Spec Check and RAM Advice

Silvereye

Silvereye

Silvereye

Associate
Joined
12 Oct 2011
Posts
23
My i5-2500 hardware is beginning to show its age and get a bit flaky and following a graphics card meltdown, which despite the good advice from @Vince and others in the GPU forum only bought me a few more weeks to decide what to aim for and save some pennies I need to upgrade.

So I'm looking for a quick sanity check before ordering. My main uses are Gaming (1440p @ 60 Hz), Photo editing (ACDSee), GIS (QGIS - mainly cartography rather than data processing). I also dabble with graphics and VMs but nothing really serious.

I can reuse my case (Corsair 330R) and drives (250 GB Samsung EVO SSD, 2x WD HDD), my PSU (Corsair TX 750W V2) I'm intending to drop in my bits box and replace.

Budget is fairly flexible, but not wanting to spend more than £1,200 all in, ideally lots less. The case lives under my desk, so I can forgo infesting it with RGB.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
​

With everything getting much more energy efficient, I'm wondering if the 550W PSU will suffice and which of the following RAM options would be best to go for - I'm not sure if the 3600 kit will ideally need a BIOS update to run at full speed.

​

Looking to order tomorrow, but probably after the offers change (I can hope there is a deal on GPUs...).
 
Silvereye said:
My i5-2500 hardware is beginning to show its age and get a bit flaky and following a graphics card meltdown, which despite the good advice from @Vince and others in the GPU forum only bought me a few more weeks to decide what to aim for and save some pennies I need to upgrade.

So I'm looking for a quick sanity check before ordering. My main uses are Gaming (1440p @ 60 Hz), Photo editing (ACDSee), GIS (QGIS - mainly cartography rather than data processing). I also dabble with graphics and VMs but nothing really serious.

I can reuse my case (Corsair 330R) and drives (250 GB Samsung EVO SSD, 2x WD HDD), my PSU (Corsair TX 750W V2) I'm intending to drop in my bits box and replace.

Budget is fairly flexible, but not wanting to spend more than £1,200 all in, ideally lots less. The case lives under my desk, so I can forgo infesting it with RGB.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
​

With everything getting much more energy efficient, I'm wondering if the 550W PSU will suffice and which of the following RAM options would be best to go for - I'm not sure if the 3600 kit will ideally need a BIOS update to run at full speed.

​

Looking to order tomorrow, but probably after the offers change (I can hope there is a deal on GPUs...).
Click to expand...

That looks a solid build to me, 550w should be enough but under gaming load you're going to be up around the 350 to 400w so might think about giving yourself a little more headroom there if you can, seasonic however make some very nice supplies so I have no doubt that unit would do you nicely. Can't really argue with that build tbh is well balanced and will serve your needs nicely.

The ram, both of those will probably just slot in at near on rated speed, you will probably have to fiddle a bit with the 3600 to get it to play nicely but the 3200 should be plug and play. I run 64gb of 3466 ram on a 1950x and with 8 sticks there was never really a chance to hit rated speeds so I had to play loads to get it into what I would consider the sweet spot for my setup, if you can't be bothered with all that then get the 3200 kit and your pretty much plug and play.
 
@Silvereye

Looks sweet !

Grab 8 Pack ram ! 3200 kit should be plug and play ! Bit is costly .
You'll also notice it has tighter timings then the T-Force Xtreme kit.
Went and got his 4000hz kit on sale for £188 , know I can't use it with x470 Aorus but was cheaper then the 3200/3600 Pro kits as well as some damn aggressive timings for Intel systems

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £646.67 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​

4000hz kit will easily run 3333hz CL14
 
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Thanks @Vince and @orbitalwalsh good to know I was on the right track.

I'm leaning towards keeping the PSU at 550, just because of how locked up Nvidia appear to have made the 1070Ti and AMD seems to have got their Ryzens to boost efficiently as standard so really no need to tinker with anything to get some extra performance. The 4000MHz kit does look appealing with those savings, especially if the x470 BIOS matures to make better use of it.

I've not manually tinkered with RAM timings for years now, XMP making me lazy. I seem to remember it being a lot of waiting for Memtest passes to finish though.
 
Silvereye said:
Thanks @Vince and @orbitalwalsh good to know I was on the right track.

