Question Gaming PC

[Jguerin2121]

Hello, I'm currently looking to get back into PC gaming. Mainly WoW, maybe Path of Exile. Although I'd like the freedom to move to other modern titles with at least medium settings. I found a PC on FB marketplace and I was wondering any opinions

CPU: i5-6500 Skylake
RAM: 16gb I think DDR4
GPU:R9 390
Mobo: Z170A
SSD: Samsung 840
PSU: EVGA 650 G2

Beyond that has a standard coolermaster case. Wondering if that will be sufficient for WoW. And if $575 is a good deal for all that? Or a little high? Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Shektron]

Should be fine - WoW requires only good single core performance, so an overclockable processor on the Z170 motherboard would have been better, but the 6500 is fine as well, medium settings should work okay. Don't really know about the price, I'm sure someone else will help you out on that.

 

[Jguerin2121]

Should be fine - WoW requires only good single core performance, so an overclockable processor on the Z170 motherboard would have been better, but the 6500 is fine as well, medium settings should work okay. Don't really know about the price, I'm sure someone else will help you out on that.

Do you think an i5 7400 with a GTX 1060 would be better? Same? Or worse? I have a friend selling an HP omen prebuilt with those specs who would do 500.

 

[rhysiam]

I don't think that's a great price personally.

Here's a potential new R5 3600 build.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: ASRock - B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor - Radeon RX 570 4 GB RED DRAGON Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $326.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-03 00:25 EDT-0400
PLUS: You'd need to add $200 for the Ryzen 5 3600 (launches July 7) and a case. That doesn't include Windows either, which probably pushes you over $575. But you're getting brand new parts under warranty with at least similar performance.

UPDATE: The 7400 + 1060 for $500 is better. But I'm just not sold on a quad core with no Hyperthreading when you can get a new Ryzen 3000 six core for not much more. Is it the 3GB or 6GB 1060? The 3GB is quite a bit slower (it has less resources, it's not just the RAM difference).

Alternatively, the i5 9400F CPUs are around $155, and they're six cores clocked to 4.1Ghz. You could likely put together a build around one of those for slightly less than a Ryzen 5 3600.

Are you willing to build your own?

 

[Jguerin2121]

I don't think that's a great price personally.

Here's a potential new R5 3600 build.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: ASRock - B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor - Radeon RX 570 4 GB RED DRAGON Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $326.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-03 00:25 EDT-0400
PLUS: You'd need to add $200 for the Ryzen 5 3600 (launches July 7) and a case. That doesn't include Windows either, which probably pushes you over $575. But you're getting brand new parts under warranty with at least similar performance.

UPDATE: The 7400 + 1060 for $500 is better. But I'm just not sold on a quad core with no Hyperthreading when you can get a new Ryzen 3000 six core for not much more. Is it the 3GB or 6GB 1060? The 3GB is quite a bit slower (it has less resources, it's not just the RAM difference).

Alternatively, the i5 9400F CPUs are around $155, and they're six cores clocked to 4.1Ghz. You could likely put together a build around one of those for slightly less than a Ryzen 5 3600.

Are you willing to build your own?

Yes I have done my own build twice in the past with no issues

 

[Jguerin2121]

I don't think that's a great price personally.

Here's a potential new R5 3600 build.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: ASRock - B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor - Radeon RX 570 4 GB RED DRAGON Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $326.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-03 00:25 EDT-0400
PLUS: You'd need to add $200 for the Ryzen 5 3600 (launches July 7) and a case. That doesn't include Windows either, which probably pushes you over $575. But you're getting brand new parts under warranty with at least similar performance.

UPDATE: The 7400 + 1060 for $500 is better. But I'm just not sold on a quad core with no Hyperthreading when you can get a new Ryzen 3000 six core for not much more. Is it the 3GB or 6GB 1060? The 3GB is quite a bit slower (it has less resources, it's not just the RAM difference).

Alternatively, the i5 9400F CPUs are around $155, and they're six cores clocked to 4.1Ghz. You could likely put together a build around one of those for slightly less than a Ryzen 5 3600.

