[SOLVED] Advice on upgrading a prebuilt PC ?

[the dude_1]

Hi everyone, I got a cyber power pc about a year ago for a good price and now that I have some spare time I am hoping to upgrade some parts.

Pc Specs:
Ryzen 7 3700x
Rtx 2070 super
16gb ram
240gb sdd
2tb hdd
600w HighPower Psu

For the cpu I plan on getting the NZXT - Kraken X53 to help cool it better. Currently the 3700x goes up to 80c under load. After reading some of the reviews it seems the 120mm aio in the prebuilt is not cooling it as much.

The power supply that came with the prebuilt is a high power brand psu this is the psu. I was wondering if I should replace it or continue using it. I found a post on the ltt fourms about it that says its alright but I would still like to hear your thoughts about it. If the psu is bad I have a spare corsair cx650m that I can use to switch it out the current psu or I could buy another power supply. Would the cx650m be good for my system (I would prefer not having to buy another power supply).

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Jason H.]

Id rather have the cx650m in my rig personally. Ive never heard of that brand of psu, but I also dont usually stray from Corsair for PSU's for some reason. Usually reliable and affordable I guess.

Anyways yea I have the 3800x, which is basically a 3700x with a tad more power. The temps with stock cooler was insanely high 80-85c while gaming. I was going to buy an AIO but after all my research I found that there are some super great air coolers on the market like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B (the one I got) that are within 3-5 degree's of performance compared to your typical 100-130$ aio for only 50-60$.

I know water coolings all hype and it looks cool and hey if you got the money for it, hell why not. Or if your looking to squeeze out every last drop of boost clock you can, sure go for it. But if your lookin to get out cheap and have reliable cooling for normal gaming and operations, that air cooler is amazing. Im even overclocked at 4.2ghz with a 1.325v, in any game I play I do not go over 65c. The only thing that gets the temp high is of course, Prime95. It can get up to 90c, but for an air cooler, and how hard prime95 tests for thermals, this is honestly a good temp. Nothing you ever do on your PC would ever push it to the temp prime95 does.

Ive had my Scythe cooler for almost 2 years now. I clean my PC about every 2-3 months. Nothing has went wrong with the cooler, fan still going strong and decently quiet as well!

 

[the dude_1]

Id rather have the cx650m in my rig personally. Ive never heard of that brand of psu, but I also dont usually stray from Corsair for PSU's for some reason. Usually reliable and affordable I guess.

Anyways yea I have the 3800x, which is basically a 3700x with a tad more power. The temps with stock cooler was insanely high 80-85c while gaming. I was going to buy an AIO but after all my research I found that there are some super great air coolers on the market like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B (the one I got) that are within 3-5 degree's of performance compared to your typical 100-130$ aio for only 50-60$.

I know water coolings all hype and it looks cool and hey if you got the money for it, hell why not. Or if your looking to squeeze out every last drop of boost clock you can, sure go for it. But if your lookin to get out cheap and have reliable cooling for normal gaming and operations, that air cooler is amazing. Im even overclocked at 4.2ghz with a 1.325v, in any game I play I do not go over 65c. The only thing that gets the temp high is of course, Prime95. It can get up to 90c, but for an air cooler, and how hard prime95 tests for thermals, this is honestly a good temp. Nothing you ever do on your PC would ever push it to the temp prime95 does.

Ive had my Scythe cooler for almost 2 years now. I clean my PC about every 2-3 months. Nothing has went wrong with the cooler, fan still going strong and decently quiet as well!

Hey thanks for the response! I wasn't aware of the scythe cooler and now I am considering it instead of the nzxt aio. Regarding the corsair power supply, do you think it would be better to buy a new power supply with higher wattage and gold rating or just use the cx650m that I have already.

 

[geofelt]

How much room do you have in the case for an air cooler?
A 120 aio has about the same cooling capacity as a tower type air cooler like the popular cm hyper coolers.
OK, but not great.
To do better, you would want something more capable with a larger radiator surface and appropriate fan.
The Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B referenced above would be an upgrade.
For stronger look for a twin tower NH-D15s
It will need 160mm.

Also, see that your front intake fan capability is sufficient for the cpu and gpu.
two 120/140mm intakes is good.

 

[punkncat]

@geofelt, the last couple of 'newer' Cyber Power I have laid eyes on have been utilizing a branded version of the P400(A) by Phanteks. The A series offers good cooling and has room for a 280 on the front and possibly on top according to the mobo. My X370 Taichi VRM will not allow the room for a top mount...
OP would have to confirm the case (unless I missed it).

 

[the dude_1]

The case that I have currently is a eluna 242v.

