Fried motherboard... time for an upgrade (gaming / music & video editing)!

moatak787

moatak787

moatak787

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21 Jan 2016
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4
Hi all!

Annoyingly I recently fried my motherboard and so have decided to look at updating a few things given this is now a 10 year machine (with SSD, RAM and GPU upgrades since).

Previous setup:
MB: Asus P6X58D-E, Intel X58
CPU: Intel Core i7 950 Bloomfield 45nm
GPU: 6GB EVGA 980Ti FTW (upgraded from 1GB Gigabyte GTX 460 OC)
RAM: HyperX Savage 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 2400 MHz DDR3 CL11 DIMM XMP
HDD: 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, 500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3
SSD: 500GB Crucial BX100
PSU: 850W Antec CP-850
Case: Antec P183 Advanced Super Mid Tower

Uses
- gaming at 1440p (using Nvidia GSync)
- shooters + strategy (PUBG, Escape from Tarkov, Battlefield/COD, Total War games, Cyber Punk 2077)
- potential to game at 4k when I eventually upgrade GPU (possibly next year)
- 4k HDR video editing using DaVinci Resolve (GoPro, Drone, Sony A7 footage)
- music recording / master (currently using older Cubase)
- streaming ripped video (range of bitrate 1080p to 4k HDR dolby atmos) over cat6a to rest of house

Budget
- no specific budget but don't want overspend if not necessary
- happy to pay for top end if makes a difference but also looking for value for money
- let's say £500-1500

Main upgrade options I'm considering
- CPU (thinking Ryzen 9 3950x)
- MB (thinking SUS ROG Strix X570-E)

Not sure if I need to upgrade?
- RAM (move to 32GB DDR4 for video editing?)
- SSD / HDD (include some M2 SSDs? Larger and better main 2.5 SSD?)
- PSU (would the existing one have the right connectors for the CPU / MB given it's age?)
- Case (I like the sound insulation of my existing case for recording, but remember it needed a special sized PSU so it might block a PSU upgrade if that is needed)

Final thing to note is I don't need to build this right now but would like to fairly soon, therefore if there are any reasons to wait for say up to 1-2 months I might consider it (new things pushing prices down, big step change releases coming up), if not then happy to move now.

Thanks for all your help!
Tom
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll have a look at whether I still have the case adapter for ATX power. Will take a look at the motherboard, RAM and coolers you suggested too.

I'm happy with my monitor for now, it's done well for the last 5 years and free sync wasnt readily available back then. Will definitly look at freesync if I upgrade later though given your advice!

A few other questions:

Would you recommend looking at water cooling solutions or is this overkill, do they have any sound benefits on top of the better cooling they provide?

Any future proofing features I should look out for with the motherboards or features that the next price tier up would have?

My previous power supply was 850W (overkill I know) but would 650W be fine considering I will upgrade to a flagship GPU next year and possibly will look at SLI in the future?

Thanks again!
 
I've been looking at some other features available on MBs these days, one things I quite like the idea of is having 10GBe since this will help future proof it a bit and I can see myself using this along with a NAS later on. I found the MSI Prestige X570 Creation that has a 10GBe onboard as well as four(+) M.2 slots which will allow me to easily add separate SSD storage for different things (Video editing, Music Editing, Photo Editing, Gaming...etc).

It does go for c.£420 atm, twice the price of the recommended board above, so I guess the question is what other features am I paying for over that suggested board that might be worth the extra?

My budget is fine to go for that, BUT only if the extra $$$ is going towards useful or future proofing things. Some things that I found about it that might fit into this category are:
- WIFI6
- 10GBe
- lots of M.2 slots (it also includes an expansion)
- quiet chipset fan that rarely spins up
- good VRMs for overclocking in future

Are there any other boards with similar features that are either better value or considered better quality for similar price?

Quartz said:
It's 10 years old so time to retire it anyway. And your motherboard did get fried...
Click to expand...
The frying happened due to me stupidly plugging in a USB extender and then plugging that extender's power into the mains (which is what was needed when I used this with my Raspberry Pi)...sadly I think this created a short. So potentially the PSU is still fine, however I think there aren't enough modular connectors for today's components and also the unique form factor will limit my case choices.

lee32uk said:
The Freesync monitors are usually cheaper than G-Sync ones, and a lot now support Nvidia cards anyway, so if you are planning on getting the next Nvidia gpu when they release then you should be good.

A water cooler isn't worth it over a good air cooler. You have more points of failure with them. If you are sticking with your old case then you will need to check what sort of cooler it can accomodate height wise.

Unless you need SLI for video editing then you are better off sticking with a single gpu.
Click to expand...
Good point, looks like I probably won't need SLI then :-)

Thanks for all the input so far!
 
Ok so I've been reading up on the above components and some others either side (price-wise) to get an idea. My latest list is as follows:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,852.63 (includes shipping: £14.70)
​

Looking around I can get this down to around £1777 if I source some of the parts elsewhere. I decided to go with 64GB RAM since I think this will help with the video editing.

I also went with a mid spec MB (vs the MSI Prestige X570 Creation) which has 3x M.2, 2.5Gbe and WiFi 6. Was weighing up this vs the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero, some reviews said Gigabyte had much better bios for Ryzen, but these were mainly from mid last year so not sure if this is still the case?

Anything else I should be considering around these price ranges? I'm fairly happy with the budget above so now looking for either similar parts for less, better parts for the same, or significant features that can be gained for only slightly more.

Really appreciate the suggestions so far!
 
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