Are you willing to build your own?

I have a microcenter pretty close to me I thought about going to for parts and building my own. I'd like to stay at around 800 ish max. Obviously 50$ either way if it was like a big upgrade

 

[Jguerin2121]

I don't think that's a great price personally.

Here's a potential new R5 3600 build.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: ASRock - B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor - Radeon RX 570 4 GB RED DRAGON Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $326.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-03 00:25 EDT-0400
PLUS: You'd need to add $200 for the Ryzen 5 3600 (launches July 7) and a case. That doesn't include Windows either, which probably pushes you over $575. But you're getting brand new parts under warranty with at least similar performance.

UPDATE: The 7400 + 1060 for $500 is better. But I'm just not sold on a quad core with no Hyperthreading when you can get a new Ryzen 3000 six core for not much more. Is it the 3GB or 6GB 1060? The 3GB is quite a bit slower (it has less resources, it's not just the RAM difference).

Alternatively, the i5 9400F CPUs are around $155, and they're six cores clocked to 4.1Ghz. You could likely put together a build around one of those for slightly less than a Ryzen 5 3600.

Are you willing to build your own?

My local Microcenter has an i5-9400F with a Gigabyte B360M for $184. Or with a Z390 UD for 239.

 

[rhysiam]

I have a microcenter pretty close to me I thought about going to for parts and building my own. I'd like to stay at around 800 ish max. Obviously 50$ either way if it was like a big upgrade

An $800 budget would could get you to an RTX 2060, along with a modern six core and 16GB RAM. To be clear, that's massive overkill for WoW or Path of Exhile, but it's also a vastly faster machine capable of playing all the latest games with high settings. If your time and the extra $300 is worth investing for you, then I'd suggest that's good option, as long as you recognise it'll make little to no difference whatsoever for WoW and PoE.

I'd suggest you wait the few days until the Ryzen 3000 series and Navi is released and reviewed. Then post back. Starting with an Intel i5 9400F + B360, or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and B450, paired with an RTX 2060 or Navi 5700 you should be able to put together a really solid gaming PC for $800.

 

[rhysiam]

My local Microcenter has an i5-9400F with a Gigabyte B360M for $184. Or with a Z390 UD for 239.

Forget the Z390, that's next to pointless for a locked CPU (though you do get RAM overclocking).
That 9400F + B360 is a decent deal though.

I'd still wait until Sunday for the Ryzen + Navi launch reviews. But with the Ryzen 5 3600 @ $200 for just the CPU, it'll likely be $80-100 more expensive... making that Microcentre deal look pretty good.

 

[Jguerin2121]

Forget the Z390, that's next to pointless for a locked CPU (though you do get RAM overclocking).
That 9400F + B360 is a decent deal though.

I'd still wait until Sunday for the Ryzen + Navi launch reviews. But with the Ryzen 5 3600 @ $200 for just the CPU, it'll likely be $80-100 more expensive... making that Microcentre deal look pretty good.

Paired with the 9400F and B360. Let's say I wanted to build something that would run wow on medium high - high settings 60+ FPS. What would the minimum be you would recommend for GPU ?

 

[Jguerin2121]

Forget the Z390, that's next to pointless for a locked CPU (though you do get RAM overclocking).
That 9400F + B360 is a decent deal though.

I'd still wait until Sunday for the Ryzen + Navi launch reviews. But with the Ryzen 5 3600 @ $200 for just the CPU, it'll likely be $80-100 more expensive... making that Microcentre deal look pretty good.

My microcenter has a MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Overclocked Dual-Fan 4GB GDDR5 119$. Think that's a good deal / would be suffice?

 

[rhysiam]

Paired with the 9400F and B360. Let's say I wanted to build something that would run wow on medium high - high settings 60+ FPS. What would the minimum be you would recommend for GPU ?

It's really hard to go past the stupidly cheap RX570 cards right now, like that one linked in the build above. The Polaris GPU it's based on is pretty old and it's not power efficient, but at the prices it's going for now it's untouchable value for money.

