[SOLVED] 500€ Budget - Upgrade MB/CPU/RAM or GPU? SO MUCH PRESSURE!

[Kealopian]

Don't know for which one I should go. Been comparing Benchmarks for the last week now, but I simply can't decide. Option 1, Option 2, something totally different or should I just leave it be and wait another year?

My current System:
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core
RAM: 8GB DDR-3 1600
MB: Gigabyte GA-970-DS3P
GPU: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
PSU: 500W
SSD: Sandisk Ultra 3D

My budget: 500€ in Germany. So I'm looking for a good "fps per €" ratio.
My main purpose: Full-HD Gaming with "High" (not ultra) settings for the next 2 to 3 years.

My options (that I can think of):

1.
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: G.SKill AEGIS 16GB DDR4-3000
MB: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
For a total of 310€

OR

2.
GPU: XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II 8GB GDDR6
For a total of 380€

Can't do both, because then it would be around 800€ (counting in a new PSU which I'd have to buy).

 

[1s3ct0wN]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€199.93 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool GAMMAXX GT 29.5 CFM CPU Cooler (€34.98 @ Alternate)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€110.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€56.90 @ Alternate)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€99.90 @ Alternate)
Total: €502.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-29 15:33 CET+0100

 

[Kealopian]

Thank you so much, this was really helpful!

 

[vMax]

Just a couple of modifications. removed the cooler as not really required and put the money to faster RAM as Ryzen will make use of it and likes fast memory. And 650w is more than enough and will handle anything up to a RTX 2070 Super or 5700XT with ease...

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/VkCRvW

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€199.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€118.15 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (€67.90 @ Alternate)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€86.29 @ Alza)
Total: €472.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-30 13:59 CET+0100

 

[vMax]

Oh and make sure you can update the BIOS on the B450 Tomahawk as it will need it for the Ryzen 3600 unless you can confirm that it has the updated BIOS. Not sure if the FX CPU can drop into the B450 and do that for you but if it can you will be okay...

 

[Kealopian]

Even better, thanks a lot! I was wondering about whether I need 750w. However, since I plan to OC sooner or later, I think that 750w and the cooler would actually make sense ...

 

[1s3ct0wN]

Oh and make sure you can update the BIOS on the B450 Tomahawk as it will need it for the Ryzen 3600 unless you can confirm that it has the updated BIOS. Not sure if the FX CPU can drop into the B450 and do that for you but if it can you will be okay...

MAX version comes with updated BIOS, 3rd gen Ryzen will be plug&play.

 

[1s3ct0wN]

Even better, thanks a lot! I was wondering about whether I need 750w. However, since I plan to OC sooner or later, I think that 750w and the cooler would actually make sense ...

Add 35 euros and buy the faster ram and the cooler its not much of a difference.

 

[King_V]

The aftermarket cooler is unnecessary - AMD's included coolers are up to the job, assuming that the case is of reasonable design. If and when overclocking becomes an issue, then maybe - but I'd think at that point it might not be the CPU holding you back, and overclocking the 3000 series pretty much isn't particularly a thing anymore, as AMD has them automatically tuning themselves to near the limit.

I'd take @vMax 's build, but then step down to the R5 2600 or 2600X. Sure, it's previous generation, but it's still well ahead of the FX-6300. (the FX-6300 cannot drop into any AM4 board, so you can't use it to upgrade the BIOS of any board that might need it).

Then what's saved could be put toward a future GPU upgrade. Assuming 1920x1080 @ 60Hz, I'd say that the best choice based on price for that category these days would be the GTX 1650 Super. I believe this would be a better overall balance.

 

[logainofhades]

If you are wanting more FPS, this is going to give you the most, for that budget. A faster CPU, like the 3600, would be held back, by your 1050ti. The R5 1600 is still a good enough CPU, to use with the RX 580, which is still a great 1080p card.


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€118.05 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€80.80 @ Alza)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€69.89 @ Alternate)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card (€167.94 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€68.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €505.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-03 21:43 CET+0100

 

[1s3ct0wN]

Test

If you are wanting more FPS, this is going to give you the most, for that budget. A faster CPU, like the 3600, would be held back, by your 1050ti. The R5 1600 is still a good enough CPU, to use with the RX 580, which is still a great 1080p card.


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€118.05 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€80.80 @ Alza)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€69.89 @ Alternate)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card (€167.94 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€68.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €505.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-03 21:43 CET+0100

If you are after raw performance this is the best build here, if you are looking to build something that you can upgrade few months down the road get the R5 3600 with or without a cooler.

 

[King_V]

If you are wanting more FPS, this is going to give you the most, for that budget. A faster CPU, like the 3600, would be held back, by your 1050ti. The R5 1600 is still a good enough CPU, to use with the RX 580, which is still a great 1080p card.