I'm leaning towards keeping the PSU at 550, just because of how locked up Nvidia appear to have made the 1070Ti and AMD seems to have got their Ryzens to boost efficiently as standard so really no need to tinker with anything to get some extra performance. The 4000MHz kit does look appealing with those savings, especially if the x470 BIOS matures to make better use of it.

I've not manually tinkered with RAM timings for years now, XMP making me lazy. I seem to remember it being a lot of waiting for Memtest passes to finish though.
Click to expand...

550w should see you feel unless theres a good deal on 650w

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £90.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​

I plan just to enter 3200 kits timings in bios , leave rest to auto and let it train - should work fine
 
Looks like a really nice build, and as per the advice above, I'd go with the 8pack RAM, if you end up getting the 4000MHz stuff, it should likey allow tighter timings at lower clocks, or at least the same



Fair warning, if you look around the internet, you can get the GTX 1080 version of the same card for £10 more, maybe OCUK will price match it. :)
 
@Journey only nag with the kit so far is the height of it- just wish it came as a naked black pcb kit maybe with a plate for Signature and logo :(

still awaiting delivery of Aorus 7 =/

NM8jtUL.jpg
 
Thanks for the spot @Journey. Gave OCUK a call and credit to them, they were willing to move some on the price, but not enough. So went with the competition.

So orders have been placed, took the 4000MHz 8-pack RAM and upped the PSU to 650W for the 1080, and boxes of new loot should be arriving tomorrow. Bonus is I also have a couple of days off to build it in.

Thanks for your insight folks.
 
Silvereye said:
Thanks for the spot @Journey. Gave OCUK a call and credit to them, they were willing to move some on the price, but not enough. So went with the competition.

So orders have been placed, took the 4000MHz 8-pack RAM and upped the PSU to 650W for the 1080, and boxes of new loot should be arriving tomorrow. Bonus is I also have a couple of days off to build it in.

Thanks for your insight folks.
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1080 can run on 550w like 1070/70ti- but if bought at a good price then solid buy :)

heads up, stock cooler is good and so is XFR 2, but advised with a better after market cooler :)
some reviews stated algorithm used takes temps into factor ...

handy as well

http://www.overclock.net/forum/11-a...ng-7-wifi-overclocking-discussion-thread.html
 
One thing that will sound crazy is on even a moderately expensive upgrade, don't re-use your case!! The reason is that a new case is the most effective way to make a PC feel brand new. Provided your currentl case isn't a really expensive one, then add some money for a new one! Apart from anything else, cases have changed a lot in the past few years, so it really will make a difference.
 
Pocah said:
One thing that will sound crazy is on even a moderately expensive upgrade, don't re-use your case!! The reason is that a new case is the most effective way to make a PC feel brand new. Provided your currentl case isn't a really expensive one, then add some money for a new one! Apart from anything else, cases have changed a lot in the past few years, so it really will make a difference.
Click to expand...

Except the OP said the case lives under his desk, so why does changing the case matter at all? Waste of money if it's not affecting the performance of the components adversely. :)
 
^^^ also its a silent case . not a lot of brands do them and like of fractal and bequiet pretty much match it for price and style .

glass cuts down sound more then metal panels but these quiet ones all have sound damp material on every panel
 
orbitalwalsh said:
1080 can run on 550w like 1070/70ti- but if bought at a good price then solid buy :)

heads up, stock cooler is good and so is XFR 2, but advised with a better after market cooler :)
some reviews stated algorithm used takes temps into factor ...

handy as well

http://www.overclock.net/forum/11-a...ng-7-wifi-overclocking-discussion-thread.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, makes for interesting reading and gives me somewhere to start tinkering with. Everything I'd read about the CPU cooler says its a useful piece of kit especially compared to what intel tend to ship. I was going to give it few weeks to see how I get on before deciding if it worth replacing.

Pocah said:
One thing that will sound crazy is on even a moderately expensive upgrade, don't re-use your case!! The reason is that a new case is the most effective way to make a PC feel brand new. Provided your currentl case isn't a really expensive one, then add some money for a new one! Apart from anything else, cases have changed a lot in the past few years, so it really will make a difference.
Click to expand...

Umm really why? It was the last sytem upgrade I made a couple of years ago to replace a truely ancient beast (an Antec 100). It currently lives in a dark corner under my desk next to a wall and is occasionally piled up with tat. I'm also a filthy RGB heathen who spent my case money on the GPU miners tax instead.

@Journey - Spot on.

