£1k upgrade

[wsurfa]

Hi everyone, looking to upgrade the core of my old rig (currently a i7-6850k ).

Usage will be:
- some photo editing (Lightroom/Photoshop) with a fair amount of storage as I've got about 100-200k photos from about 20 years, plus a lot more from negatives and slides if I get round to scanning & processing them
- video editing (mainly Davinci Resolve) mainly 4k from phones, and DSLR/Mirrorless
- very occasional gaming but not a priority in anyway (and longer gaming is PS getting trounced by my daughter....)

I tend to keep stuff for a while and upgrade CPU if possible, hence I was looking at AM5 as it's likely to have a bit more life.

Plan to keep - but open to advice

PSU: Fractal 860p
Case: Dark Base Pro 900 (I have quite few HDDs and this has a lot of space, plus space for a DVD drive for 4k ripping)
Cooler: Corsair H115i 280 mm (got an AM4/5 bracket somewhere....)
GPU: GTX 1080 8GB (open to options )

Upgrade Plan

CPU: 9900X
Motherboard: MSI MAG X870E TOMAHAWK
Boot drive: 2TB Samsung 990 PRO
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 64GB (2x 32GB) 5600MT/s

This comes to about £975-1k - open to improvements and additional upgrades, but can't go too bananas as apparently we 'need' a massive oak gazebo in the back garden

Thanks for any advice

 

[wsurfa]

Surely I could just add the Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti to my AMD build? As the intel LGS1851 is (I've heard on here) effectively a dead end?

Yes that makes a £1400 build, but maybe I'll cut back on the reclaimed clay tiles for the gazebo (don't ask...) What would be a slightly more budget GPU option?

 

[wsurfa]

The bargain (ish) option might then be my original but with the 16gb 9060XT? Yes I know I've added c 40% to the budget, but have you seen my wife spec a gazebo? I have , it's terrifying....

 

[wsurfa]

yes you can add the 5060ti to your AMD build

to be honest, the "longevity" of the AM5 platform is irrelevant if you are going to keep your upgraded system for the next decade
when you come back here in 2034, i'd expect that we'd be telling you that a full platform upgrade is in order, not just simply a CPU swap out

for productivity workloads the 265k is competitive with the 9900x whilst being cheaper

I upgraded the CPU in my current setup 3 times IIRC, plus the GPU once and the ram once. So the idea being not that I leave it static for 10 years, but can stick a decent CPU upgrade into it in 3-5 years time, and possibly find the max AM5 CPU second-hand as the final upgrade. My current CPU was the fastest I could find for the X99 a few years ago from CEX

Thanks for the help - it's really appreciated

 

[wsurfa]

9900x + 5060ti 16gb it is then!
tell the wife it's needed!

Ermm, right, can you do that

 

[wsurfa]

I think I'll take the forgiveness over permission route

 

[wsurfa]

being a doctor, i can prescribe you this. take two tablets once only...to be taken prior to telling the wife:

Spoiler

I will need many.......

 

[wsurfa]

For comparison the gazebo is £20k, so I feel 7% of that is a fair budget

 

[wsurfa]

i think £2.5k is a better budget, and you can get a 5080 then!

You're a bad man...

 

[wsurfa]

Seriously though the 5060ti or the 9060XT - given that gaming is not something I really do anymore

 

[wsurfa]

thanks ff to find a cheap source of reclaimed clay tiles:

 

[wsurfa]

When you told your wife you'd buy her a gazebo, did you tell her how big it was going to be?

I like your thinking, but it will have my BBQ in it, and I was very restrained on that purchase, so it might not 100% fit

 

[wsurfa]

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Twelve Core 5.60GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02675) = £399.95
• 1 x MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-04361) = £299.99
• 1 x Samsung 990 Pro 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3c Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-24R-SA) = £159.94
• 1 x Kingston FURY Beast 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF556C40BBK2-64) (SKU: MY-29W-KS) = £149.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Dual OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ASU-05013) = £399.95

Total: £1,417.81 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

 

[wsurfa]

This is a £1k build right?

 

[wsurfa]

Bugger the motherboard is pre-order - I've got to get in before the Indian sandstone flooring is ordered....

 

[wsurfa]

I'd be looking at something like this unless you really need USB4 or whatever else the Tomahawk offers:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-02841) = £179.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Dual OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ASU-05013) = £399.95
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Twelve Core 5.60GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02675) = £399.94
• 1 x Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCI-e 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SFYRS/2000G) (SKU: STO-KNG-01330) = £125.00
• 1 x Asrock B850 Steel Legend WiFi (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-03999) = £204.99

Total: £1,317.86 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

​

Motherboard review (linked to VRM section with it running a 9950X):​

​

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi Review

If you want a capable Socket AM5 motherboard and have a $200 budget, some features inevitably get culled, so the question is whether what's left is enough for your average PC user. Thankfully, you won't find much better than the Steel Legend in terms of balancing price and features.

www.techpowerup.com

Fully disabling the PCIE2 if the m.2_4 is used is a no for me. I've accumulated several m.2s and will likely add more, so want to be able to use all the slots. I could use a PCIE for m.2 add, in, but current PCIE lanes are soooo stingy

 

[wsurfa]

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Twelve Core 5.60GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02675) = £399.95
• 1 x MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-04361) = £299.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance XMP 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-05105) = £164.98
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £128.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Dual OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ASU-05013) = £399.95

Total: £1,401.85 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

Seems like a veritable bargain

 

[wsurfa]

Fair enough! It's a bit of a pita at the moment dealing with the various trade offs on motherboards.

The RAM/NvME switch is still worthwhile however, you'll not notice the difference between the 990 and Renegade but you likely will with the RAM.

The 990/T500/Renegade are all high quality Gen 4 drives with DRAM and high TBW so rule of thumb is to just grab whichever is cheapest, there's a couple of others out there on par too.

I've got Crucial drives in a bunch of laptops and they've been great. I just have a default for Samsung because I worked for them for about a decade, never managed discounts on components though...

 

[wsurfa]

Fair enough! It's a bit of a pita at the moment dealing with the various trade offs on motherboards.

The RAM/NvME switch is still worthwhile however, you'll not notice the difference between the 990 and Renegade but you likely will with the RAM.

The 990/T500/Renegade are all high quality Gen 4 drives with DRAM and high TBW so rule of thumb is to just grab whichever is cheapest, there's a couple of others out there on par too.

The working out which pcie lane is cut/closed by what is really really f-ing annoying

 

[wsurfa]

So before I accidentally buy an outdoor wood burner, and/or a Big Green Egg..Is this OK?

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Twelve Core 5.60GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02675) = £399.95
• 1 x MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-04361) = £299.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance XMP 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-05105) = £164.98
• 1 x Crucial T500 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01090) = £128.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04916) = £399.95

Total: £1,401.85 (includes delivery: £7.99)​