Looking for advice on upgrading PC / Motherboard & CPU

[miraboo]

Hi!

I have been somewhat of a "lurker" over the years on Tomshardware and the community have proven to be indispensable in it's solutions to any problems I've related to in the past. I hope you can be of help in this situation too.

My ancient PC has been trudging it's way along over the past 7 years and I have finally succumbed to upgrading it's parts.

This my current build: uk.pcpartpicker.com

There are an additional 3 generic case fans, though I am unsure on the specifics of them.

I generally use my PC for gaming (such as World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Conan Exiles etc) and for watching movies/series. I use dual monitors and tend to have a stream open on the second monitor while gaming (to elaborate, I am watching a stream, not streaming myself). I run them at a 1080x1920 resolution.

Several parts have already been upgraded, as such I'm only looking to further upgrade the motherboard and potentially the CPU. Nevertheless, I welcome additional suggestions.

I have a budget of around £120 at a push for the motherboard and £250 (give or take) for a CPU. I'm looking to purchase these parts asap and would prefer to buy from Amazon.co.uk due to prime delivery services. I am however, again, open to suggestions.

I must admit a fondness for Intel and Asus, but I'm sure I can be persuaded otherwise. :lol:

This being my first post, I hope I detailed the majority of the required information. Let me know if there is anything more I can provide!

A big thanks! x

 

[vMax]

Okay, couple of issues here as a move up to 8th gen Intel or Ryzen will necessitate moving to DDR 4 whic will add to the overall cost and go beyond your budget.

Core i5-8400 at £164.00 from Scan UK
Motherboard MSI Z370 Pro at £89.99 from Scan UK
RAM 16GB 2x8 Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3000 at £140.99 Brilliant Price from Scan UK

Total Price £394.98

This all takes you just over your budget by about £24.98..not too bad at all. But do shop around as you could save a few pounds at other online stores..The RAM is on sale at the moment at a simply great price for DDR 4 3000MHz

You can lower the price by going for a cheaper motherboard but I would stick with Z370 as they have a BIOS update for the 9th Gen Intel CPU's 9700K, 9800K and the 9900K

On the Ryzen front:

 

[profoundnoah]

Do note that any major upgrade would require a new kit of RAM as well, which would run you another 140 GBP. Are you looking to overclock at all? I would look into a core i5 8400 and a B360 board in your case.

EDIT:
Ninja'd.

 

[vMax]

On the Ryzen front:

Motherboard Asus Prime B450 Plus at £92.48 Scan UK
Ryzen 5 2600 at £144.97 at Scan UK
RAM 16GB 2x8 Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3000 at £140.99 Brilliant Price from Scan UK

Total £378.44 For AMD Ryzen Setup Nearly £9 over budget...not bad at all

The rest of your system is fairly good to reuse in the GPU, SSD and HD etc...

Inetl will be just a tad faster..

 

[logainofhades]

With such a low budget, and needing to add ram, I would go with Ryzen, for your upgrade. This is without shopping around.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£135.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350-Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard (£69.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot - Viper 4 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£153.47 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £359.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-22 22:31 BST+0100

 

[vMax]

Yep do shop around as there are deals to be had from Scan, Overclockers, CCL, Novatech and Amazon of course...but you can get a fairly good setup..

 

[miraboo]

That sure was a quick response!

I must say that the MSI Z370 looks lovely. I feel a little bit silly as I just recently bought the HyperX Fury sticks of RAM (I should probably have detailed that in my original post, sorry!). Would the upgrade from DDR3 to DDR4 really make that much of a difference for the cost?

I am not too fussed about overclocking, mostly to my lack of knowledge regarding it. :lol: I feel as though the Z370 might be the better choice for the size of my PC's case, rather than the B360.

Would it be plausible to use the HyperX Fury RAM for now, and upgrade it at a later time when I am able to bump up that budget?

 

[vMax]

Hi miraboo..no problems at all...DDR4 will make a difference as it is a must on the Ryzen and Intel 7th and 8th Gen platforms...Overall if Gaming is the focus then the Intel side just edges it and the 8400 is great value for a 6 core CPU and it does have an upgrade path now. Ryzen will also game great but comes into its own if you are doing more than just gaming say, editing, encoding etc.

Also as an upograde to the latest generation in ryzen or Intel will see you good for a fair few years... and the power on tap now is great..

Just realised you said HyperX memory, if it is DDR3 then no, if its DDR4 then yes...

 

[miraboo]

Okay, that definitely clears things up there for me. Gaming would indeed be the main focus for me.

With all things considered (and probably with a bit of Intel bias), I am warming towards the idea of getting the i5-8400 with the MSI Z370.

Thank you all for the abundance of information, this will prove very useful!

 

[vMax]

No problems at all..enjoy your upgrade..

 

[clarkjd]

Would it be plausible to use the HyperX Fury RAM for now, and upgrade it at a later time when I am able to bump up that budget?

No, you CANNOT use DDR3 ram in a DDR4 motherboard.

 

[logainofhades]

Z370 is pointless with a locked CPU, but that motherboard is a pretty good deal.