[SOLVED] Changing Motherboard and CPU

[highvigh]

Hi Guys!

I was wondering if you might be able to help me? I'm basically wanting to update my PC as it is long overdue (nothing updated in about 6/7 years since it got put together). Due to all the working from home going on my boss has agreed to get some computer components for me to update my station (I'm a video editor).

I've ordered an Nvidia 3080 and am just starting to wonder about bottlenecking with my CPU so want to kind of make sure I get everything I need now while everyone is still working from home and I can blag this stuff through work. I currently have an ASUS P9x79 WS motherboard, an Intel Core i7 3970X @ 3.5GHz CPU and 64GB of DDR3 RAM spread out over the 8 slots.

I mean ideally, I would love to make the switch over to AMD Ryzen with something like a Ryzen 7 3700X/3800 XT as it looks like I'm going to need to update my motherboard, either way, to make any significant modernisation/upgrade to my CPU? Or am I wrong in thinking that?

I suppose my question is, am I making sense in thinking that I just need to find a motherboard that has 8 slots for RAM and supports those CPUs? Do they even exist? And am I going to be able to use my Corsair DDR3 RAM with an AMD compatible motherboard? Sorry I know a lot of this is sort of up in the air and I might be asking very stupid questions.

Really appreciate any help anyone could give, thanks!

 

[Dj0gany]

Ryzen is a ddr4 platform,so no u cant use your corsair ram unfortunatelly.
What is your budget?

 

[USAFRet]

I'm basically wanting to update my PC as it is long overdue (nothing updated in about 6/7 years since it got put together)

You're building a whole new system. Not "upgrade".

CPU
motherboard
RAM
PSU
Might as well put it in a new case.

 

[highvigh]

Ah ok, good to know! Well, I'd say I could probably spend say £600? Imagine its probably best for me to prioritise CPU and Mboard and get enough RAM for now as that's easy to expand down the line?

 

[USAFRet]

Ah ok, good to know! Well, I'd say I could probably spend say £600? Imagine its probably best for me to prioritise CPU and Mboard and get enough RAM for now as that's easy to expand down the line?

Start with one of these, and adjust as needed:

Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds - $500 Console Killer

Welcome to the 2020 Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds event! It's time once again for everyone's favorite PC Building competition. We're asking you to submit your best performing builds across three (3) different budget categories. In this competition we're taking it back to the old school...

forums.tomshardware.com

Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds - $1000 Streaming and Gaming Build

Welcome to the 2020 Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds event! It's time once again for everyone's favorite PC Building competition. We're asking you to submit your best performing builds across three (3) different budget categories. In this competition we're taking it back to the old school...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[geofelt]

What will be the primary use for this pc?
If it is for gaming at 4k resolution, most games will be graphics limited.
The 3080 is a good solution for that.
My advice is to try things our with what you have first and then go from there.

I see no significant cpu upgrades for your motherboard so a new cpu/mobo will be in order.
Current gen will be ddr4 only.
Do you really have a need for 64gb?
16gb is usually fine for games.
Batch apps in another thing.

Do not plan on adding ram later. Particularly for ryzen.
Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.

Try to buy the capacity you will ever need up front.

ryzen 5000 series is now here with impressive performance per closk increases. I would bypass ryzen 3000 series for the 5000 series.
You might want to wait a bit to see what Intel rocket lake brings.
Unverified leaks show even better single thread performance than 5950x.

 

[highvigh]

Start with one of these, and adjust as needed:

Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds - $500 Console Killer

Welcome to the 2020 Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds event! It's time once again for everyone's favorite PC Building competition. We're asking you to submit your best performing builds across three (3) different budget categories. In this competition we're taking it back to the old school...

forums.tomshardware.com

Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds - $1000 Streaming and Gaming Build

Welcome to the 2020 Tom's Hardware Black Friday Builds event! It's time once again for everyone's favorite PC Building competition. We're asking you to submit your best performing builds across three (3) different budget categories. In this competition we're taking it back to the old school...

forums.tomshardware.com

Thanks for these, very useful!

 

[highvigh]

What will be the primary use for this pc?
If it is for gaming at 4k resolution, most games will be graphics limited.
The 3080 is a good solution for that.
My advice is to try things our with what you have first and then go from there.

I see no significant cpu upgrades for your motherboard so a new cpu/mobo will be in order.
Current gen will be ddr4 only.
Do you really have a need for 64gb?
16gb is usually fine for games.
Batch apps in another thing.

Do not plan on adding ram later. Particularly for ryzen.
Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.

Try to buy the capacity you will ever need up front.

ryzen 5000 series is now here with impressive performance per closk increases. I would bypass ryzen 3000 series for the 5000 series.
You might want to wait a bit to see what Intel rocket lake brings.
Unverified leaks show even better single thread performance than 5950x.

The primary use will be for video editing in Premiere Pro (some 4K here and there) and motion graphics work in After Effects, along with gaming too.

Yeah normally I would be happy to wait until the 3080 comes and see how my current set up can handle it, my only thoughts are I should really jump on the situation of working from home and get any additional upgrades now through my work otherwise I may miss the boat on that situation.

Ok, I'm with you on the RAM front, to be honest, I would be happy to put some of my money towards making sure I have all the RAM I need as I frequently find myself split across 3/4/5 adobe programmes for projects. Am currently tossing up the idea of getting 1 x Ryzen 7 5800X, 1 x Asus TUF X470-PLUS GAMING ATX AM4 motherboard (I kept getting a warning saying B550 and X570 mobos would need a BIOS update with a different CPU) and 2 x Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB). I would certainly be happy with those CPU and RAM choices I think, do you think I might need a more swanky mobo?

Thanks for your help!

 

[geofelt]

Here is an article on photoshop recommended setups.
Note that it does not include th upcoming intel 11th gen processors which look to be similar to ryzen 5000:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomm...-Adobe-Photoshop-139/Hardware-Recommendations

 

[tombraiderfanatic]

You said "The primary use will be for video editing in Premiere Pro "
This says to me that what you really need is some super fast storage - the processor you already have should give you plenty of grunt, but what would be slowing it down would be the storage.

It does not look like your mobo has an M.2 slot (I could be wrong, I just did a quick check), however if you have a space PCIex4 slot available, you could buy an M.2 adapter card and a good M.2 card *Samsung, Transcend or Sabrent and fit that. Then use this drive for video editing.
Make sure you check the read/write speeds of the M.2 card(s) - some these days go over 4000Mb/s!!
Note, you will need an NVMe M.2 card, not a SATA one.