Upgrade - Bundle or same components + better motherboard?

Mel_P

Mel_P

Mel_P

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Hello - another upgrade question - which motherboard please?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £951.95 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

Hello OCKers - I am looking to do an upgrade and I have a case / power supply etc. Opinion seems to be that a Ryzen 3600 is the way to go for a "good" PC in terms of normal, not super gaming performance and I have looked at the OCUK Bundle (Recon A36) above but was thinking of a slightly better motherboard. So the Bundle is £467 - which include ~£25 build fee.

Would I get a better system with the improved motherboard for £483.96? Thanks, Mel
 
Thanks Gentlemen for your advice.

I am upgrading as I won £500 on the premium bonds a few weeks ago. I have a case, a m/b and newish modular power supply I put together for my daughter a few years ago - an ASUS A68HM Plus with an AMD A6 6400K Black. This is now pretty pathetic and for an experiment I tried the fastest Athlon 4x quad core the board would take - (second hand £25) - but still pathetic. So its all coming out - leaving a hole!

I will take your combined advice:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 4.2MHz (as above, both) - not the X
Team Group Vulcan 32GB (as above, both)
I'll stick to the Alpenfoln cooler
Motherboard - as I can get it under £500 I will go for the MSI B550 Tomohawk - I cannot see the £45 cashback but perhaps this will pop up when I register the board? Or perhaps the offer has expired?

£488 (post free as forum member), less £45 possibly.

Thanks very much, Mel
 
Plec said:
Here you go:https://uk.msi.com/Promotion/back-to-school-2020#AMD-MotherboardScroll down.
Click to expand...

Thanks for link. All ordered from OCUK, hopefully arriving Tuesday.

I have my Windows 10 "activated with a digital licence linked to my Microsoft email address" - so I am hoping that when I swop motherboards and CPU that Windows 10 will activate with no problems. It's not an OEM version but one based on Win 7 Pro I bought "standalone".

Mel
 
Well with the update of the PC to a Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 base / 4.2GHz max boost on a B5500 Tomahawk 55 motherboard. £488 + money back.

Cinebench score = 3625 (no overclocking). Compared to around 800 on the Athlon and my ageing i7 920.

Some increase! Windows wouldn't load though but did a repair / reinstall - which lost a lot of the software!!! BUT it has reactivated using the "changed by hardware" option
 
Plec said:
Solid upgrade for the money.That's a healthy boost - it's great how a benchmark can make you feel comforted about your hardware choices. And yours were great bang for buck.

Yeah, Windows 10 has the ability (a lot better) at doing a straight swap - but it's still wise to do back ups and if you can do a clean install where possible. Had i known - . I hope yours wasn't too important/irreplaceable?, At least the licence swapped without issues.
Click to expand...

Nothing valuable. I actually have a "clone" of the SSD So I can pull things of there but it was basically a "loan" pc for my grandson to play games and my daughter to do work stuff, mainly as a virtual machine. I downloaded all of their files when the returned the PC a few months ago.

When I went from the AMD A6 6400K to the Athlon on the Asus A68HM-plus windows survived the change - but going from the Athlon / A68HM-plus to the Ryzen / Tomahawk was just a step too far! Windows loaded then crashed saying some driver was missing.

Windows did a "reset, allegedly keeping the files" but seems to have failed to retain most of the software. The only tredious thing is it did not retain Office 2010 Plus. I still have the DVDs so it will be a case of reinstalling and hoping that will reactivate.
 
Bummer! Found that in the reinstall which Windows "took over" it reinstalled in Legacy mode and not UEFI !! Looks like I will have to reinstall it. + Office etc !
 
All installed. Windows and office 2010 self reactivated so it was a few hours yesterday evening and a late night and I now have a uefi based install. I am now going to have a free month of Photoshop elements to give it a try with that. Only get a week with creative cloud. Tight!!
 
Plec said:
At least the initial install is lightning fast (Assuming you have SSD/NVMe) - it's all the updates...
Click to expand...

SS windows was fast from the MS tool - not many updates - Office 2010 - lots of updates and a service pack - but went in several batches.

Plec said:
All running OK, otherwise (enabled DOCP/XMP)?
Click to expand...

Forgot about XMP (not used to it as not relevant to my "ageing" systems!). Booted to BIOS and memory was at 2400MHz. Clicked XMP Profile 1 and rebooted - now at 3200MHz.

Thanks, Mel
 
Ok wise guys (wiser than me!). As you can see above this system gives me a "Cinebench R20" score of around 3614 - or 3640 if I overclock a bit with Ryzen Master.

This is with a quite old graphics card - a Radeon RX570. I have an RX580 on another PC which I could swap - would that increase the Cinebench score?

Alternatively, if i was thinking of updating the graphics card what would be the suggestion for a "not silly money" (£250? or less) upgrade? Would like zero rpm fans at low load like RX570 and RX580.

Any ideas please?

PS - MSI B550 Tomahawk - I can claim the £40 cashback after 30 days - so, soon!!
 
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3060 or 3070 look a bit more than I want to pay - if web site "guessers" are right in their pricing? What performance boost could I expect? And how would I measure it?
 
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With the lockdown and children back at school and uncertainty over Christmas - I don't see the PC being used much for "strenuous tasks" (grandsons gaming)- so will hold off for now. The Ryzen 5 3600 is certainly much snappier with Lightroom and photoshop over my ageing i7 920 (which is still adequate).

My main monitor is an ASUS ProArt model:

Screen Size 24.1 Inches
Brand ASUS
Model Name PA248Q
Resolution UXGA Wide
Hardware Interface DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 3.0
Display technology LED
Aspect Ratio 16:10
Response Time 6 Milliseconds
Refresh Rate 60 Hz
Resolution up to 1920 x 1200

I have no idea how it rates for games - I bought it for its colour rendering.
 
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