Right now I currently have 2 intakes in the side panel and the 120m aio is in a push/pull exhaust set up.
There is room for 3 120mm fans on the top and 3 120m fans in the front of the case as well.

Something that I am wondering about is, would the heat from my gpu make the 120m aio run hotter?

Do you guys think I should swap the fan set up I have right now and have the aio as intake while the side panel fans as exhaust. Or would it be better to just buy a stronger cooler and ditch the current cooler I have right now.

Here is an image of what the case looks like:

currently the pc I have looks like the above picture.

 

[Jason H.]

Hey thanks for the response! I wasn't aware of the scythe cooler and now I am considering it instead of the nzxt aio. Regarding the corsair power supply, do you think it would be better to buy a new power supply with higher wattage and gold rating or just use the cx650m that I have already.

I mean, how long was the cx650m used for? Like is it clean? Was it under long, daily use?

I ask as it would effect the fans life, the PSU itself should be perfectly fine. They are designed, and supposed to outlive the lifespan you would even have your pc as long as it is cleaned properly and taken care of.

I would use the 650m regardless simply because that psu brand in your pc is not a great brand and is a cheap psu. You dont need anything crazy your only running a 3700x and a 2070s which would only need a max of a 600w psu anyways and your just gaming, not doing any crazy overclocking.. gold is always nice, but I dont think you need it, unless you just simply want it. Its always nice to have a little headroom as well because of how psus performance curves operate. Meaning the closer you get to your max power output, the worse the psu works. The sweet spot for most psus is about 80% of their output power for optimal performance.

Ive been using my cx550m with my 3800x and my 2060s (both overclocked a bit) for 2 years with not 1 issue regarding the PSU.

As far as the cooling. Yea man I mean water cooling looks cool n all but if ur not spending at least 200 bucks or so, its kind of just a gimmick when compared to some of the air coolers on the market for literally half of the price. The one I recommended is my favorite one on the market at the moment and the one I recommend to all the people I try helping to find a good cooler upgrade. Nice and affordable, handles some decent overclocking, and has not had 1 issue in 2 years. The bearings they use in the fans are pretty high quality.

Also, you could even shave like 5c off your temp right now, tonight. The 3700x and 3800x when left on auto mode for the clocks, usually puts the voltages much higher than needed. Mine autos (turbo boosts) to 1.42v at 4.2ghz. ITS NOT NEEDED! And it creates excess heat for no reason at all. So I manually overclocked my cpu to 4.2ghz at 1.325v, and bam, temps dropped 5-10c across almost ALL operations on my pc. I mean the voltage of 1.42 even remains when the clocks drop when I let it run on auto, creating higher idle temps as well which was fixed by doing the manual oc to lower the voltage.

Have you ever manually overclocked before?

 

[the dude_1]

I mean, how long was the cx650m used for? Like is it clean? Was it under long, daily use?

I ask as it would effect the fans life, the PSU itself should be perfectly fine. They are designed, and supposed to outlive the lifespan you would even have your pc as long as it is cleaned properly and taken care of.

I would use the 650m regardless simply because that psu brand in your pc is not a great brand and is a cheap psu. You dont need anything crazy your only running a 3700x and a 2070s which would only need a max of a 600w psu anyways and your just gaming, not doing any crazy overclocking.. gold is always nice, but I dont think you need it, unless you just simply want it. Its always nice to have a little headroom as well because of how psus performance curves operate. Meaning the closer you get to your max power output, the worse the psu works. The sweet spot for most psus is about 80% of their output power for optimal performance.

Ive been using my cx550m with my 3800x and my 2060s (both overclocked a bit) for 2 years with not 1 issue regarding the PSU.

As far as the cooling. Yea man I mean water cooling looks cool n all but if ur not spending at least 200 bucks or so, its kind of just a gimmick when compared to some of the air coolers on the market for literally half of the price. The one I recommended is my favorite one on the market at the moment and the one I recommend to all the people I try helping to find a good cooler upgrade. Nice and affordable, handles some decent overclocking, and has not had 1 issue in 2 years. The bearings they use in the fans are pretty high quality.

Also, you could even shave like 5c off your temp right now, tonight. The 3700x and 3800x when left on auto mode for the clocks, usually puts the voltages much higher than needed. Mine autos (turbo boosts) to 1.42v at 4.2ghz. ITS NOT NEEDED! And it creates excess heat for no reason at all. So I manually overclocked my cpu to 4.2ghz at 1.325v, and bam, temps dropped 5-10c across almost ALL operations on my pc. I mean the voltage of 1.42 even remains when the clocks drop when I let it run on auto, creating higher idle temps as well which was fixed by doing the manual oc to lower the voltage.

