Pondering an upgrade

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:26

Good afternoon all,

Currently running a Ryzen 1600 with 16GB 3200 Ram with a basic GPU and an older Samsung SSD (non NVME).

Thinking in the next couple of months of making an upgrade to 5800X or 5600. Main reason to upgrade is for the advantage of NVME storage and costs have come down a lot since I purchased my current system too so feel the value is there too.

Would like a recommendation for

Motherboard ATX or M-ATX (Preferred)
16/32GB Ram
1/2TB NVME Drive.

Budget I would say is £200-250 if that's possible.

Main use is Photoshop and in the medium term music production software.

ED209 · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:32

Are you replacing the processor as well or have you already decided on that?

mickyflinn · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:33

What motherboard do you have ?

Tetras · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:34

Why replace the motherboard? You can upgrade with your current board.

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:34

Pretty much decided on the CPU being either the 5600/5800X. Not included in the budget, I'll pick one up secondhand once I've purchased the other parts.

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 14:37

mickyflinn said:
What motherboard do you have ?

It's an early generation motherboard so I assumed it would have no m.2 slot but I'm going to double check that now as it may actually have one.

From memory I think it's a basic Asus A320 board.

I know I'll have to flash the board to support a 5xxx chip and will check compatibility there too.

mickyflinn · 31 Dec 2023 at 15:11

Deibu said:
It's an early generation motherboard so I assumed it would have no m.2 slot but I'm going to double check that now as it may actually have one.

From memory I think it's a basic Asus A320 board.

I know I'll have to flash the board to support a 5xxx chip and will check compatibility there too.

So I've just checked and your motherboard supports the 5600 with a bios update and also has a m2 slot pcie3x 4.

Ill ask brother @Tetras to concur that a pcie3 m2 nvme will work or another member mite know.

PRIME A320M-K | Motherboards | ASUS UK - Specifications

PRIME A320M-K AMD AM4 uATX motherboard with LED lighting, DDR4 3200MHz, 32Gb/s M.2, HDMI, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0

www.asus.com

This may save you getting a new motherboard unless you want to.

Wing-Man · 31 Dec 2023 at 15:30

1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)

keep the motherboard, and put the cash to a 5800x

Mcnumpty2323 · 31 Dec 2023 at 16:18

Might be worth getting the m2 sooner
Rather than later
Seeing predictions that solid state drives
Will face rather large price increases
They've become so cheap a lot of companies cut production
To inflate the prices
Pretty sure saw 50% increases predicted somewhere

dfour · 31 Dec 2023 at 16:57

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Might be worth getting the m2 sooner
Rather than later
Seeing predictions that solid state drives
Will face rather large price increases
They've become so cheap a lot of companies cut production
To inflate the prices
Pretty sure saw 50% increases predicted somewhere

Exactly this. I have seen a lot of quotes about 50% price increases in the new year for SSD. Grab one of these wwhile they are still under £100

My basket at OcUK:

1 x WD Blue SN570 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3B0C) (SKU: HD-58D-WD) = £93.95

Total: £93.95 (includes delivery: £0.00)

Gray2233 · 31 Dec 2023 at 17:03

You can pick up a 5700X for around £120 second hand, I'd take that over a 5800X personally.

What exact GPU are you running? It's possible that you might be better off investing in a GPU for image editing.

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 20:42

dfour said:
Exactly this. I have seen a lot of quotes about 50% price increases in the new year for SSD. Grab one of these wwhile they are still under £100

My basket at OcUK:

1 x WD Blue SN570 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3B0C) (SKU: HD-58D-WD) = £93.95

Total: £93.95 (includes delivery: £0.00)

Thank you, much appreciated.

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 20:43

Gray2233 said:
You can pick up a 5700X for around £120 second hand, I'd take that over a 5800X personally.

What exact GPU are you running? It's possible that you might be better off investing in a GPU for image editing.

Currently running an extremely basic AMD card for display only. A GPU would certainly help in that case actually. I was thinking either a 6600/6700XT at some point.

Gray2233 · 31 Dec 2023 at 21:56

Deibu said:
Currently running an extremely basic AMD card for display only. A GPU would certainly help in that case actually. I was thinking either a 6600/6700XT at some point.

If it's mainly for image editing, some graphics hardware can offer benefits depending on what software you're using and how you're using it.

This is usually to the benefit of Nvidia/CUDA but it really is dependent, I'm not well enough versed when it comes to such software to say how much impact your Ryzen 1600 might have on things.

I would certainly argue that for £120-130 a Ryzen 5700X will offer a benefit no matter what, and that it's a better choice than the 5800X.

Deibu · 31 Dec 2023 at 22:00

If a 5800X was available for a similar price would you say a 5700X is still better possibly?

Gray2233 · 31 Dec 2023 at 22:42

Deibu said:
If a 5800X was available for a similar price would you say a 5700X is still better possibly?

Frankly, the 5700X is the exact same chip but more efficient.

It'll use less power, not get as hot under heavy loads, and probably spend longer boosting to better speeds.