Upgrade and new rig

[Noughtboy]

Hello all, long time since I have been on here.

Currently running:
Ryzen 1600
ROG Strix B350
16GB 3200mhz
RX 480 8GB
Superflower 550w Platinum

Looking to pass this onto the children as a gaming machine to replace their 2500K running a 1050ti (didn't see a reason for either of us to upgrade during shortage crisis).

Question 1 is whether it is worth buying a second hand 3600x to drop in for them (£150?) or to buy MSI Tomahawk B450 Max II for £60 and drop in a 5600 for £180 which I think makes more sense. Then after ARC/4x00/7x00 releases come out, upgrade their 1050ti. It is only really going to be used for YouTube and gaming at 1080p.

Question 2 is for me. Seeing as I am donating my machine, I will need another one. Would
getting the MSI Tomahawk B450 Max II above paired with R7 5700x and 32GB 3600mhz ram be a waste at this juncture (£60+ £270+ £100 =£430) and would getting the MSI Gaming Plus B550 for another £55 make a huge difference?

Should I rather wait for Ryzen 4 (6000 series)?

I do occasionally game (mostly War thunder, Assassin's Creed series) but the PC is on 12-14 hours daily for trading (so mostly at idle) and I am more concerned with power usage therefore AMD makes more sense than 12600/12700 although that has a marginal upgrade path.

Thanks

NB

 

[JollyJamma]

You’re asking some good questions and you’re sensible approach is 10/10 logical.

Don’t neglect the idea of getting an Intel 12400.

 

[Tetras]

Question 1: I'm not sure I understand, if you're donating the system why are you upgrading it? I'd just hand over the 1600 and B350, since they're going from 4 cores, 4 threads, to 6 cores and 12 threads, it'll be handy for more recent games and still play anything they play now. I'd wait until it doesn't do what they want before you upgrade it, by which point second hand Zen 2 will be a lot cheaper (there may also be a bios update for Zen 3). If the 1600 is an AF model (Zen+) then this applies even more so.

Question 2: The tomahawk and a 5700X are great value, but most significantly you will lose PCI-E 4.0. That doesn't really matter unless you buy e.g. a RX 6500 XT, but there's zero reason to do that from a RX 480.

If the machine is spending most of the time idle or low-threaded load, the AMD multi-threaded efficiency doesn't really benefit you and in this circumstance, 12th gen Intel CPUs actually tend to have similar, or even lower consumption. In your circumstance, if power is an issue, I'd probably go for H610 and 12100, but I don't know if you're comfortable giving up the GPU entirely and turning your main rig into an 'office PC'. If not, then a 5600 non-x (or the suggested 5700X) and a 12400 both do very well with pretty much any GPU you could buy.

 

[Journey]

Looking to pass this onto the children as a gaming machine to replace their 2500K running a 1050ti (didn't see a reason for either of us to upgrade during shortage crisis).

Not much point in passing your machine on to the kids if they are sticking with a 1050Ti, might as well just leave it as is and upgrade the system for you. The ROG Strix B350 will happily run a 5700X, (BIOS - HERE!) and your PSU, which is very good will easily run a much better GPU than the RX 480 8GB. Other than adding ports, slots etc. (PCI-E 4.0) the performance difference is margin of error for an AM4 board upgrade unless running a 5900X/5950x where the better VRM will allow higher clock speeds.

Even if you pass on the RX480 to the kids, it wouldn't be held back by the 2500K at all, however the 2500K may start showing its age in more modern, heavily threaded games.

Do you have a budget that you must spend, or are you just tinkering with the idea right now?

 

[Noughtboy]

Thank you for the answers and to clarify some questions asked. I figured the upgrade for them from the 2500K as they have waited long enough. The 1600 currently in use would certainly be an upgrade for threaded games... The 1050ti would either be replaced with my RX480 or a 6600/6600XT as their 500W PSU or my 550W would stay in place.

I could just replace my machine with a R5 5600 but figured may as well go for a R7 5700x which they would ultimately get on the next upgrade and naseum

The bottom line is I want to upgrade their PC and figured my R5 1600 with RX480 or 6600/6600XT made most sense with me getting the last hurrah on the EOL AMR platform.

However, if the B350 Strix can handle a 5700x I may just get that and a 32GB kit and leave the rest as is.

Then I can get them a 12400/B560 or 5600/B450 or B550 with my 16GB kit and a new GPU.

For the record, my R5 1600 and RX480 have always been undervolted (1.106v@3600Mhz and 1.09v stock clocks respectively) meaning generally my total CPU/GPU power draw is around 40w so not sure even 12400 manages that!

