £170 but have to go though the effort of using Ram Calculator on it to get right timings and speed.
ryzen 2600 non X but just manually overclock all cores to 4.1/2ghz with simply raising Multiplier and Voltage in Bios. still works out faster then XFR2 . X chips dont really need to be touched with Overclocking but you pay for it. specially when 2700x is £100 more then 2700 :(

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £835.45 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​

rig no 2.

Intel Cel 2 core 4 thread CPU will still wipe the floor with Ryzen 4 core/4 thread system as well has having a fast core speed to help .
GTX 1050 would help it beat a Ryzen 2400g with Vega 11 chip as that sits between gtx 1030-1050 and 2200g is about gtx 1030 level.
Larger SSD as well
sure in 2/3 years time market will be swamped with intel i5 6400 and i7 8700 non Ks which you can slap in which would give system a life span of 4-6 years CPU wise on top

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £471.64 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​

rig no 3. Gtx 1050ti, more power! and larger SSD. can knock down to GTX 1050 so BOTH SONs are equal! and saves £30 odd.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £286.07 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

total is £1555 (no delivery fees)
 
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Cheers, @orbitalwalsh!

I do have a BT Router as it happens. Had no idea that the Aorus boards worked better with them in any way though. Will have a look at that!

GTX1050 @£120 looks really good bang-for-buck, and cheaper than I'd seen when I initially priced up, so that's a great call for the kids' rigs - cheers! Also good point about drive size - they'll fill 120GB in no time!


The whole question of whether to go 1151 Pentium + dGPU or AM4 APU is one I have been back and forth on several times. You've hit the problem on the head - do I go for better immediate performance or a likely better longer-term upgrade path?

My thinking was that as at the moment he's only playing games like Fortnite, an AM4 APU would suffice for now, and it would mean I could drop in a dGPU + Ryzen CPU further down the line (perhaps my 2600X when I upgrade to Ryzen 2).

If the 2200G is only GT1030 level, though, that is a bit weaker than I'd hoped. Perhaps a 2400G would work better, as performance somewhere between a GT1030 and GTX1050 would do for the next year or so, and it's about £50 cheaper than the Intel option (with upgrade potential).

But is there anything I'm missing there? And if I did take that road, would the Asrock AB350M be decent enough if I dropped a 2600X into it in a year or two?


A few other questions if you don't mind:

Do those GB Aorus boards compare to the Asus Strix well in terms of PWMs and BIOS? I'd often heard that Gigabyte boards had terrible BIOSs? And also that some companies skimped on the PWM delivery?

What are the reasons for swapping to the Antec PSU? Is the Silverstone not that good a brand? It's more expensive for a lower maximum output, so wondered why that is.

What are the chances of running that 3200MHz RAM at higher speeds/tighter timings? The reason I went for the 4000MHz kit was that I'd seen people posting about running it at 3466C16, which sounds very impressive. Had no idea it would be so fiddly though, and I am a bit of a noob when it comes to RAM tweaking! (Thanks for the heads-up on that one!!)
 
B450 VRM delivery will be a lot better then B350 and dont have the issue of 'will board be shipped with latest bios' Gigabyte is UK based so can get them to flash older boards or use AMD boot kit with other vendors.

Cant lie, Gigabytes BIOS isn't as slick affair as asus and flagships tend to get the best treatment which should be the same for the whole range .
Terms of their VRM, Flagship Aorus 7 and ROG hero have same phase count and IR units (newest model ) but differ on their controller , asrock tacih uses more Phases but older IR units and same controller as 7.
as for the Aorus 5 vs Strix , Aorus is 8 (CPU) + 3 (soc) and Strix is 8 (CPU) + 2 (SOC) - will take a little time to trace IR used and controllers. flagship models is easier to find

Selected the Intel based system as just easier to plug and play then AMD , no overclocking or worrying about ram and CPU's IPC an IMC still stronger then AMD for pure gaming.

Antec unit is made by Seasonic and is tier 1 PSU unit
 
orbitalwalsh said:
B450 VRM delivery will be a lot better then B350 and dont have the issue of 'will board be shipped with latest bios' Gigabyte is UK based so can get them to flash older boards or use AMD boot kit with other vendors.