The RX570 beats the 1050ti and 1650 by a healthy margin overall. You'll find the odd game here or there where it's close or Nvidia's options even eek out a slight lead, but there are a handful of other titles where the RX570 is in a difference performance tier entirely (like Forza Horizon 4 or World War Z).

Check out this review for a relatively up to date set of benchmarks with modern titles: https://www.techspot.com/review/1835-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650/

 

[Shektron]

Honestly if you can build your own PC then buying pre-built in pointless, and I would honestly wait for Ryzen 3000 than go with the 9400F with launch so close, unless you're in a real hurry to put together the system. Ryzen 3000 has better single core according to leaks, which could mean the 3600 would be better at WoW - better than the 9400F, at least.

 

[Jguerin2121]

Honestly if you can build your own PC then buying pre-built in pointless, and I would honestly wait for Ryzen 3000 than go with the 9400F with launch so close, unless you're in a real hurry to put together the system. Ryzen 3000 has better single core according to leaks, which could mean the 3600 would be better at WoW - better than the 9400F, at least.

Well I was planning on building it tomorrow, a bunch of friends were getting together for the 4th and we were gonna level our wow characters. Would the i5 9600K be a significant upgrade? Also my Microcenter has a rx 580 for like 20$ more than the 570 open box. Would the upgrade be worth it?

 

[Shektron]

Well I was planning on building it tomorrow, a bunch of friends were getting together for the 4th and we were gonna level our wow characters. Would the i5 9600K be a significant upgrade? Also my Microcenter has a rx 580 for like 20$ more than the 570 open box. Would the upgrade be worth it?

Okay, then you should get the 9600K with a Z390 motherboard if you can afford it, and the RX 570 is fine because WoW doesn't care much about the GPU, at least in raid. If the 9600K and Z390 come to too much of a total, then the 9400F with B360 is your next best option.

 

[Jguerin2121]

Okay, then you should get the 9600K with a Z390 motherboard if you can afford it, and the RX 570 is fine because WoW doesn't care much about the GPU, at least in raid. If the 9600K and Z390 come to too much of a total, then the 9400F with B360 is

Okay, then you should get the 9600K with a Z390 motherboard if you can afford it, and the RX 570 is fine because WoW doesn't care much about the GPU, at least in raid. If the 9600K and Z390 come to too much of a total, then the 9400F with B360 is your next best option.

Sorry for all the questions. And I appreciate your help a ton, as well as @rhysiam . If 60+FPS was my on medium high/ high settings would I achieve that with both CPU's? Or is the 9600K gonna be that much better? I can make either work, but the 9600K will be like another 150ish

 

[Shektron]

I don't really play WoW, but I think either of those CPU's can do 60 FPS on medium/high settings, so if that's all you want then maybe the 9400F is enough.

I think it's best you wait for someone else to confirm this, I cannot say for sure.

 

[rhysiam]

If you want to build tomorrow then that 9400F + B360 is the way to go.

I really don't think stepping up to the 9600K + Z390 is even remotely worthwhile. You'll need to add a cooler because the 9600K doesn't include one. Once you've spend all that extra money you'll get 10% better performance out of the box. If you're prepared to overclock (and have the cooling to support it) you can stretch that out to maybe 20% better performance. That extra performance will only matter when you're CPU bound. Given you're looking at a ~$150 GPU... you'll be almost exclusively GPU bound unless/until you upgrade the GPU down the road. Value wise the 9600K + Z390 is a nonstarter IMHO.

RE RX570 vs RX580, how much are you paying for each? The actual retail prices of those cards aren't competitive anymore, so you need to be getting them on one of the crazy specials for them to make sense... like the $120 570 I linked above. Do you have those options at your local Microcentre?

 

[Jguerin2121]

If you want to build tomorrow then that 9400F + B360 is the way to go.

