Hey all!
"The cobbler's children have no shoes." as the saying goes. Upgrading my system has been a long time coming, and as it's been a while since doing so, I figured I'd share the experience!
My considerations were budget (as let’s be reasonable with it being the holidays), noise level since I’m parked next to it throughout the day, and power, as I want to play the newer games on max (or nearly max) settings.
While this isn’t a complete upgrade, it’s quite nearly. I’m holding onto my storage (a Crucial SSD and Samsung HD for archive) and graphics card (Nvidia GTX 1070). My old system is a full tower with an Intel Core i5-3570k with 8gb of RAM.
Some pictures following along with the progress.
The components.
And pile o' storage
Case
Case
Mobo.
Pulling off the stock paste
Home stretch
Storage in
And done!
All in all, I'm incredibly pleased making the jump from Intel to AMD so far. Giving myself more room to breathe on the RAM side and upping the CPU have definitely increased performance of games, as well as productivity. Great temps, too! I have had some minor issues with fan speed revving, but I'm pretty sure it's due to case fans letting the CPU fans do the dirty work first rather than pitching in before they're absolutely needed - a change I'll be making in the cooling profile.
-JP
"The cobbler's children have no shoes." as the saying goes. Upgrading my system has been a long time coming, and as it's been a while since doing so, I figured I'd share the experience!
My considerations were budget (as let’s be reasonable with it being the holidays), noise level since I’m parked next to it throughout the day, and power, as I want to play the newer games on max (or nearly max) settings.
While this isn’t a complete upgrade, it’s quite nearly. I’m holding onto my storage (a Crucial SSD and Samsung HD for archive) and graphics card (Nvidia GTX 1070). My old system is a full tower with an Intel Core i5-3570k with 8gb of RAM.
- Case: For the new build, the case I’ve selected is an NZXT H510 compact mid-tower ATX. The older full tower was convenient, but far too much internal real estate and limited noise reduction. This is my first real dip into a clear window case as well as really giving a damn about cable management.
- Motherboard: The new motherboard, an X570 Aorus Elite from Gigabyte supports a front-facing USB-C port, which is something I’m eager to use for convenient smartphone charging and every other little thing.
- PSU: For power supply, I’m going Corsair RM750, which is a dip down from my previous wattage using an RM850. In my previous build, the CPU and RAM were the biggest bottlenecks, so those are being beefed up the most.
- CPU: I’m jumping from Intel over to an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X which best suits my needs as a gamer. Factors driving me on the switch from Intel to AMD are the excellent performance in gaming combined with improved multi-tasking/productivity capabilities when compared with alternatives. I can’t have browsers with dozens of tabs lagging when giving presentations, and stutter in a grand strategy game is unforgivable. AMD it is! I’m going with the Wraith Prism cooling option that comes stock, as I don’t intend to do any overclocking and it’s quiet enough in the case.
- RAM: To feed Chrome, I’ve upgraded my RAM from 8gb to Gskill Trident Z RGB 16gb DDR4. No, I haven’t quite joined the RGB gang (Wraith Prism notwithstanding), it’s just the best bang for the buck.
- Graphics: My video card is an MSI GTX 1070, still quite adequate.
- Storage: And my storage is primarily SSD, with a single HD for archive.
Some pictures following along with the progress.
The components.
And pile o' storage
Case
Case
Mobo.
Pulling off the stock paste
Home stretch
Storage in
And done!
All in all, I'm incredibly pleased making the jump from Intel to AMD so far. Giving myself more room to breathe on the RAM side and upping the CPU have definitely increased performance of games, as well as productivity. Great temps, too! I have had some minor issues with fan speed revving, but I'm pretty sure it's due to case fans letting the CPU fans do the dirty work first rather than pitching in before they're absolutely needed - a change I'll be making in the cooling profile.
-JP