Cant lie, Gigabytes BIOS isn't as slick affair as asus and flagships tend to get the best treatment which should be the same for the whole range .
Terms of their VRM, Flagship Aorus 7 and ROG hero have same phase count and IR units (newest model ) but differ on their controller , asrock tacih uses more Phases but older IR units and same controller as 7.
as for the Aorus 5 vs Strix , Aorus is 8 (CPU) + 3 (soc) and Strix is 8 (CPU) + 2 (SOC) - will take a little time to trace IR used and controllers. flagship models is easier to find

Selected the Intel based system as just easier to plug and play then AMD , no overclocking or worrying about ram and CPU's IPC an IMC still stronger then AMD for pure gaming.

Antec unit is made by Seasonic and is tier 1 PSU unit
Click to expand...

Cheers!

Some good points to consider there. Looks like the ideal will be to have another £100-£150 in the pot, so should be set to go by the end of July!

Thanks for your input. All really helpful.
 
strumpusplunket said:
Cheers!

Some good points to consider there. Looks like the ideal will be to have another £100-£150 in the pot, so should be set to go by the end of July!

Thanks for your input. All really helpful.
Click to expand...

one problem with pricing at the moment, they are up and down (mainly up), any sales on now might not be come around time of buying. OCUK change items on sale every Wednesday so food for thought etc

also with all upgrade talks, technically intel would just last as long as ryzen, yes has lower core count but CPUs are stronger for gaming, older gen i5s which are 4 cores are still on recommend spec list for current games so thats lastest gen i3 . Most i7 either 4 cores or newest 6 will last or have lasted 8 years and still performing strong!
amd whilst it lacks brute strength of Intel's, make up for it in more cores and hopefully as AMD increases market share, more developers will code for more cores :)
 
​
orbitalwalsh said:
one problem with pricing at the moment, they are up and down (mainly up), any sales on now might not be come around time of buying. OCUK change items on sale every Wednesday so food for thought etc

also with all upgrade talks, technically intel would just last as long as ryzen, yes has lower core count but CPUs are stronger for gaming, older gen i5s which are 4 cores are still on recommend spec list for current games so thats lastest gen i3 . Most i7 either 4 cores or newest 6 will last or have lasted 8 years and still performing strong!
amd whilst it lacks brute strength of Intel's, make up for it in more cores and hopefully as AMD increases market share, more developers will code for more cores :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, having looked again after @orbitalwalsh's advice I think I am swinging back towards a Kaby/Coffee Pentium system now. I notice the G4650 is only £46, which seems incredible value for its gaming performance, and knocks a nice chunk of cost off the whole project.

Also thinking of just getting GT1030s for the boys since I saw some for £65 - so not much more than half the price of the GTX1050s. The better GFX cards would be nice, but they inflate the whole price by a fair bit, and GT1030s look fine for 1080p30 for Fortnite and whatever Lego games they play over the next year or so. It might be a good thing to get into the routine of them saving/using birthday and Xmas presents to upgrade their PCs, anyway. It also means I can do things like get the bigger SSDs without going over-budget.

EDIT:
Just seen the posts about cheaper RAM in the Ryzen forum.

Am I likely to see much difference in performance with either of these kits:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £347.68 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​
 
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orbitalwalsh said:
@strumpusplunket

Aours 5 board, more features for your cash, specially if you happen to be running BT/Virgin routers . 3200hz kit as its a bit of a pain using 4000hz kit if its not on sale. lot of us on here got it when priced at £170 but have to go though the effort of using Ram Calculator on it to get right timings and speed.
ryzen 2600 non X but just manually overclock all cores to 4.1/2ghz with simply raising Multiplier and Voltage in Bios. still works out faster then XFR2 . X chips dont really need to be touched with Overclocking but you pay for it. specially when 2700x is £100 more then 2700 :(

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £835.45 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​

rig no 2.

