Is a major budget upgrade worthwhile?

[useck3019]

MY current setup;
Ga 990XA UD3 rev 1
Phenom II Quadcore 955 BE w ANTEC 920 Kuhler
Radeon HD 6870
4GB Corsair vengeance
Creative X-Fi[ pci card?]
Ubuntu 16.04lts on 120Gb SSD
Windows 10 on 350 Gb Seagare barracuda
Antec 750 earth watts

Ubuntu has been my goto OS for the last 5 yrs hence why its on the ssd and not the slower windows OS. Lately ubuntu has been freezing up alot only for 5 to 10 secs usually but pretty annoying.
One 4 gb stick recently failed memtest after 16 hrs so i got rid of it only to find it still happened.
System resources didnt seem to be totally running out ram as it always hovered between 2-3.3 gigs. Cpu was rarely stressed much as most of my use is heavy browsing with a dozen firefox windows open while listening to or watching youtube.
I switched to Brave browser and things got alot better, it seems to be heavier cpu usage /lower ram usage than FF
eventually i always ended up opening a brave and FF window and bogged things down again .

Before this windows 10 install i was using elementry OS very successfully and almost all my problems were gone. I got this all new fresh install of windows all tuned up just the way i liked and thought i would clone it to another partition on the hdd. Well that borked the bootloader so i lost elementry and the new WIN 10 install and am now just running win 10 on the seagate.

Windows 10 is pretty slow on a spinning drive so my dilemma is do I spend any more money on this old system by;
1. Buy a new ssd for windows- min $100cdn
2. burn/backup anything useful on ubuntu ssd and erase and put windows there-free/few hrs work
and get more ram -min $100 cdn
3. just build a new barebones Ryzen 1200 system, new mobo, 8 GB ram ram -min $500

Is a Ryzen 4 core 1200 and Am4 mobo gonna be that much of an upgrade that it will cure my bottlenecks for a few years at least?

Is my old sound card gonna fit in new mobos? i think its pci, in which case i will need to get a mobo with good sound or buy a $100 Pci-E card?

Will my antec kuhler fit an AM4 mobo?

Is my Pci-E Radeon hd video card compatible with new pci-e3.0 slots?

Mobo features I want; overclocking, M2/Nvme, good sound or a slot for my card, Ryzen AM4

Will amd be making any faster cpus thant R7 1800 or is that the end of the line and its TR4 threadripper from here out?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Have you considered just upgrading your current kit with an 8 core FX processor and new/better/more memory and another SSD? That sounds like the best 'budget' choice since your mobo looks pretty decent. Totally get Win10 off the spinner though. SSD's are faster (than a spinner) and pretty cheap now but if you really want to splurge on the budget you could get a PCIe NVME add-in for an NVME drive. Although booting to it may be an issue.

That said: the best/fastest upgrade that can be considered 'budget' is doubtless gonna be Ryzen. There are many good sub $100 motherboards with for sure bootable M.2 NVME sockets built in and several with PCI slots to support your sound card. But DDR4 memory is very pricey right now, especially if you want a good kit that will do 3200Gt/s with assurity.

If your Kuhler uses the AM3 clip mount it will work with Ryzen...but if it uses screw mounts you'd best check with Antec to see if they made an adapter or something for AM4.

Ryzen single thread performance is very much better than FX and Phenom II so I'm sure you'd notice it and all Ryzen's are overclockable (with B350 or X370 mobo). But whether it's worth it is probably subjective though: it's up to you to decide when the relief from frustration outweighs the hit to the pocketbook!

 

[caqde]

Is a Ryzen 4 core 1200 and Am4 mobo gonna be that much of an upgrade that it will cure my bottlenecks for a few years at least?

Is my old sound card gonna fit in new mobos? i think its pci, in which case i will need to get a mobo with good sound or buy a $100 Pci-E card?

Will my antec kuhler fit an AM4 mobo?

Is my Pci-E Radeon hd video card compatible with new pci-e3.0 slots?

Mobo features I want; overclocking, M2/Nvme, good sound or a slot for my card, Ryzen AM4

Will amd be making any faster cpus thant R7 1800 or is that the end of the line and its TR4 threadripper from here out?