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor (€118.05 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€80.80 @ Alza)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€69.89 @ Alternate)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card (€167.94 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€68.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €505.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-03 21:43 CET+0100

I'm just a little concerned about that PSU - I think it's based on Seasonic's older designs... but am not sure.

Because of that uncertainty on my part, I would recommend going with a Seasonic Focus PSU, which will probably cost about €30 more. You can get away easily with a 550W PSU, but the Seasonic Focus 550W is only €1.20 less than the 650W. The Corsair TX550M can be had for only €8 more than the Seasonic EVO.


Now, at the risk of sounding self-contradictory, for my son's soon-to-be-built PC, I went for a Ryzen 5 1600 instead of the 2600, because the 1600 was $30 less. However, looking at the PC Part Picker listings, it seems the 2600 is only €11.75 more than the 1600, so is worth the higher price. Compared to the 1600, the 2600X is €30 more, thus worth considering, both for the higher clocks and the better cooler included, as compared to the one included with the 2600.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/#s=60&sort=price&page=1&C=6,32

Of course. these recommendations all put you over your €500 limit by anywhere from €13 to €60. I would suggest actually waiting on the new video card for the time being. Even though your existing 1050Ti will now be holding back your new Ryzen-based system, you will still have better performance than you did previously.

Further, I believe that the recent release of the GTX 1650 Super, as well as the upcoming RX 5500 XT (next week) and RX 5600 XT (January) will likely drive down the prices of the mid-range cards, especially the older Polaris designs (RX 570, RX 580, RX 590). Therefore, I think it is worthwhile to wait and see what happens with video card pricing.

 

[Kealopian]

Just a couple of modifications. removed the cooler as not really required and put the money to faster RAM as Ryzen will make use of it and likes fast memory. And 650w is more than enough and will handle anything up to a RTX 2070 Super or 5700XT with ease...

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/VkCRvW

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€199.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€118.15 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (€67.90 @ Alternate)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€86.29 @ Alza)
Total: €472.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-30 13:59 CET+0100

Okay, was about to order, but then my gearhead friend told me that 2nd generation Ryzen only support up to 3200Mhz. So the DDR4-3600 above would be out of question. However, I cannot find anything online regarding my friends statement. Did I miss something? Would go for some DDR4-3000 CL16 instead if necessary.

 

[King_V]

Okay, was about to order, but then my gearhead friend told me that 2nd generation Ryzen only support up to 3200Mhz. So the DDR4-3600 above would be out of question. However, I cannot find anything online regarding my friends statement. Did I miss something? Would go for some DDR4-3000 CL16 instead if necessary.

I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, but I don't have the experience to say for sure. However, I wouldn't worry too much about it - the faster you go, the more diminishing returns you get. Even if you "only" get 3000Mhz, that's still pretty good. Going with the previous generation Ryzen CPUs definitely get you a better performance-per-Euro ratio.

As of today, from the same link I posted previously for CPUs, the Ryzen 5 2600 is only €3 more than the 1600, so it appears that in Germany, the 2600 is the sweet-spot. In my opinion, the 3600, even with the fact that it could support faster ram, is not worth an extra €81 - that's a price that is 66% higher! You're not getting anything even close to 66% extra performance from that.

 

[logainofhades]

Okay, was about to order, but then my gearhead friend told me that 2nd generation Ryzen only support up to 3200Mhz. So the DDR4-3600 above would be out of question. However, I cannot find anything online regarding my friends statement. Did I miss something? Would go for some DDR4-3000 CL16 instead if necessary.

2nd gen typically does not do well, beyond 3200 speed ram. 3466 at most. 3rd gen ryzen does fine with faster ram, though. The R5 3600 is 3rd gen.

 

[Kealopian]

2nd gen typically does not do well, beyond 3200 speed ram. 3466 at most. 3rd gen ryzen does fine with faster ram, though. The R5 3600 is 3rd gen.

Yeah, that makes sense. Guess what my friend meant is the System Memory Specification here: https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-3600

It says 3200MHz. But that just means that everything above that is considered OC, right? Could result in a less stable system.

 

[logainofhades]

3200 is native support, but AMD has specifically stated it can support faster. Typically you will be best using x570, though, for faster ram.

 

[Kealopian]

So, what I finally ordered now is the following:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor (€218.77 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€114.80 @ Alza)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (€85.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€96.89 @ Alternate)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 590 8 GB FATBOY OC+ Video Card (€193.89 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (€54.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€59.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €806
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-08 14:41 CET+0100

In the end, the difference to a 2600x, 3000Mhz RAM and a XFX Radeon RX 580 would have been 150€, which seemed like a big step for maybe 15% to 20% more power. However, the benchmark that was responsible for my change of heart was this one: View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cbgluu/just_upgraded_to_ryzen_5_3600_some_benchmarks_vs/

Plus, with the 3600X I think I could get a new GPU in 2-3 years and still play stuff on high in 1080p.

