PC Upgrade build

Coupe2T

Coupe2T

Coupe2T

Associate
Joined
19 May 2020
Posts
7
Hi All,

Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

Been a long long time since I've been around here, but looking to upgrade my ancient old rig, mostly due to kids needs, and the daughters want to start "You-tubing" with more modern games.

I have a Micro ATX/ATX Cooler master case and power supply already in current rig, along with 128Gb SSD for OS and 1Tb HDD for normal storage, so really just looking at the main component upgrades.

I currently have second gen i5, and a 2Gb Radeon something or other graphics card, I forget which now, but old tech.

Was considering the below core components to upgrade, but not being looking for a long time, I suspect my cursory look will be easily bettered by those in the know.

So my upgrade considerations at present are:

ASUS AMD PRIME A320M-K Ryzen/7th Generation A-Series/Athlon DDR4 GB LAN Micro ATX Motherboard
MSI RADEON RX 580 ARMOR 8G OC Graphics Card '8GB GDDR5, 1366Hz, AMD Polaris 20 XTX GPU
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Processor (6C/12T, 35 MB Cache, 4.2 GHz Max Boost)
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz

Total cost for all is £455 on Amazon, sure there will be a bit to be saved with others and will look at that, but looking at components, would anyone recommend any alternatives? Budget flexible by a few quid if it is a decent amount of improvement and so forth, but be interested to hear what others think?

I also have a water cooler on current processor but can't remember make/model and whether it would be suitable for new processor or to use stock "Wraith Stealth Cooler" included with CPU.
 
Good choices but can you stretch to a B450 motherboard? The 300 series is almost obsolete whereas AMD announced today that they will now be supporting the 400 series boards with the new CPU's coming out later this year.

Ryzen likes fast memory, 3200mhz is ok but if you see 3400 or 3600 for same similar price it might be worth considering. 3200mhz isnt bad by any means though.

Included coolers are far better than Intels, stock cooler will be find at stock speeds as long as there is some airflow.
 
merlin6r said:
Good choices but can you stretch to a B450 motherboard? The 300 series is almost obsolete whereas AMD announced today that they will now be supporting the 400 series boards with the new CPU's coming out later this year.

Ryzen likes fast memory, 3200mhz is ok but if you see 3400 or 3600 for same similar price it might be worth considering. 3200mhz isnt bad by any means though.

Included coolers are far better than Intels, stock cooler will be find at stock speeds as long as there is some airflow.
Click to expand...

So if I changed to say below maybe?

ASUS Prime B450M-A Micro ATX Motherboard
Corsair VENGEANCELPX16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 3600

Takes total to £481.

Seems doable I think.

Apologies if the formatting is horrible, answering on phone!
 
Coupe2T said:
So if I changed to say below maybe?

ASUS Prime B450M-A Micro ATX Motherboard
Corsair VENGEANCELPX16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 3600

Takes total to £481.

Seems doable I think.

Apologies if the formatting is horrible, answering on phone!
Click to expand...

NO PROBLEM! (lol)

Yes for an extra £26 that's a better choice!

We have 2 systems in the household with RX580's (4gb models) one with a 2600x and one with a 1600 cpu, both game very capably at 1080p and can run anything (well anything we've tried). My son (Ryzen 1600) plays the latest Call of Duty at med settings approaching 100 frames per second at 1080p.

I think that's a great value build you've put together with good upgrade options later on.
 
The Asus Prime B450M-A is a very poor motherboard, it has amongst the weakest VRM's on any of the b450's.

If you're after an M-ATX your minimum consideration should be the Asrock B450m Pro 4, although the MSI B450 Mortar MAX is better if you can afford it.

I'd also recommend editing out mentions of competitors, this forum is ran by the OCUK store and such talk is against the forum rules.
 
merlin6r said:
NO PROBLEM! (lol)

Yes for an extra £26 that's a better choice!

We have 2 systems in the household with RX580's (4gb models) one with a 2600x and one with a 1600 cpu, both game very capably at 1080p and can run anything (well anything we've tried). My son (Ryzen 1600) plays the latest Call of Duty at med settings approaching 100 frames per second at 1080p.

I think that's a great value build you've put together with good upgrade options later on.
Click to expand...

Haha, great reply! Touche!

Sounds good to me then. Early doors will be mostly simple stuff I think, Sims 4 and the likes, but starting to show interest in more games such as Planet Zoo, which I know will run on much less, but prefer to budget build now to future proof a bit as well.

