Need advice thinking out this upgrade/sidegrade dilemma please

[Relentless81]

Hi,

I need some help with this predicament, I just need to make sure I'm not throwing money away on stuff that I wont see any noticeable difference for what is primarily a gaming machine whilst bearing in mind I have an opportunity to upgrade now so it might be worthwhile.

I'm downsizing from ATX to ITX, I have the case and PSU on order and I've bought a used 3600 off the MM as temporary CPU until 4000 series is released at which point I'll be upgrading to 4000

My brother wants my current build which is a 2600X on a B450 board, I need a new ITX board regardless so this is where the issue is.

1 - Do I do a complete sidegrade to a B450 ITX board and use the 3600 (4000 will still work when its released) I can keep my current RAM and 2.5" SSD saving myself a decent chunk of money and still upgrade to 4000 when it comes out but miss out on PCIE4. My Brother will be a bit annoyed as he'll have to buy new RAM and SSD which cost him more.

2 - Buy a B550 ITX board, use the 3600 and upgrade to 4000 series when its released, buy a PCIE4 NVME and new faster RAM. This way my Brother gets my current system in its entirety which is an easy one stop sale of all parts and I get PCIE4 future proofing, a faster drive and more faster RAM but its costs me more, quite a lot more.

So option 1 or 2? I think I've included everything in the dilemma and would be keen to hear other peoples thoughts on what they would do.

Thanks

 

[Tetras]

It sounds like it comes down to if you care about your budget more than ******* off your brother.

How much faster would the new RAM be? What size is it?

 

[Relentless81]

It sounds like it comes down to if you care about your budget more than ******* off your brother.

How much faster would the new RAM be? What size is it?

Current ram is 16GB 3200 C16

If I was to change it id be looking at 32GB 3600 I think that's probably the best in terms of cost and performance to cover 3000 and 4000 series CPUs hopefully

To be honest I'm leaning toward a sidegrade and skipping b550 altogether at the moment to see what happens with AM5 and DDR5 but just worried I will regret when the consoles come out and faster drives are going to start making a difference in newer games

 

[Tetras]

Is it mainly the extra money for ITX that's bothering you? There's an ASRock that's a similar price (+£20) to the B450 version.

I don't think the faster RAM is going to make much difference, but at least 32GB would be an upgrade.

 

[Relentless81]

Is it mainly the extra money for ITX that's bothering you? There's an ASRock that's a similar price (+£20) to the B450 version.

I don't think the faster RAM is going to make much difference, but at least 32GB would be an upgrade.

Downsizing to ITX is happening regardless, it's the extra money for the pcie4 nvme and more faster ram that's bothering me

Either buy B550 with nvme pcie4 drive and new ram

Or

Buy b450 and keep current ram and 2.5 SSD which I won't even need to reinstall windows either it'll just plug and play

Not sure on the asrock b550 ITX board, think I would go with the Aorus which again is more money

 

[Tetras]

Do you have to reinstall Windows for B550, aren't they pretty similar? I thought Windows 10 was better for this anyway, I've even seen swaps from Intel to AMD that didn't bork it.

You could just get B550 and keep your SSD, then if you need one do the upgrade, more storage is never a bad thing.

32GB will be needed sooner or later, but if he needs to buy that as well, sucks for him

I'd separate B550 from the SSD/RAM question.

 

[Relentless81]

Do you have to reinstall Windows for B550, aren't they pretty similar? I thought Windows 10 was better for this anyway, I've even seen swaps from Intel to AMD that didn't bork it.

You could just get B550 and keep your SSD, then if you need one do the upgrade, more storage is never a bad thing.

32GB will be needed sooner or later, but if he needs to buy that as well, sucks for him

I'd separate B550 from the SSD/RAM question.

I would if I changed the drive yes, if not changing the drive I've noticed a separate chipset download for B550 so I would probably just try and get away without reinstalling windows

I'm so confused right now I hate making these decisions

 

[Tetras]

My impression is you wouldn't be asking if you were comfortable spending that kind of money, so the best compromise I can see is B550 with your existing RAM and SSD

 

[Relentless81]

My impression is you wouldn't be asking if you were comfortable spending that kind of money, so the best compromise I can see is B550 with your existing RAM and SSD

I'm happy to spend it for a noticeable performance increase on an nvme and ram that'll not need replacing after 5 mins which might the case with pcie4 nvme as it's early days for them yet and the ram we don't know what will work in terms of speeds with Ryzen 4000 it might turn out that it easily runs ram into the 4000's so I think your suggestion might be a good idea and a good compromise

My brother however won't think the same!

 

[PhoenixUK]

I dont see the point of pcie4 nvme, really you will not see the difference outside of benchmarks, it's throwing money in the mud.

SSDs are super cheap now as well.

 

[iSaff]

I'm happy to spend it for a noticeable performance increase

For RAM 3200-3600mhz is the sweet spot for clock speed. You don't really know how Zen 3 is going to perform at 4000mhz, so we're just speculating. In terms of capacity, is your 16gb struggling to keep up with your workload now, or regularly running at 80% or 90% of capacity? If so, it may be worth upgrading, but if not stick with the RAM you have, until you find it's capacity is pushing it's limits, or you know for sure what faster speeds can deliver on Zen 3. Then you can make an informed decision on whether to upgrade.

PCIe-4 is a stop-gap for PCIe 5 which is just around the corner and offers 2X the bandwith. Do you see yourself needing PCI-4 as you transfer mountains of data and the time you can save saves you money now? If not save your money, and by the time you're ready to upgrade again in a few years, you can benefit from more mature and faster DDR5 RAM and likely PCIe Gen 5. At that point there may be more choice and lower prices for drives and GPUs on the market that can take advantage of speeds beyond PCIe Gen. 3., not to mention USB type 4 will be making inroads.

That's an alternative way to think about future proofing.

 

[Relentless81]

Cheers for the advice all, I'll get a b550 motherboard but stick with current ram and SSD for now

It makes sense to get the motherboard while I need to buy ITX but I can save the money on the ram and SSD

I will break the news to my brother today!

 

[PhoenixUK]

Other than a good quality PSU, case and decent cooler, on a motherboard with the right socket there isn't much of future proofing nowadays. CPUs, GPUs and SSDs it's always best to buy what you need and add later as prices go down all the time and new tech is around the corner every 6 months.

Maybe a decent RAM if you pick it at the right time although now probably not best time to do it, just buy decent 3600mhz (or just cheapest 3200), it will OC to 3800-4000 if needed and even if new Ryzen does use 4000-4200 let's be honest, the performance difference between 200-400mhz on ram at that point is something you're again unlikely to notice in normal use.

I ran my ram at 3200 and 3900 max OCed with fsb and infinity fabric and can't really tell difference between the two - maybe 2 more fps if I look really close.

The £60-100 on ram alone, with another £100 on nvme and £100 on motherboard you're saving however can instantly mean a GPU/CPU upgrade 1-3years down the line, which is guaranteed to give you better performance over time - that's future proofing.

If you're not going to make a use of it, don't buy it, that's my advice.