Have you ever manually overclocked before?

The cx650m is barley used, I used it for maybe 2 months at most. I was only worried about the psu because I have expensive parts but thanks to your advice it sounds like the cx650m is a solid psu for my system so I'm going to replace it with what I currently have.

I did hear about lowering the voltage on the ryzen but I was not sure exactly what to do. I downloaded ryzen master and I am going to try out the voltage advice you gave me and see if that works. If the 3700x stays in the 70s under load I would be pretty happy.

The only reason why I want to get a new cooler is because I am worried that the cpu being is the 80s under load is bad. I'm also trying to see if I should just put new fans inside the case to help with airflow rather than getting a new cooler.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to try it out and see what happens!

 

[Jason H.]

The cx650m is barley used, I used it for maybe 2 months at most. I was only worried about the psu because I have expensive parts but thanks to your advice it sounds like the cx650m is a solid psu for my system so I'm going to replace it with what I currently have.

I did hear about lowering the voltage on the ryzen but I was not sure exactly what to do. I downloaded ryzen master and I am going to try out the voltage advice you gave me and see if that works. If the 3700x stays in the 70s under load I would be pretty happy.

The only reason why I want to get a new cooler is because I am worried that the cpu being is the 80s under load is bad. I'm also trying to see if I should just put new fans inside the case to help with airflow rather than getting a new cooler.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to try it out and see what happens!

Do some research on known working overclocks for your cpu and go from there. No cpu is the same, some can get a higher overclock, some lower, some not at all. Like imo, how I did it and how you should do it since your new to it, is just use a monitoring software like RTSS to see what your cpu normally boosts too during gaming. Im guessing its 3.9-4.0 ghz. You can manually set that number in the bios, DO NOT USE RYZEN MASTER TO OVERCLOCK! Many issues are known using RM to have a long time stable OC. I would do it directly in the BIOS.

But find your max boost clock you normally have during gaming as I said, then use that as ur max manual oc number. Then, start lowering voltages. Keep lowering them until the system becomes unstable, this is how you know you went too far. Then start raising it back up again. Its a process, and takes time. Days sometimes.

Once you "think" you found a stable OC use something like Aida64 or Prime95 (I do both) to stress test the stability of the pc. Honestly, you should be doing this everytime you change the voltage and clock. If your pc remains stable after 30 minutes, your on the right track but not done yet. You need to let the test then run overnight for at least 8 hours. (I did 4 hours, and my pc has been fine for 2 years). Some people even let theirs run for days (I dont think you will need it). Thing is you wont technically be "overclocking" the cpu. You will just be locking it at the max boost clock that it would normally run at while your playing games. SO imo, you dont need to go to hard with stress testing it, you will basically just be testing that the voltage you set the cpu at works with the clock you have set the cpu at. No numbers will be ABOVE spec, if any of that makes sense.

Then you can try pushing it past that stable clock a bit further once u get used to how to do it and most likely push even more performance out of it.

Once you get it stable, your good to go for many years to come until you need to upgrade hardware.

 

[the dude_1]

Do some research on known working overclocks for your cpu and go from there. No cpu is the same, some can get a higher overclock, some lower, some not at all. Like imo, how I did it and how you should do it since your new to it, is just use a monitoring software like RTSS to see what your cpu normally boosts too during gaming. Im guessing its 3.9-4.0 ghz. You can manually set that number in the bios, DO NOT USE RYZEN MASTER TO OVERCLOCK! Many issues are known using RM to have a long time stable OC. I would do it directly in the BIOS.

But find your max boost clock you normally have during gaming as I said, then use that as ur max manual oc number. Then, start lowering voltages. Keep lowering them until the system becomes unstable, this is how you know you went too far. Then start raising it back up again. Its a process, and takes time. Days sometimes.

Once you "think" you found a stable OC use something like Aida64 or Prime95 (I do both) to stress test the stability of the pc. Honestly, you should be doing this everytime you change the voltage and clock. If your pc remains stable after 30 minutes, your on the right track but not done yet. You need to let the test then run overnight for at least 8 hours. (I did 4 hours, and my pc has been fine for 2 years). Some people even let theirs run for days (I dont think you will need it). Thing is you wont technically be "overclocking" the cpu. You will just be locking it at the max boost clock that it would normally run at while your playing games. SO imo, you dont need to go to hard with stress testing it, you will basically just be testing that the voltage you set the cpu at works with the clock you have set the cpu at. No numbers will be ABOVE spec, if any of that makes sense.

Then you can try pushing it past that stable clock a bit further once u get used to how to do it and most likely push even more performance out of it.

