Christmas Upgrade Advice

Boycie · 10 Dec 2019 at 19:34

Hi Guys,

Last Christmas, I built this machine for my son, and myself (just a little bit)

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/the-new-cases-gallery.18571712/page-68#post-32240385

Its got the following spec:

i5 4670
20GB of RAM
Asus B85 motherboard of some description
Crucial M500 SSD
GTX 970 (off the MM)
Bitfenix PSU
ID Cooling AIO

A lot of it was skip fodder (cpu,ram,mobo) and it was mostly built with aesthetics and price in mind. I would like to upgrade it this Christmas to something a bit more up to date. I have thought about going the AMD route and this is the spec I have quickly drafted. Please note the last AMD build was a socket 754 machine, I have picked the motherboard and RAM mostly on aesthetics but I don't know if the CPU choice is the best:

Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB 2 x 8GB DDR4 3200 Kit
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor
ASUS X470 PRIME X470 PRO Motherboard

As I said the motherboard and RAM I have picked mostly because they are white and match the case. The processor I am unsure of. My son mostly plays Minecraft and Roblox so even the current spec is more than sufficient. However I am a big user of Prepar3d v4, I only use it in HD and do not have a 4K monitor but even so I have noticed poor frame rate in busy scenes which I would like to fix. I have been told this is due to the very old CPU.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
B

Quartz · 10 Dec 2019 at 19:40

B450 motherboard, Ryzen 3600, and DDR4-3600.

snips86x · 10 Dec 2019 at 19:42

Quartz said:
B450 motherboard, Ryzen 3600, and DDR4-3600.

Could even reduce the cost by going 3200

hominid · 11 Dec 2019 at 21:41

The GPU will be a massive bottleneck, could you have enough to upgrade that?

Also the 3600(x) would be better than the 2700x for gaming alone for the foreseeable future, RAM and motherboard is ok, not the best but fine for your use, as has been said you could save a bit with an B450 board.

Freddie1980 · 12 Dec 2019 at 08:01

That's an unusual amount of ram you have there @Boycie. Did you buy it of Del Boy?

The kit you picked out looks good but you could save money by going with a B450 (if you can find a white one).

Boycie · 14 Dec 2019 at 21:22

hominid said:
The GPU will be a massive bottleneck, could you have enough to upgrade that?.

Every piece of advice I've had so far has been that its the CPU holding the GPU back. I have considered swapping the card out for something newer but until now everyone has said I should be looking at swapping the CPU out. Why do you think this is the case? I'd ideally be looking at doing one or the other.

Boycie · 14 Dec 2019 at 21:24

Freddie1980 said:
That's an unusual amount of ram you have there @Boycie. Did you buy it of Del Boy?

The kit you picked out looks good but you could save money by going with a B450 (if you can find a white one).

The CPU, RAM and Mobo was a skip find

I figured 20GB would be somehow better than 16GB so i stuck it in. I have looked at B450 boards, specifically the MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC AM4 DDR4 ATX board, would anyone recommend?

Thanks

B

Quartz · 14 Dec 2019 at 22:09

Boycie said:
Every piece of advice I've had so far has been that its the CPU holding the GPU back.

You should test that. Run Task Manager and Afterburner or GPU-Z on another monitor while you game and look at the CPU and GPU usage.

Boycie · 15 Dec 2019 at 19:10

Here you go, playing Prep3d v4, flying around Heathrow with add-on weather and scenery, 1080p res 8xAF and 4xAA, I was getting between 10-12 FPS according to Afterburner GPU usage doesn't really go over 30% where as one core on the CPU is maxed. This piece of software is single core performance limited by the looks of it.

Maybe AMD is not the way to go? I am unsure now.

Thanks
B

Quartz · 15 Dec 2019 at 20:10

For single core performance I'm not sure you're going to see much benefit from the large expenditure you'll have to make. Read this thread:

https://www.simforums.com/forums/best-cpu-for-prepar3d-v4-4_topic61045.html