@orbitalwalsh - I bought it around the time that the tempered glass were beginning to appear as the premium side panel, and the window cases were normally just clear plastic. As a case, it has a nice minialist look, 4mm of sound deadening foam and excellent dust filters. Sure there are better, newer ones out there that might deaden sound a bit more. But it's like reusing all my old drives they ain't broke so no point spending money there. Its just six-and-half year old electronics beginning to let me down, so they really need replaced before something catastrophic happens.

In other news, the parcel tracking service says delivery is today. Windows key has been written down (hoping not to need the daft laddie call to windows about a broken motherboard), user folder copied to NAS, and USB boot media has been created.

Is it bad that I'm hoping for rain this evening? :D
 
its a good cooler! but few reviewers that are starting to learn about the XFR 2 algorithm has stated Heat is taken into the maths. See how you get on with the stock cooler def! then if the Dark Rock 4 is on a flash sale... def worth picking it up :D
and the XFR 2 is a different animal from the first gen ryzens :D

think my Aorus 7 comes tomorrow , wanted the 5 to keep RGB tone down but wasnt in stock ;( also have Ultra to do a build for a friends Video work so might steal that and try a 'budget' x470 board :D

keep your case. its good! Have heard that bequiet are remaking their silent Base 800 series- believe might be at computex this year - but guessing it will have a high price tag to keep noise levels down

The 70ti Gaming is also quite a quiet card as well , specially in your case fans can 100% and you would notice it :D

And windows webchat is brill to getting windows reactivated ! if you've got your old one logged onto your hotmail account , they just look at it and say all good- activated for you :D
 
It was all the evolutions of the Ryzen+ over Ryzen1 that made it really tempting. And the StoreMI looks like it could be really interesting. I may have to fish out an old SSD to see what happens to disk with a Steam or RAW library on.

All the Aorus boards are very well specced, I couldn't really see too much difference between the 5 and the Ultra besides the amount of RGB. The 7 is a different beast though.
 
Silvereye said:
It was all the evolutions of the Ryzen+ over Ryzen1 that made it really tempting. And the StoreMI looks like it could be really interesting. I may have to fish out an old SSD to see what happens to disk with a Steam or RAW library on.

All the Aorus boards are very well specced, I couldn't really see too much difference between the 5 and the Ultra besides the amount of RGB. The 7 is a different beast though.
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Vrm slightly different and the WiFi . If you need WiFi then it's worth the extra . 7 is overkill haha

StoreMI worth it specially if your using Intel Optane Memory and allow 2GB of RAM to be used . just funny how Optane Memory works better on AMD then Intel .
as a heads up, one store is listing it for £15!!!!!!
 
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I saw a hilarious tech review somewhere online where they pointed out that AMD had finally made Optane useful.

In other news, all my loot has now arrived (sadly the bribery err pressie for the wife is still in shipping).



Now all I need is to put it in the case



Just have a few more chores to do outside before I can get stuck into building it. Pesky sun showing up again :D

(I probably need a better image host than photobucket, or to at least figure out how to insert images properly)

Edit: Success! Thumbnails added.
 
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Well that was a big suprise.

Dusted and vaccuumed the case (almost like its new :p ), now all assembled, so plugged and connected the bare minimum ready for a USB install on the SSD that I was previously using.

Kept mashing <DEL> to get into BIOS. Windows boots and prompts me to log in. logs in and away. No windows complaining about everything being new :eek: or an Nvidia card with AMD drivers installed. (Maybe I just got confused and bought an AMD Radeon one by accident...) There are a silly amount of exclamation marks in device manager though.

So, after a bit of RTFM later, it turns out I should have been mashing <F2> instead. On the plus side everything appears to be working together and is near silent even with all the bits of the case scatterd about the room. So time for some cable management, and room tidying before the wife complains too much. Her 'putting up with my mess present' still hasn't arrived.

The 4000 MHz RAM also just works from the box at motherboard default speed but will need to play with settings to get it to speed.
 
nice mate !

yeah, 4000hz/XMP isn't going to work - not for a while yet :D would recommend looking at the CL timings of his 3200hz kit and entering those with rest on auto - disable fast boot and will allow to train
  • CAS 14-14-14-31
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-my-08l-tg.html

for a sheer experiment you could just enable XMP and see what happens with 4000hz on the clock lol .
Could enable XMP , save and exit bios then go back straight into it and amend 18- 19- 19- 39 to the above, saves a little bit of time

DUU is a neat program to remove GPU drivers and install fresh :D
 
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