I really don't think stepping up to the 9600K + Z390 is even remotely worthwhile. You'll need to add a cooler because the 9600K doesn't include one. Once you've spend all that extra money you'll get 10% better performance out of the box. If you're prepared to overclock (and have the cooling to support it) you can stretch that out to maybe 20% better performance. That extra performance will only matter when you're CPU bound. Given you're looking at a ~$150 GPU... you'll be almost exclusively GPU bound unless/until you upgrade the GPU down the road. Value wise the 9600K + Z390 is a nonstarter IMHO.

RE RX570 vs RX580, how much are you paying for each? The actual retail prices of those cards aren't competitive anymore, so you need to be getting them on one of the crazy specials for them to make sense... like the $120 570 I linked above. Do you have those options at your local Microcentre?

Yeah I've decided the 9400F is gonna be my go to for now. And here are all my options for 570/ 580

MSI Armor Radeon RX 570 Overclocked Dual-Fan 8GB GDDR5: 209.99 (151.96 open box comes w/ warranty)

Red Dragon rx 570 4GB for $128.99

ASUS ROG Radeon RX 570 Overclocked Dual-Fan 4GB GDDR5: 284 regular on sale 199 (open box for 119)

Theres a few others but those seem to be the best ones.

For the 580s

ASUS Dual Radeon RX 580 Overclocked Dual-Fan 4GB GDDR5: $153

PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 580 Dual-Fan 8GB GDDR5: $147.96

PowerColor Red Devil AXRX Radeon RX 580 Overclocked Dual-Fan 8GB GDDR5: $151.96

Again a few others but those seem to be the best deals. Thanks in advance

 

[rhysiam]

Wow, those RX580s are priced well. For an $20 extra it's absolutely worth grabbing one of those 8GB 580. That page of benchmarks I posted above includes both RX570 & 580 results so you can compare: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/gaming-pc.3496031/
The 580 is around 15% faster. Grab a 8GB model and you have double the VRAM which might come in handy from time to time.

I believe those 580 "Red Devil" cards are triple slot, so make sure you've got the space. Don't get the MSI version as it's only got half the VRAM.

 

[Jguerin2121]

Wow, those RX580s are priced well. For an $20 extra it's absolutely worth grabbing one of those 8GB 580. That page of benchmarks I posted above includes both RX570 & 580 results so you can compare: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/gaming-pc.3496031/
The 580 is around 15% faster. Grab a 8GB model and you have double the VRAM which might come in handy from time to time.

I believe those 580 "Red Devil" cards are triple slot, so make sure you've got the space. Don't get the MSI version as it's only got half the VRAM.

Ya I'll probably go with the red dragon 580 8GB then for 147. Gonna do Samsung 860 Evo I think it's called SSD. I have a cheaper 1TB HD already. I was just looking on microcenter and they have a AMD Ryzen 5 2600X with Wraith Spire Cooler, Gigabyte B450M DS3H CPU / Motherboard Bundle for literally the same price as the 9400F B360 bundle. I hope my questions arent getting too annoying lol is this gonna be basically the same? Does one make more sense?

 

[rhysiam]

Ya I'll probably go with the red dragon 580 8GB then for 147. Gonna do Samsung 860 Evo I think it's called SSD. I have a cheaper 1TB HD already. I was just looking on microcenter and they have a AMD Ryzen 5 2600X with Wraith Spire Cooler, Gigabyte B450M DS3H CPU / Motherboard Bundle for literally the same price as the 9400F B360 bundle. I hope my questions arent getting too annoying lol is this gonna be basically the same? Does one make more sense?

I don't mind the questions, though I am about to leave so it might be a while before I check back in.

RE 9400F vs 2600X, you could go either way on that one. The Intel will offer better single-threaded gaming performance. In most games that won't be noticeable with your RX 580, but there are games around which are just better optimised for the Intel platform. The Ryzen 2600X is a capable gaming CPU, but you are likely to encounter games which would have ran 10-20% faster had you bought the Intel.