The Motherboard choice pains me a bit, since I'm planning to OC, however, somewhere I had to draw the line and an Asus Prime X570-P would have been another 80€ more I simply wasn't willing to invest. Especially since a friend of mine got one of those (with a Ryzen 7 3800X and 64GB (4 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200) and with XMP activated the boot loops 3 out of 4 times (so now he has to set in manually and can forget about all that fancy auto OC).

Your feedback would be appreciated!

 

[logainofhades]

Honestly, you don't really need to overclock, with Ryzen 3000. Just enable PBO, and let it do its thing. The 590 is just an overclocked 580.

 

[King_V]

I would not be comfortable with that older design Seasonic power supply with a new system.

Also, the GTX 1650 Super performs very close to the RX 590, but with a lower price and significantly less power consumption. So much lower that you might be able to step down to a 550W PSU if you really wanted to.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product...-xs-oc-video-card-gtx-1650-super-ventus-xs-oc

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product...-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020194-na

 

[Kealopian]

I would not be comfortable with that older design Seasonic power supply with a new system.

Also, the GTX 1650 Super performs very close to the RX 590, but with a lower price and significantly less power consumption. So much lower that you might be able to step down to a 550W PSU if you really wanted to.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product...-xs-oc-video-card-gtx-1650-super-ventus-xs-oc

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product...-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020194-na

Yeah, you were right about that RX590. Tested it over the weekend and I just sent it back. First of all it's producing too much heat and noise, second it is really not providing the performance I was looking for. I mean, ultra level in division 2 at 59fps is probably really good for a 185€ card, but the gpu is working at 100%. So I'm gonna spend a bit more and go for a GTX 1660 Ti or a RTX 2070.

Thanks a lot for all your advice!

 

[King_V]

Sounds like a plan - but, if you're going with the GTX model, based on the prices I'm seeing at PCPartpicker Germany, I would suggest the 1660 Super instead.
Its performance is so close to the 1660Ti that the difference between the Super and the Ti is just about negligible, and in Germany, the Super starts around €243 compared to the cheapest Ti starting at €287.

I personally don't think the tiny increase in the Ti's performance over the Super is worth over €40.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=450,438&sort=price


EDIT: However, the rumors seem to estimate that the upcoming RX 5600 XT will outperform both of them. If you can live with your 1050Ti for another week or two, the 5600XT is supposed to come out next week. I would definitely recommend waiting and seeing how that card does in the hardware reviews, before making a final decision.

 

[Kealopian]

Sounds like a plan - but, if you're going with the GTX model, based on the prices I'm seeing at PCPartpicker Germany, I would suggest the 1660 Super instead.
Its performance is so close to the 1660Ti that the difference between the Super and the Ti is just about negligible, and in Germany, the Super starts around €243 compared to the cheapest Ti starting at €287.

I personally don't think the tiny increase in the Ti's performance over the Super is worth over €40.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=450,438&sort=price


EDIT: However, the rumors seem to estimate that the upcoming RX 5600 XT will outperform both of them. If you can live with your 1050Ti for another week or two, the 5600XT is supposed to come out next week. I would definitely recommend waiting and seeing how that card does in the hardware reviews, before making a final decision.

Soooo ... the 5600 XT arrived and it was the right decision to wait it out. Three options in comparison:

1. Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1660 Super OC for 243€
2. Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT for 299€ (+56€, +25% Effective Speed)
3. Gainward Geforce RTX 2060 Pegasus 6GB for 298€ (+55€, +25% Effective Speed (?))

Right now I would go for the 5600 XT (hoping it's one with the BIOS update), because I don't care that much for raytracing and I'm not sure about that Gainward Pegasus model.

What do you think?

 

[King_V]

I'm thus far in agreement, having read the Tom's Hardware review, as well as the Anandtech review (which goes into more detail with the BIOS update) - I've also seen on NewEgg that a lot of the OC versions of the board are (at least in the US) listed as being available variously on Jan 23 or Jan 27.

My son and I are also keeping an eye on the 5600 XT as an upgrade to his computer.

I believe the Pulse, which is considered to be one of the more premium/overclocked models (relative to the base model cards) is going to have the new BIOS.

If I were in your position, I'd go with the 5600XT.

 

[Kealopian]

Just ordered the Sapphire Pulse. Maybe it already has the new BIOS installed. I will report back as soon as it arrives (should be within the next three days).