Intel Cel 2 core 4 thread CPU will still wipe the floor with Ryzen 4 core/4 thread system as well has having a fast core speed to help .
GTX 1050 would help it beat a Ryzen 2400g with Vega 11 chip as that sits between gtx 1030-1050 and 2200g is about gtx 1030 level.
Larger SSD as well
sure in 2/3 years time market will be swamped with intel i5 6400 and i7 8700 non Ks which you can slap in which would give system a life span of 4-6 years CPU wise on top

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £471.64 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​

rig no 3. Gtx 1050ti, more power! and larger SSD. can knock down to GTX 1050 so BOTH SONs are equal! and saves £30 odd.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £286.07 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

total is £1555 (no delivery fees)
Click to expand...

saving it down a little

no.2

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £434.94 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

no. 3

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £244.97 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

no.1 chnage to formula 750w (on sale and cheaper then 650w) - tier 1/2 PSU unit but no modular - saves £20

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £72.95 (includes shipping: £0.00)


brings it exactly at £1501 mark ...

least then they can whack out fortnite over 30fps and advantage over console! hard when doing budget systems on here that lack performance compared to a console which can be cheaper .

for those really on a budget, we recommend refurb dell Optimax Units either i5/i7 and installing low profile or standard 1030/50 unit with PSU upgrade if needed . Is a different line of thought​
 
@orbitalwalsh - nice, cheers!

Not bothered about modularity for PSU as both linked cases have separate PSU compartments anyway, so unused cables will just be tucked away in there out of sight, so that looks a good call.

This is starting to look doable!

Any reason not to go for the super-cheap Kaby G4650 over that Coffeelake processor? Doesn't look like much performance increase (200MHz plus small IPC?)?

And anything notable I'd lose by going for the cheaper B360M-D2V board?

Finally - any thoughts on the two cheaper DDR4 RAM kits I linked above would be helpful, especially how they'd likely differ from the £218 Dark Pro kit for my main rig?

EDIT:
I'd not heard of those refurbs Optimax systems before. I can see how they'd be good value for a budget build, but since I only need CPU, mobo, RAM and SSD it still looks like it would be cheaper to buy the individual components (plus I can make sure there's an upgrade path I like).
 
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strumpusplunket said:
@orbitalwalsh - nice, cheers!

Not bothered about modularity for PSU as both linked cases have separate PSU compartments anyway, so unused cables will just be tucked away in there out of sight, so that looks a good call.

This is starting to look doable!

Any reason not to go for the super-cheap Kaby G4650 over that Coffeelake processor? Doesn't look like much performance increase (200MHz plus small IPC?)?

And anything notable I'd lose by going for the cheaper B360M-D2V board?

Finally - any thoughts on the two cheaper DDR4 RAM kits I linked above would be helpful, especially how they'd likely differ from the £218 Dark Pro kit for my main rig?

EDIT:
I'd not heard of those refurbs Optimax systems before. I can see how they'd be good value for a budget build, but since I only need CPU, mobo, RAM and SSD it still looks like it would be cheaper to buy the individual components (plus I can make sure there's an upgrade path I like).
Click to expand...

to be fair not much -


VRM cooling - but if gaming and no overclocking or not slapping in i7 8700 then shoudln't make much difference

Quartz said:
There are rumours of new Nvidia GPUs in August. For GPUs I would stretch to the 4 GB GTX 1050 Ti for the VRAM as well as the performance.



The OP should only need a 450W PSU.
Click to expand...

OP own rig has 980Ti and needs full build due to passing PSU and main parts to son no.1
 
orbitalwalsh said:
to be fair not much
Click to expand...

Cool. So that can save me another little bit! :)

orbitalwalsh said:
VRM cooling - but if gaming and no overclocking or not slapping in i7 8700 then shoudln't make much difference
Click to expand...

Hmmm, so I might then go for board you originally linked. It's not much more, but would be nice to have more options for the future.


orbitalwalsh said:
OP own rig has 980Ti and needs full build due to passing PSU and main parts to son no.1
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess this thread is kind of hard to follow if you weren't with it from the start! I don't think I explained in the most succinct way possible exactly what I was after...