Appreciate the input!
 
The go-to board is the MSI Tomahawk MAX as it is pre-flashed to support the 3000 series CPUs - the Asus may not support it out of the box - and also has a 32 MB ROM to ease support of the 4000 series CPUs

But the B550 boards are out ibn a month. Those will give you PCIe v4 support for super-fast M.2 drives and GPUs.

Beyond that, how old is your PSU? If it's old then you should consider replacing it. Indeed, if you buy a case as well you will be able to keep the old PC as a spare.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £657.93 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​

Cases are very much a matter of personal taste so I've not listed one.
 
Gray2233 said:
The Asus Prime B450M-A is a very poor motherboard, it has amongst the weakest VRM's on any of the b450's.

If you're after an M-ATX your minimum consideration should be the Asrock B450m Pro 4, although the MSI B450 Mortar MAX is better if you can afford it.

I'd also recommend editing out mentions of competitors, this forum is ran by the OCUK store and such talk is against the forum rules.
Click to expand...

Ok, without shopping around only £4 more, so doable on the Asus version at least. How the price creeps though. Haha.
 
Gray2233 said:
The Asus Prime B450M-A is a very poor motherboard, it has amongst the weakest VRM's on any of the b450's.

If you're after an M-ATX your minimum consideration should be the Asrock B450m Pro 4, although the MSI B450 Mortar MAX is better if you can afford it.

I'd also recommend editing out mentions of competitors, this forum is ran by the OCUK store and such talk is against the forum rules.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that about the Asus Prime as I'm a creature of habit and only ever buy Gigabyte and Asrock motherboards, so I'll certainly defer to Gray2233's opinion on the Asrock board!
 
Quartz said:
The go-to board is the MSI Tomahawk MAX as it is pre-flashed to support the 3000 series CPUs - the Asus may not support it out of the box - and also has a 32 MB ROM to ease support of the 4000 series CPUs

But the B550 boards are out ibn a month. Those will give you PCIe v4 support for super-fast M.2 drives and GPUs.

Beyond that, how old is your PSU? If it's old then you should consider replacing it. Indeed, if you buy a case as well you will be able to keep the old PC as a spare.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £657.93 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

Cases are very much a matter of personal taste so I've not listed one.
Click to expand...

I replaced power supply when I got SSD, probably about 3 years old. Only a 550w but think enough for what I'm looking at. May well replace a bit further down the line mind. Interesting on MB side, but quite a hike on that to what I am looking.

Food for thought.
 
Most B450's being sold at the moment should be running a Ryzen 3000 ready bios.

I recently bought two Asrock B450M Pro 4's for different builds and both were fully up to date, had a big sticker on the box stating as such.

Depending on where you buy from you could always contact customer support and check in with them just to be sure if it concerns you.
 
Gray2233 said:
Most B450's being sold at the moment should be running Ryzen 3000 ready bios's.

I recently bought two Asrock B450M Pro 4's for different builds and both were fully up to date, had a big sticker on the box stating as such.

Depending on where you buy from you could always contact customer support and check in with them just to be sure if it concerns you.
Click to expand...

I'm comfortable enough with flashing as needed. Not too concerned on that side. Just want to get the right hardware that will at least last a few years still being capable, not necessarily amazing. If that makes sense. Lol.
 
Coupe2T said:
I'm comfortable enough with flashing as needed. Not too concerned on that side. Just want to get the right hardware that will at least last a few years still being capable, not necessarily amazing. If that makes sense. Lol.
Click to expand...

Yeah, of course.

I'm running a 1600 AF (basically just a 2600) with an RX580 myself and at 1080P it handles everything I've thrown at it with decent settings. For what I spent it's impressed me quite a bit, and I've an upgrade path open to Ryzen 4000 and an RT capable GPU next year.

Couldn't be happier with the hardware.

Quartz said:
People still get nasty surprises.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately. It's definitely worth checking in with the place you're buying from, most are happy to check if the boxes have the stickers on in my experience.
 
Thanks all!

As said as long as I know the MB is capable, then if it needs flashed I am happy and capable enough.

Just that I've not built for a long time so wanted to ask as knew would get a few pointers, that unless I spent a week or more really researching and digging into benchmarks etc, then I wouldn't necessarily buy the right model or so forth, as has been shown. Lol.

Appreciate everyone's input/help though.
 
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