Once you get it stable, your good to go for many years to come until you need to upgrade hardware.

Wow thanks for the information! I'm going to be honest I feel a tad bit nervous overclocking since I am a complete beginner so I am going to try and take it slow and research about it more before I dive into it. In the meantime I am going to try messing with the airflow of my case and see if that does anything. I want to thank you for the help and advice you have given me regarding the psu, overclocking and informing me about the air cooler. Thanks a lot!

 

[Jason H.]

Wow thanks for the information! I'm going to be honest I feel a tad bit nervous overclocking since I am a complete beginner so I am going to try and take it slow and research about it more before I dive into it. In the meantime I am going to try messing with the airflow of my case and see if that does anything. I want to thank you for the help and advice you have given me regarding the psu, overclocking and informing me about the air cooler. Thanks a lot!

I mean what do you have now as far as case cooling?

As far as the OC.. trust me brother, its very simple what I have suggested to do. You will only be changing 2 values, the clock speed and the voltage. Your also not going over the maximum spec of the cpu so you will not need to change any other settings for the cpu. And no problem man, thats why we are here

Take it slow, be confident. You got this.

 

[the dude_1]

I mean what do you have now as far as case cooling?

As far as the OC.. trust me brother, its very simple what I have suggested to do. You will only be changing 2 values, the clock speed and the voltage. Your also not going over the maximum spec of the cpu so you will not need to change any other settings for the cpu. And no problem man, thats why we are here

Take it slow, be confident. You got this.

I have two fans for intake and the cpu is being cooled by a 120m aio in a push pull config. The aio is right next to the gpu so Im wondering if the heat from the gpu is making the aio run hotter. I thinking of adding more fans to the case and switching the aio to be an intake instead of exhaust.

 

[Jason H.]

I have two fans for intake and the cpu is being cooled by a 120m aio in a push pull config. The aio is right next to the gpu so Im wondering if the heat from the gpu is making the aio run hotter. I thinking of adding more fans to the case and switching the aio to be an intake instead of exhaust.

I mean, youd be looking at maybe a 2-4 degree difference, ONLY IF cooling is already inadequate. Adding fans when you already have 2 intakes wont do much but it wont harm anything either.

I mean your best bet would be to upgrade the 2 intakes already in the rig, rather than adding 2 more with the same specs.

I doubt the gpu heat would be making any negligible difference for the aio, maybe 1 degree, if anything.

The only sensible thing to do at the moment is upgrade the cpu cooler, imo.

60$ on new case fans for a 2-4 degree difference, or 60$ on a cpu fan for up to a 10-15 degree difference (15 being the high end and if u also do the oc to lower voltage). No brainer.

 

[the dude_1]

I mean, youd be looking at maybe a 2-4 degree difference, ONLY IF cooling is already inadequate. Adding fans when you already have 2 intakes wont do much but it wont harm anything either.

I mean your best bet would be to upgrade the 2 intakes already in the rig, rather than adding 2 more with the same specs.

I doubt the gpu heat would be making any negligible difference for the aio, maybe 1 degree, if anything.

The only sensible thing to do at the moment is upgrade the cpu cooler, imo.

Do you think it would be better if I set the aio I have to be intake instead of exhuast and flip the side panel fans to be exhaust instead of intake? If not I'm just going to focus on getting a better cooler.

 

[Jason H.]

Do you think it would be better if I set the aio I have to be intake instead of exhuast and flip the side panel fans to be exhaust instead of intake? If not I'm just going to focus on getting a better cooler.

Flipping the aio fan to be an intake would introduce more heat into the system by instead of blowing out the hot air from the radiator, blowing the heat from the radiator into the systems airflow. Creating more heat.

Also, the fans not being in the front of the pc is hurting the overall airflow. The fans should be in the front of the case to provide true push pull airflow. (going off the picture you provided). Things like that is why I will never buy cyber lol. Always build your own. But no, they should remain intakes.

 

[Jason H.]

Do you think it would be better if I set the aio I have to be intake instead of exhuast and flip the side panel fans to be exhaust instead of intake? If not I'm just going to focus on getting a better cooler.

Although... you could try mounting the radiator to the top, with the rad fans being an outtake per usual, and then move the 2 "side" fans to the front. Even if it dont help the temps, it would make more sense lol and still has the potential to help airflow.

 

[the dude_1]

Although... you could try mounting the radiator to the top, with the rad fans being an outtake per usual, and then move the 2 "side" fans to the front. Even if it dont help the temps, it would make more sense lol and still has the potential to help airflow.

Ok I will try that and see how it goes. Thanks you so much for the help!