1)The Ryzen 1200 is faster but I'd try to push for a 1400 or 1500X as those are faster than anything on the AM3+ platform the 1200 trades blows with the 8350 depending on the task. (Although at a much lower power consumption). As far as
removing your stalling issues that seems to sound more like an issue with failing media (HDD?)?

2) If it is PCI_E for sure no issue. If it is PCI then maybe depending on the board you decide on but it will severely limit your options and brands.

3) Maybe if you can get a working retention bracket I've read that antec uses standard asetek retention brackets so this might work -> https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asetek-premium-retention-kit-amd-am4-hs-04d-as.html . You might be able to find a company more local to you that sells it also.

4) Not an issue

5) Yes. Threadripper is for the highend and is made using the 8core zen desktop chips. AMD is expected to upgrade the lineup around Feb/March next year so we should see new chips in the next 4 months. The new chips should have higher clock speeds and are made using a slightly smaller process (12nm vs 14nm). It is also possible that they might incorporate Ryzen Mobile's Sense Mi 2 that will give Ryzen a more granular clockspeed drop between its max boost and base clocks based on the amount of cores used (especially useful for games, etc).

As far as AM4 motherboards go. M.2/NVM-e seems to be the norm for the boards I have seen. Support for your sound card would depend on it being either an X-FI Titanium PCI_E or going for the boards with better sound chips which depending on what you prefer might cost more than the $100 you'd spend on a SoundBlaster Z...

EDIT: I should also note that the Asus Crosshair VI Hero (with or without wifi) has the mounting points for AM2(+)/AM3(+) socket coolers along with the AM4 ones. Although it is a really expensive board. The Extreme version doesn't seem to though.

 

[useck3019]

Have you considered just upgrading your current kit with an 8 core FX processor and new/better/more memory and another SSD? That sounds like the best 'budget' choice since your mobo looks pretty decent. Totally get Win10 off the spinner though. SSD's are faster (than a spinner) and pretty cheap now but if you really want to splurge on the budget you could get a PCIe NVME add-in for an NVME drive. Although booting to it may be an issue.

That said: the best/fastest upgrade that can be considered 'budget' is doubtless gonna be Ryzen. There are many good sub $100 motherboards with for sure bootable M.2 NVME sockets built in and several with PCI slots to support your sound card. But DDR4 memory is very pricey right now, especially if you want a good kit that will do 3200Gt/s with assurity.

If your Kuhler uses the AM3 clip mount it will work with Ryzen...but if it uses screw mounts you'd best check with Antec to see if they made an adapter or something for AM4.

Ryzen single thread performance is very much better than FX and Phenom II so I'm sure you'd notice it and all Ryzen's are overclockable (with B350 or X370 mobo). But whether it's worth it is probably subjective though: it's up to you to decide when the relief from frustration outweighs the hit to the pocketbook!

I WANNA SHY AWAY FROM SPENDING MONEY ON DEADEND ARCHITECTURE LIKE DDR3 AND FASTER AM3 CPU.
aNEW SSD IS A GOOD IDEA SINCE IT WILL MOVE FORWARD WITH ANY NEW MOTHERBOARD
i LOOKED INTO A PCIE NVME BUT THEY ALL SEEM TO BE 400 PLUS CDN$
SO I THINK YOU AND THE NEXT GUY HAVE COLLECTIVELY CONVINCED ME A NEW RYZEN UPGRADE IS BEST VALUE THATS SUPPOSEDLY GOING TO BE FUTURE PROOF WITH NEW AM4 CPUS STILL BEING MADE INTO 2019[CROSSFINGERS THEY WILL BE COMPATIBLE, unlike intel who changes chipsets every 3 months!]
Thanks

 

[useck3019]

Is a Ryzen 4 core 1200 and Am4 mobo gonna be that much of an upgrade that it will cure my bottlenecks for a few years at least?

Is my old sound card gonna fit in new mobos? i think its pci, in which case i will need to get a mobo with good sound or buy a $100 Pci-E card?