Also - I just noticed this RAM.
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £188.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

It's around £40 cheaper than the 8-Pack Dark Pro above, but rated for a faster speed. It's listed as Ryzen compatible on the OcUK product page, and has a couple of positive reviews for Ryzen systems. Do you know anything about this RAM versus the Dark Pro 3200MHz kit?
 
strumpusplunket said:
Cool. So that can save me another little bit! :)



Hmmm, so I might then go for board you originally linked. It's not much more, but would be nice to have more options for the future.

Yeah, I guess this thread is kind of hard to follow if you weren't with it from the start! I don't think I explained in the most succinct way possible exactly what I was after...


Also - I just noticed this RAM.
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £188.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

It's around £40 cheaper than the 8-Pack Dark Pro above, but rated for a faster speed. It's listed as Ryzen compatible on the OcUK product page, and has a couple of positive reviews for Ryzen systems. Do you know anything about this RAM versus the Dark Pro 3200MHz kit?
Click to expand...

Not actually seen if anyone has out a Kabylake in Coffeelake socket as pins are different in the LGA 1151 socket..

Also, both are Samsung B-Die so the best type of ram kit out their . You'll find you may have to dial down the speed to 3200/3333hz until bios matures or use AMD RAM speed calculator , but if it brings down the cost, then all the more reason for faster Coffeelake CPU :p haha

Used the 4000hz on Ultra & Aorus 7 ...
6enggIu.jpeg

B7UYWx7.jpeg
 
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orbitalwalsh said:
Not actually seen if anyone has out a Kabylake in Coffeelake socket as pins are different in the LGA 1151 socket..

Also, both are Samsung B-Die so the best type of ram kit out their . You'll find you may have to dial down the speed to 3200/3333hz until bios matures or use AMD RAM speed calculator , but if it brings down the cost, then all the more reason for faster Coffeelake CPU :p haha
Click to expand...

Good news on the RAM!

But, man am I glad you posted that info about the Kaby Lake and Z370 boards!! As they're both skt1151 I assumed they'd be cross-compatible, but yeah, it appears not. I've seen some sites suggesting this is a firmware block rather than a physical one that Intel have insisted on. No idea if that's true or just anti-Intel reporting, but at least I now know I can't use that CPU in a Coffeelake board! So, yes, I'll replace that with the G5400! Thanks!! :)

Quartz said:
And a 980 Ti will happily work off a 450W PSU. No need for a higher wattage. Unless you're overclocking, of course.
Click to expand...

Yeah, will definitely want more headroom. I have dialled in an OC on my 980Ti already, and will be looking for max performance from my new set-up. Also, I will have an M2 SSD plus four other SSDs/HDDs to factor in. Be it for overclocking, future Ryzen CPUs, upgrading to a 1080Ti, multi-GPU set-up, whatever, I wouldn't want to be near the maximum potential of my PSU.

EDIT:
I've just inputted all this in my OcUK basket and it's gone down by almost £100 since my original posted plan, even with larger SSDs and a better third system! That's great, and it actually brings it down to the amount I already have saved.

Thanks for your help @orbitalwalsh! You've been a star!

Now I could use the extra £110-150 I was thinking of adding to the pot by July/August to either upgrade my kids' GFX cards from 1030s to 1050s or upgrade my own planned 2600X to a 2700X. Hmm... I'll have to tell the kids they'd better behave for a couple of months...
 
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Haha, I'd grab them the gtx 1050 . Technically 1030 is meant to be a solution for having a stand along GPU for display purposes.


As for 2600x Vs 2700x. Just get the 2700 and overclock to 4.1/2ghz manually
 
4K8KW10 said:
Such a movie doesn't exist :D
When you claim such things, at least give us a link to check it out.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-Gold-G5500-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-2200G/m484140vsm441832
Click to expand...

not so muhc wiping the floor as i Hoped, thought it would offer better performance but

9 mins in R3 1200 vs G5600 + GTX 1030 for both


2 core 4 thread intel vs 4 core 4 thread ryzen


G5500+ GTX 1030 vs Ryzen 2400G ( i've always mentioned to push the gtx 1050 and never the 1030)



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £137.88 (includes shipping: £9.90)​
​

vs

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £187.68 (includes shipping: £8.70)



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £313.43 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​
vs

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £330.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
 
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