Upgrade bundle - Motherboard, CPU, RAM

[Guest2]

I've had my current bundle for 5 years now. It was purchased 2nd hand (already 3 years old) for £280 in early 2015. Gigabyte Z97 (Z97X-Gaming 7) motherboard, Intel i7 4790k thats runnig @4.5ghz & 16GB Kingston HyperX RAM.

It's still coping pretty well but showing it's age with things like my limited speed NVMe drive running at slower speeds in the m2 onboard slot. Gaming wise it's seems to be holding out but not sure how how long.

Everything I read points to waiting for the Ryzen 5 (3600XT?) before upgrading, but why? I never get the most recent up to date CPUs as they usually cost a bomb.

Can a 2nd hand bundle of be had for £300-£500 that would last another 5 years? Maybe like an earlier Ryzen that clocks high or an i7 / i9 that clocks to 6ghz? I have no idea what CPUs even clock to nowadays but i've ben running the i7 @4.5ghz since 2015

 

[bagel]

You could get a 3700x/b450 mobo/16gb ram combo brand new for less than £500, or with 3600 for less than £350

 

[eeek]

Not quite 3600 but close My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £98.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £179.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C19 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £89.99

Total: £379.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

You could save £15 by going for 3200Mhz ram and it could be well under £350 if you shop around.

 

[Guest2]

Thanks guys.
Better going AMD new over Intel 2nd hand? What do the 3600/3700 Ryzen chips clock like?

I had something like this (2nd hand) for a total of £445

ASUS ROG Maximus IX Hero Motherboard - £130

Intel Core i7-7700K - 4.20 GHz Quad-Core (CM8067702868535) Processor
£240

Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2x8GB 16GB 3000MHz CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 15-17-17-35
£75


£445

 

[oldbanana]

Manually clocking the 3000 series is sort of pointless, keep em cool and they will boost to as high as they can.
Buying a 7700K at this point makes absolutely no sense.

 

[bagel]

The 3200MHz ram is probably better anyway as lower latency at c16 vs c19 for that 3600mhz.

New 3rd gen Ryzen over 7th gen intel used is a no brainer. Not sure how important OCing is for gaming right now, might be wrong but gains seem to be fairly small in benchmarks vs stock. Only case where it's worth going intel is if you're running a 240hz monitor, and even then you'd probably be better off getting 10th gen i5

 

[Guest2]

Only case where it's worth going intel is if you're running a 240hz monitor, and even then you'd probably be better off getting 10th gen i5

Nope, only 100hz gsync.
Out of interest, why is Intel better for 240hz?

 

[EsaT]

Thanks guys.
Better going AMD new over Intel 2nd hand? What do the 3600/3700 Ryzen chips clock like?

I had something like this (2nd hand) for a total of £445

ASUS ROG Maximus IX Hero Motherboard - £130

Intel Core i7-7700K - 4.20 GHz Quad-Core (CM8067702868535) Processor
£240

Quad core is very low end and change to another such would make only sense with cost of pocket money you would use for candy etc.
Next-gen consoles coming in late fall/before Christmas will bring non-boosting variant of 8 core/16 threads Ryzen 3700X as base level for future games.
And dead end boad has very little other value than usage value, no matter how overpriced hype board it was as new...

AMD has also improved Zen3 architecture coming later this year, which fits into current good boards after BIOS update and top end is already 16 cores/32 threads giving good upgrade path.

 

[bagel]

Nope, only 100hz gsync.
Out of interest, why is Intel better for 240hz?

Better single core performance helps when you are trying to push very high frames. Difference isn't worth it otherwise in terms of value for money, especially when ryzen is better multithreaded/ many non gaming workloads