[SOLVED] HP AMD Motherboard upgrade

INF1LTR4T0R

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I have an AMD-based HP H8-1214 with FX-8370 on the factory motherboard. I'm considering upgrading the motherboard, keeping with the AMD, along with a new CPU. I'd like to be able to play games on it, namely The Division 1 and 2. For this old beast which CPU/mobo combination would be recommended? Already have new AMD graphics card that is sitting in a box at the moment.
 
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the 1070 is not going to fit, too long. instead I'll be using the AMD RX 570 that I have as backup for now. The motherboard inside the case is matx and I'm familiar with ASRock, MSi, Asus, and Gigabyte. I'm just not familiar with AMD chipset levels compared to Intel's and going with a Ryzen 7 CPU. As I said, this isn't going to be overclocked since the case isn't designed for it. so I'm looking to know which amd matx mobo that is good for gaming without overclocking, not looking at top of the line here to save some money, used with Ryzen 7 cpu (looking at 1700x). the gpu at the moment is on the backburner for now.
Chipset is pretty easy, go with B450 for a 1700X. Avoid X470 (and X570) as the only good reason for one is for a...

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What GPU do you have waiting?

I would probably just start over. Power supply is going to be rather old, and potentially under-powered. HP Chassis is likely to cause fitment issues with a new motherboard.

Now would be a good time to upgrade the storage to an NVMe SSD.

And dropping a new motherboard onto an existing HP Windows install is not likely to go well, particularly with such a jump in hardware.
 

INF1LTR4T0R

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What GPU do you have waiting?

I would probably just start over. Power supply is going to be rather old, and potentially under-powered. HP Chassis is likely to cause fitment issues with a new motherboard.

Now would be a good time to upgrade the storage to an NVMe SSD.

And dropping a new motherboard onto an existing HP Windows install is not likely to go well, particularly with such a jump in hardware.

The only thing that is HP is the Motherboard itself. I've upgraded just about everything else. The PSU was upgraded to Corsair CX550M when upgraded to HD7770 graphics card. For the main drive I'm using Crucial MX500 1TB SSD with a Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD for storage(used to be the main drive). The FX-8370 is an upgrade from FX-8340 that came in with it. Got RX 570 sitting in a box for now, not graphics heavy but will use it once a new motherboard is swapped in. Not looking to go top level for gaming. This is something that won't be overclocked, and kept at factory speeds.

Upgrade list:
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
Radeon HD-7770 1GHz Ed
Corsair CX550M
Asus Xonar SE Soundcard
 
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For any meaningful upgrade you're looking at motherboard, CPU and memory. You can use the 1070 even though it's a few gen's old, so long in the tooth. GPU's are near on impossible to get except at exhorbitant eBay scalper markups, so that's good.

Are you planning this upgrade in the same case? Are you sure the case is ATX-compliant? to fit a standard motherboard? ATX, mATX, mini ITX? If not you'll need a new one. You're concerned about the 1070 fitting it anyway, but a tight fit is still a fit. You have to decide.

One idea is look at a decent prebuilt. They get GPU's and CPU's you can't and you get a system level warranty. Just avoid HP/Lenovo/Dell as they use proprietary parts. Don't worry about the 1070: you could probably sell it, or the GPU you take out of the pre-built, on eBay at way more than you thought possible.
 
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INF1LTR4T0R

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the 1070 is not going to fit, too long. instead I'll be using the AMD RX 570 that I have as backup for now. The motherboard inside the case is matx and I'm familiar with ASRock, MSi, Asus, and Gigabyte. I'm just not familiar with AMD chipset levels compared to Intel's and going with a Ryzen 7 CPU. As I said, this isn't going to be overclocked since the case isn't designed for it. so I'm looking to know which amd matx mobo that is good for gaming without overclocking, not looking at top of the line here to save some money, used with Ryzen 7 cpu (looking at 1700x). the gpu at the moment is on the backburner for now.
 
the 1070 is not going to fit, too long. instead I'll be using the AMD RX 570 that I have as backup for now. The motherboard inside the case is matx and I'm familiar with ASRock, MSi, Asus, and Gigabyte. I'm just not familiar with AMD chipset levels compared to Intel's and going with a Ryzen 7 CPU. As I said, this isn't going to be overclocked since the case isn't designed for it. so I'm looking to know which amd matx mobo that is good for gaming without overclocking, not looking at top of the line here to save some money, used with Ryzen 7 cpu (looking at 1700x). the gpu at the moment is on the backburner for now.
Chipset is pretty easy, go with B450 for a 1700X. Avoid X470 (and X570) as the only good reason for one is for a lot of PCIe lanes and that's negated in mATX where the PCIe slots are limited by the form factor. B550 boards aren't an option because Zen1 and Zen 1+ (2000 series) are incompatible.

With a B450 you can upgrade all the way to 5000 series (Zen 3) later on with BIOS updates. B350 should be avoided since they are incompatible for upgrades to Zen 3 but they also have uniformly terrible VRM's across all mfr's. That's bad for for an 8 core CPU.