Will my antec kuhler fit an AM4 mobo?

Is my Pci-E Radeon hd video card compatible with new pci-e3.0 slots?

Mobo features I want; overclocking, M2/Nvme, good sound or a slot for my card, Ryzen AM4

Will amd be making any faster cpus thant R7 1800 or is that the end of the line and its TR4 threadripper from here out?

1)The Ryzen 1200 is faster but I'd try to push for a 1400 or 1500X as those are faster than anything on the AM3+ platform the 1200 trades blows with the 8350 depending on the task. (Although at a much lower power consumption). As far as
removing your stalling issues that seems to sound more like an issue with failing media (HDD?)?

2) If it is PCI_E for sure no issue. If it is PCI then maybe depending on the board you decide on but it will severely limit your options and brands.

3) Maybe if you can get a working retention bracket I've read that antec uses standard asetek retention brackets so this might work -> https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asetek-premium-retention-kit-amd-am4-hs-04d-as.html . You might be able to find a company more local to you that sells it also.

4) Not an issue

5) Yes. Threadripper is for the highend and is made using the 8core zen desktop chips. AMD is expected to upgrade the lineup around Feb/March next year so we should see new chips in the next 4 months. The new chips should have higher clock speeds and are made using a slightly smaller process (12nm vs 14nm). It is also possible that they might incorporate Ryzen Mobile's Sense Mi 2 that will give Ryzen a more granular clockspeed drop between its max boost and base clocks based on the amount of cores used (especially useful for games, etc).

As far as AM4 motherboards go. M.2/NVM-e seems to be the norm for the boards I have seen. Support for your sound card would depend on it being either an X-FI Titanium PCI_E or going for the boards with better sound chips which depending on what you prefer might cost more than the $100 you'd spend on a SoundBlaster Z...

EDIT: I should also note that the Asus Crosshair VI Hero (with or without wifi) has the mounting points for AM2(+)/AM3(+) socket coolers along with the AM4 ones. Although it is a really expensive board. The Extreme version doesn't seem to though.

I THINK I FOUND A BUYER WHO NEEDS A CHEAP BUT BIG UPGRADE WORSE THAN ME and will buy my old mobo/cpu/ram.
SO PUTTTING THAT MONEY TO WARDS A NEW MSI TOMAHAWK B350 MOBO AND RYZEN 1200 which im told can do 3.8ghz on air . I would love to get a ryzen -1600 but money is tight and im told ryzen AM4 cpus will keep getting built faster and cooler and cheaper thru to 2019. Threadripper will be just a wet dream, lol
And yes this B350 mobo has native M2 so that will be the next investment is a 250gb 960 EVO

 

[drea.drechsler]

I WANNA SHY AWAY FROM SPENDING MONEY ON DEADEND ARCHITECTURE LIKE DDR3 AND FASTER AM3 CPU.
aNEW SSD IS A GOOD IDEA SINCE IT WILL MOVE FORWARD WITH ANY NEW MOTHERBOARD
i LOOKED INTO A PCIE NVME BUT THEY ALL SEEM TO BE 400 PLUS CDN$
SO I THINK YOU AND THE NEXT GUY HAVE COLLECTIVELY CONVINCED ME A NEW RYZEN UPGRADE IS BEST VALUE THATS SUPPOSEDLY GOING TO BE FUTURE PROOF WITH NEW AM4 CPUS STILL BEING MADE INTO 2019[CROSSFINGERS THEY WILL BE COMPATIBLE, unlike intel who changes chipsets every 3 months!]
Thanks

I do like that AMD supports their sockets longer, making an AMD system a much better investment overall. But the hints and rumors I've been reading suggest Zen2 will come accompanied with a chipset uplift too. The pundits seem to be hinting at "Ryzen 7-2800X/2700X/2700 (and so on) CPU and X470/B450 chipset" kind of scenarios. I assume that will still be on AM4 sockets, since that's their strategy. But how it works will be interesting to see: it may be like FX processors that worked on older chipsets boards but were optimal with 990 chipsets.

Just something to keep in mind as it's all supposed to be going down in 2018.