Major update needed

Canary Wundaboy · Monday at 17:29

Hi all, been a long time!

I built my last PC about 13 years ago, this forum was a lot of help back then, with the Windows 10 depreciation my motherboard is no longer compatible so it’s upgrade time!

I’m going to cannibalise my old Corsair 5000D case and my PSU which was replaced 18 months ago, but I’m totally lost about CPU, motherboard, RAM and GPU.

I’m struggling with what CPU to go with, my current build is intel so I’m inclined to stick with that out of habit, but no idea what’s a good mid-range processor or motherboard chipset, and RAM’s a minefield.

I have a budget of about £1500 for those items, ideally I’d like RGB RAM as well. The PC sees fair light gaming use (StarCraft, Fortnite, SWTOR), used mainly as a family computer but I want it to look good as it’s on display and my wife occasionally uses it for gaming as well.

Oh and I need a 2TB m2 SSD preferably, can budget another £200 for that.

Corsair preferred wherever possible, but of a brand advocate, it’s done me well.

Gray2233 · Monday at 17:34

Would you bother with this upgrade were it not for W11 support? If so you can install W11 via Rufus:

How to install Windows 11 on unsupported devices

With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft has imposed certain requirements for hardware compatibility, including the need for TPM 2.0, specific CPU...

www.ifixit.com

Canary Wundaboy · Monday at 17:40

Gray2233 said:
Would you bother with this upgrade were it not for W11 support? If so you can install W11 via Rufus:

How to install Windows 11 on unsupported devices

With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft has imposed certain requirements for hardware compatibility, including the need for TPM 2.0, specific CPU...

www.ifixit.com

Ok, genuinely this is the first I’ve seen of this. Is it safe? This Pc has our banking info etc on it so if this is introducing some kind of other attack vector then I’d probably rather go the supported route, but if it’s in wide use then yeah, the only reason we’re upgrading is the lack of a TPM on my current motherboard.

mickyflinn · Monday at 19:08

Light gaming and moderate usage and the 9700x is a solid mid range CPU or intel core ultra 265k .

Memory is the biggest bug bare costing around £350 for 32gb DDR5 at least 3 times the price a few months ago.

Both the above CPUs are at the same price.

How olds your PSU?

Gray2233 · Monday at 19:28

Canary Wundaboy said:
Ok, genuinely this is the first I’ve seen of this. Is it safe? This Pc has our banking info etc on it so if this is introducing some kind of other attack vector then I’d probably rather go the supported route, but if it’s in wide use then yeah, the only reason we’re upgrading is the lack of a TPM on my current motherboard.

It literally just bypasses the TPM requirement, it's a very popular method and has been used extensively by multiple forum members.

Alternatively, I believe your motherboard (Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 7?) has a TPM header on it. If you don't feel comfortable using RUFUS, you can buy TPM modules on the rainforest for £10-20 that plug onto your boards header and allow for W11 to be installed.

Double check for the header however, as well as the pin layout for compatibility.

Tetras · Wednesday at 00:26

Canary Wundaboy said:
I’m going to cannibalise my old Corsair 5000D case and my PSU which was replaced 18 months ago, but I’m totally lost about CPU, motherboard, RAM and GPU.

I’m struggling with what CPU to go with, my current build is intel so I’m inclined to stick with that out of habit, but no idea what’s a good mid-range processor or motherboard chipset, and RAM’s a minefield.

For AMD (e.g. 9700X), you'd look at B850 unless you need USB4, in which case: X870/X870E.

B650 can be worth considering at the lower-end, but they need to be around £100-£120 to be worth it (BIOS flash may be required for 9000 series CPU).

Personally, I don't like boards with only 2x SATA ports, or only 2x M.2 slots. I'm also not a fan of boards that have nearly entirely USB2 ports on the back, but if they're cheap I guess that's acceptable.

Note that most cheaper boards don't have WIFI/BT or LAN faster than 1Gb.

For Intel (e.g. 265K), the obvious option is B860, but there's often good deals on entry-level Z890 boards, so worth checking before you pay over £150 for any board (same goes for AMD and B850/X870).

RAM: hard to give meaningful advice on this right now. Considering your light usage, I'd just say: buy anything cheap. Yes, you lose performance, but not worth paying an extra £100-£300+ for faster RAM, if you spot a good deal on a basic kit.

I'd be reluctant to pay mega money for a 32GB kit, if you near prices of 48GB/64GB. Yes, the capacity might be irrelevant in the near term, but hard to say if RAM availability is going to improve for years.

Since demand isn't great right now, I'd say CPUs/motherboards are a buyer's market. Shop accordingly.

AMDPower · Wednesday at 06:02

Canary Wundaboy said:
Ok, genuinely this is the first I’ve seen of this. Is it safe? This Pc has our banking info etc on it so if this is introducing some kind of other attack vector then I’d probably rather go the supported route, but if it’s in wide use then yeah, the only reason we’re upgrading is the lack of a TPM on my current motherboard.

If that is the only reason you are upgrading and are happy with the current performance of your pc then don't bother upgrading and use RUFUS as suggested with a guide on the internet to load windows 11 and yes its safe. If your current pc performs well and you don't need extra performance no point wasting money.

you could even overclock your current processor and also add a faster graphics card and you will be surprised how well it will play games. Something like second hand RX 6800xt for more upper end of GPU or 4060ti for something faster than your 1080ti. You can sell your 1080ti for £120 and put that towards your upgrade. Yes you will be CPU bound somewhat but it should perform well enough.

JollyJamma · Wednesday at 16:11

There is a 3rd way, OP, just install Linux on your current machine.

Otherwise, just bypass the TPM requirement if you're happy with the performance of your current machine.

Otherwise, this budget option would give you plenty of performance and £500 wiggle room to spec a better GPU or CPU.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Asrock B850M-X WiFi R2.0 (Socket AM5) DDR5 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-05290) = £124.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR5 5200MHz CL40 EXPO XMP Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-06663) = £209.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 5 9600X Six Core 5.40GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02677) = £199.99
1 x Seasonic Core GX-750-V2 ATX 3.1 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: POW-SSC-03648) = £109.99
1 x Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White Dual Tower CPU Air Cooler (SKU: COO-TLR-03281) = £39.95
1 x Intel ARC B580 12GB PCI-Express GDDR6 Limited Edition Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-INT-03759) = £259.99
1 x Intel Holiday Bundle - Choose One Of Four Premium Games (SKU: DIG-INT-06664) = £0.00
1 x Crucial P310 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-03049) = £110.00

Total: £1,062.89 (includes delivery: £7.99)