 

[Noughtboy]

Not much point in passing your machine on to the kids if they are sticking with a 1050Ti, might as well just leave it as is and upgrade the system for you. The ROG Strix B350 will happily run a 5700X, (BIOS - HERE!) and your PSU, which is very good will easily run a much better GPU than the RX 480 8GB. Other than adding ports, slots etc. (PCI-E 4.0) the performance difference is margin of error for an AM4 board upgrade unless running a 5900X/5950x where the better VRM will allow higher clock speeds.

Even if you pass on the RX480 to the kids, it wouldn't be held back by the 2500K at all, however the 2500K may start showing its age in more modern, heavily threaded games.

Do you have a budget that you must spend, or are you just tinkering with the idea right now?

Thank you very much for the info. I honestly thought B450 was the lowest for 5000 series.

As for the budget, don't want to go mental. However, figuring that AM4 is about as cheap as it will go and provide them with a worthy upgrade path from i5 2500k, I would essentially only need 1 CPU/MB/Ram kit as everything else can be reused (PSU are only 3 years old).

When I checked prices after new CPU releases, I thought £350/£500 was quite a decent deal. I can go higher but for what real purpose?

MSI B450 Tomahawk Max II with 5600 and 32GB*3600Mhz would run to £340 and a MSI B550 Gaming Plus with 5700x and Ram is £485. I just thought that may as well upgrade from 6/12 to 8/16 in my case and 4/4 to 6/12 in theirs.They would inherit my PC with their 1050ti and you have now highlighted it can eventually get a 5000 series chip too and in a few months the RX480.

GPU for my PC would follow upon new series from either Team.

Does that sound like a reasonable proposition or should I just get the 5700x for my B350 and go 12400/B560 for them with a 16GB ramkit.

Thank you again to all who have replied.

 

[Journey]

Thank you very much for the info. I honestly thought B450 was the lowest for 5000 series.

it was until the last few months, now nearly all A320/B350/X370 will support almost the full range of 5xxx CPU's.

As for the budget, don't want to go mental. However, figuring that AM4 is about as cheap as it will go and provide them with a worthy upgrade path from i5 2500k, I would essentially only need 1 CPU/MB/Ram kit as everything else can be reused (PSU are only 3 years old).

When I checked prices after new CPU releases, I thought £350/£500 was quite a decent deal. I can go higher but for what real purpose?

I wasn't suggesting going higher, just trying to figure out what was the best route to spend the money in order to maximise both of the upgrades. I think I'd go with your original idea of hand down your CPU/Mobo/RAM but do not replace the CPU for now, at least not until they get a much faster GPU to make use of it. Besides there will be a huge influx of cheaper used 5xxx parts at the back end of the year, once the new Intel and AMD platforms are out, and people start to upgrade. So you could likely grab a 5600 or similar for close to £100 by then, and use the savings to put towards that faster GPU they'll need/want.

GPU for my PC would follow upon new series from either Team.

So this is the bit that is hard to chose, common sense says go with the best price/performance at the point in time, so either a 12400f/B660/DDR4 at about £400+, or as you suggested the 5700X/B550/DDR4. The interesting part here is the 5700X, makes more sense as you could then pass down your CPU and sell on your board and RAM, then maybe go AM5, sooner rather than later, say 18 months, or once DDR5 pricing is sensible, meaning no need to buy another CPU for the hand me down system, and you could put the R5 1600 in the board/RAM combo you'd be selling. The other positive about have a couple of systems that share the same platform is fault finding is much easier if you have problems, as you can shuffle parts around where needed.

I'll tell you the problem, too many blooming choices.

 

[Noughtboy]

I just had a thought... well more of a "horror" moment - having to reinstall Windows 10! Just did a complete reinstall of W10 Home 64 on my machine about three weeks ago and had to reinstall every program and redo settings etc. Was having issues so despite doing backup decided to not use it in case it would reintroduce the problems. The thought of doing that twice with both machines fills me with dread.

So, I will buy the 5700x with 32GB 3600Mhz ram kit for me. Slap that into my B350 (which does actually have the latest BIOS) hopefully with no issues and no need to reinstall W10 again

Then, get the B450 Tomahawk for the kids transplant my 1600 and 16Gb 3200Mhz ram. Reinstall W10 Professional 64 (don't ask) with little to do except add a few programs (Browser, HWinfo, drivers) and Steam, Ubi, Epic, Rockstar, Roblox, Minecraft... Did I leave any out

Total cost £430 and probably 160/120 for my blood pressure. Then when AM5 comes out and has settled in, decide on Raptorlake or 7000. Then pass down the 5700x and 32GB Ram and sell the Strix B350/1600/16Gb/RX480 as a working set. Purchase 2 graphics cards.

You guys have been amazing in helping me to cement a well formulated plan. Thank you all very much.

NB