There are several good B450 motherboards...I'd suggest MSI B450m Mortar MAX, Asus TUF B450m-PRO (not a PLUS) and Asrock B450m Steel Legend. These will handle 1700X even overclocked.

I know you said you don't want to but fixed manual overclocking of a 1st gen is highly recommended to get decent performance. The boosting algorithm isn't as well developed in 1st gen so you'll rarely see it boosting even to it's rated 3.8Ghz, and even more rarely to it's XFR clocks. Boosting is only on light, bursty processing loads; heavy loads will see it struggling even to exceed it's base clock (3.4Ghz) with stock cooling.

These CPU's, based on a 12nm process, are capable of much more with better cooling. A fixed clock of 3.8G-3.9G, all core, is very easy to get with a 1700X. 4.0-4.1G is possible on 'X' cpus but that takes some tuning to find a good voltage and really good cooling; it's really only an indicator of the margin that's in the CPU.

As far as memory: you'll need DDR4 memory. I'd suggest trying to get some 3600 so you're set up for a 5000 series upgrade later on even though you won't get that with a 1700X CPU. But go no less than 3000 speed as that's most likely what you'll get. Although, 3200 is certainly do-able with tweaking. Also, get 2 sticks as 4 sticks is really hard to get clocked higher. Ryzen loves high-clocked memory.

EDIT: And BTW; if you've not got your CPU yet I'd suggest a 1600, 2600X or even 3600X (if you can) if this system is just for gaming.
 
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INF1LTR4T0R

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Chipset is pretty easy, go with B450 for a 1700X. Avoid X470 (and X570) as the only good reason for one is for a lot of PCIe lanes and that's negated in mATX where the PCIe slots are limited by the form factor. B550 boards aren't an option because Zen1 and Zen 1+ (2000 series) are incompatible.

With a B450 you can upgrade all the way to 5000 series (Zen 3) later on with BIOS updates. B350 should be avoided since they are incompatible for upgrades to Zen 3 but they also have uniformly terrible VRM's across all mfr's. That's bad for for an 8 core CPU.

There are several good B450 motherboards...I'd suggest MSI B450m Mortar MAX, Asus TUF B450m-PRO (not a PLUS) and Asrock B450m Steel Legend. These will handle 1700X even overclocked.

I know you said you don't want to but fixed manual overclocking of a 1st gen is highly recommended to get decent performance. The boosting algorithm isn't as well developed in 1st gen so you'll rarely see it boosting even to it's rated 3.8Ghz, and even more rarely to it's XFR clocks. Boosting is only on light, bursty processing loads; heavy loads will see it struggling even to exceed it's base clock (3.4Ghz) with stock cooling.

These CPU's, based on a 12nm process, are capable of much more with better cooling. A fixed clock of 3.8G-3.9G, all core, is very easy to get with a 1700X. 4.0-4.1G is possible on 'X' cpus but that takes some tuning to find a good voltage and really good cooling; it's really only an indicator of the margin that's in the CPU.

As far as memory: you'll need DDR4 memory. I'd suggest trying to get some 3600 so you're set up for a 5000 series upgrade later on even though you won't get that with a 1700X CPU. But go no less than 3000 speed as that's most likely what you'll get. Although, 3200 is certainly do-able with tweaking. Also, get 2 sticks as 4 sticks is really hard to get clocked higher. Ryzen loves high-clocked memory.

EDIT: And BTW; if you've not got your CPU yet I'd suggest a 1600, 2600X or even 3600X (if you can) if this system is just for gaming.

Thanks for the info, drea.drechsler Out of curiousity what's your take on 2700x? I saw on newegg 2700x was priced lower than the 1700x for some reason.
 
Thanks for the info, drea.drechsler Out of curiousity what's your take on 2700x? I saw on newegg 2700x was priced lower than the 1700x for some reason.
2700x is second gen and a definite improvement on 1st gen (1700x). There's a lot of improvement, especially in the memory controller as it's rated for 2933 vs 2666. There's only a very slight IPC uplift but it's much more capable of hitting higher clocks. And PBO actually works so you don't have to run a fixed all-core overclock to get great performance out of it.

I can't say why it would be priced cheaper but I'd definitely go with one of those over 1700x.
 

INF1LTR4T0R

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2700x is second gen and a definite improvement on 1st gen (1700x). There's a lot of improvement, especially in the memory controller as it's rated for 2933 vs 2666. There's only a very slight IPC uplift but it's much more capable of hitting higher clocks. And PBO actually works so you don't have to run a fixed all-core overclock to get great performance out of it.

I can't say why it would be priced cheaper but I'd definitely go with one of those over 1700x.

Thanks for your help, drea.drechsler Now just got to wait for the refund to come in and soon I'll have a custom, modded, inverted pc that will perform better than it did coming out of the box.