On the other hand, the Ryzen 2600X gets you a quieter cooler and double the threads. It's measurably faster in highly threaded tasks. It also supports faster memory (get a 3200Mhz kit) which does occasionally have an impact on minimum FPS. The biggest plus for Ryzen is upgrade-ability. AMD is about to release 8, 12 and 16 cores on AM4, and next year we'll see the Zen 3 architecture. All of these future options should be compatible with that B450 board. Unless you can get a bargain second hand, an Intel CPU upgrade almost certainly requires a new motherboard.

You can make an argument either way. Personally I'd go with Ryzen, partly because I like AMD's innovation of late and would rather support them, but there will be the odd game where that decision costs you a bit of raw performance. I honestly don't think there's a bad choice between those two.

 

[Jguerin2121]

I don't mind the questions, though I am about to leave so it might be a while before I check back in.

RE 9400F vs 2600X, you could go either way on that one. The Intel will offer better single-threaded gaming performance. In most games that won't be noticeable with your RX 580, but there are games around which are just better optimised for the Intel platform. The Ryzen 2600X is a capable gaming CPU, but you are likely to encounter games which would have ran 10-20% faster had you bought the Intel.

On the other hand, the Ryzen 2600X gets you a quieter cooler and double the threads. It's measurably faster in highly threaded tasks. It also supports faster memory (get a 3200Mhz kit) which does occasionally have an impact on minimum FPS. The biggest plus for Ryzen is upgrade-ability. AMD is about to release 8, 12 and 16 cores on AM4, and next year we'll see the Zen 3 architecture. All of these future options should be compatible with that B450 board. Unless you can get a bargain second hand, an Intel CPU upgrade almost certainly requires a new motherboard.

You can make an argument either way. Personally I'd go with Ryzen, partly because I like AMD's innovation of late and would rather support them, but there will be the odd game where that decision costs you a bit of raw performance. I honestly don't think there's a bad choice between those two.

Well just know your time is much appreciated. I know I've heard WoW is a single core performance game. Do you think I would see much of a difference between the two in WoW specifically with the 580?

 

[rhysiam]

Well just know your time is much appreciated. I know I've heard WoW is a single core performance game. Do you think I would see much of a difference between the two in WoW specifically with the 580?

Much of a difference?: I really don't think so is the best I can say. You can have a hunt around for benchmarks online if you have the time. The problem is that many include top end CPUs like the 8700K and 9900K which clock around 5Ghz. Obviously these are better because Ryzen just can't reach those clockspeeds. The 9400F however tops out at 4.1Ghz, while the 2600X can hit 4.2Ghz. If there are differences it'll come down to how well the game copes with Ryzen's architecture. That I don't know off the top of my head. I don't have experience with WoW on Ryzen, nor do I have time right now to go hunting to see if any reputable sources have attempted to benchmark the game. MMORPGs are notoriously hard to benchmark anyway.

Feel free to research more yourself. Or perhaps someone comes along with further input for you.

The best I can offer is to reiterate my points from above. The 2600X is a very capable gaming CPU. Most games on an RX580 won't show any differences. However, the Intel is measurably, but usually only slightly faster in some games. WoW may well be one of these games, but I don't know. Ryzen offers better multithreaded performance and upgrade options.

I don't think there's a wrong choice here.

I've got to head off now. I'll check back in later to see where you landed.

 

[Shektron]

I agree with everything rhysiam said, Ryzen has better upgradability and more threads, but like you said WoW is dependent on single-core performance. So if you will ONLY play WoW on this system, and nothing else ever, then the 9400F does make more sense. But if there's any chance you will play different games in the future, or you might use the PC for some content creation and/or streaming, then the Ryzen is almost definitely the better option. Plus, the B450 board supports overclocking and faster RAM.

2nd gen Ryzen vs Intel is a very close battle, and both sides have their pros and cons. This battle would have somewhat settled if you could have waited for Ryzen 3000 to launch, but since you wish to build tomorrow, either of the platforms have their merits and demerits, and only you can decide whose merits outweigh the opposition's for your usage.