Needs Upgrade recommendations on PC

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

herohk0425

Reputable
Jul 7, 2016
46
0
4,530
Been suffering from PC blue screens/crashing these days.
Probably motherboard/ram/cpu problems because I can't even enter BIOS sometimes unless I reset CMOS every time.
Makes me want to upgrade my very old computer.
I want to change CPU+MOTHERBOARD+RAM

Here is my pc:
AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H v2
Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 (2Gx2)
Samsung M378B5273CH0-CH9 (4G)
HCG 520w 80 plus
MSI Armor GTX 1070

But I have some concerns about upgrading so I need some advice.
Let's talk about them.
1. I am a youtuber. I now have only 8GB RAM which is not quite enough. Sometimes it not even enough for playing a single game. So I think I'll go 32GB RAM since I may need to edit/render the videos through large-ram consuming programs and record gameplays at the same time.

2. As you can see, my PC is older than your grandfather. I am that kind of "too lazy to change components until it's broken/can't meet my requirements" people. So I want my PC's life as long as possible.

3. Also, I want to lower the cost as much as possible. I only started my business a few ago. The money I earn is only enough to upgrade my PC. See it as a kind of...investment.

Based on these concerns, I have two questions.

1. go i5 or i7? I don't know i5 is enough or not. I have thought about i7...but again, I want to save my money. Also, should I go skylake or kabylake? Their price do not make a big difference, although skylake a bit cheaper.

2. OC or not? OC means extra cost on cpu+RAM+motherboard, although it may provide a long life existence of PC. But it may also does the opposite side. I am OCing my 1055t CPU to reduce the bottleneck of holding back my GTX 1070. Been okay but it occurs problem like I mentioned above. Now I reset everything to default so I can type this. I don't know when it will crash again.
I don't know if OC is worth it or not.

Thank you for reading this and if you have specific model type of CPU+MB+RAM to recommend, please do let me know whether if it for OC or not.

 


So...if I have to go 32 GB RAM with ocing ryzen 1600, for some stupid reasons, the speed of the ram can't go to 3200 mhz and thus lower the clock speed of ocing, right?

Then, I only have two options:
1. stay with 32 GB RAM, go Gskill 2800 mhz, and try to oc the cpu as much as I can ( bet the unlikely chance of going Gskill 3200mhz and try to oc as well)
I just watched a video, a guy in the comment mentioned"For those interested, i'm running my Ryzen 1600 on stock cooler overclocked to 3.8ghz with only 1.25v stable; RAM is 2666mhz. Temp around idle 37c and load 74c when stress testing. Cinebench single: 154 multi:1239. Pretty good overclock compared to AIO cooler!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWMIpVrVQ0

Well, I think I can accept 3.8 GHZ

2. only go 16 GB RAM, buy 3200mhz ram and wait for the fix in the future. Then I add back the 16 GB RAM? Is this issue likely to be fixed?

Actually I want to ask do I need a 212X CPU cooler?
 
^

1. Ram speed has nothing to do with the ability the overclock the CPU itself.
2. You don't NEED an aftermarket cooler for 3.7/3.8ghtz if your ambient temps & case cooling are decent.
3. If you want 32gb go for a 2stick kit now , as I said it'll likely top out at 2666mhz though - I personally don't consider that any kind of real issue.
 


What???Then why u guys recommend 3000 mhz or above RAM for me ? So you mean I still can achieve 3.9-4.1 GHZ with 2666 mhz ram?
 
2666 is the sweet spot mate , don't buy lower than that.
Ram speed does make a performance difference under rendering tasks etc with ryzen.There is a fairly big performance difference between 2133 & 3200 (near 10%) under certain uses.
2666 is right in the middle & where you want to be minimum.

3.8ghz is about the max with the included spire cooler while still keeping reasonable temps.
I would not buy an aftermarket cooler yet.
Try the included spire first , its incredibly good for a stock cooler (around 4x the size of the old amd square stock coolers) , it will likely do the job fine .

You can always change it later if you're unhappy.
 


Thx man! I am going :
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor
MSI B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard
(Just to assure the most important thing of MB is 350 chip-set right? or it has to be MSI B350 TOMAHAWK in case this is out of stock.)

About RAM, I took a look at the price list on some shop's website in my country. G-SKILL 32 GB with 2 sticks is quite expensive. It's around USD 294.265 and some of them even above this. I dunno why G-SKILL is some expensive in my country.
So, Can I go Corsair? Will it affect OCing or some other important elements like that?
32 GB 2 sticks is USD 212.025.

Also, I forgot chaning these components means reinstalling windows. I may need to acquire a 240 gb ssd and a 3 TB HD since I only have a 60g ssd for C drive windows and it always out of space. And I have a 500g and 1 TB hdd which are always facing space problem making me have to delete things.
Is there any decent specific model type suggestions? No requirement. Cheap is good. And the hd does not need to be 3TB. Just I thought it's the minimum requirement. If it's above 3 TB and more cost-effective than 3TB, then I can accept it.
 
most ram you can get running at 2666 so if the corsair is that much cheaper then stick with it.

Boards ?? yes the b350's are your value option

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/CczZxr,fPDzK8,2pnG3C,Y4kwrH/

ssd's ?? There are 3 or 4 models that I would not purchase personally

What country actually are you?
 


Gigabyte in my country is the most expensive one. Well Asrock is the cheapest. Since ASUS and MSI have the same price, I'll pick ASUS. Just like its BIOS menu more lol.

I am in Hong Kong. Been using crucial ssd 60g, wd green 1 TB and seagate 500g. Any suggestions?
 
Out of those 4 boards the asrock fatality k4 is the board I would personally pick.
I own the asrock pro4 which is essentially the same but white & black color wise.

SSD's ,kingston hyper x & crucial mx300 are the drives Im currently running myself.
All my platter drives are Toshiba DT01ACA300 3tb models,these are the best priced drive here in the UK ive not a singular issue with 8 drives.
 


Can you tell me which brand name you would not purchase of HD & SDD and why?
 
Sandisk ssd plus , sandisk z410, either of the cheap WD blue models, Kingston ssdnow sv300.

Straight steer clears mate , they're slow slow slow (rehashed nand from 2012 model drives) for ssd drives & with plenty other options available they're bad buys.

What's actually available to you ?? & at what price.
All the Samsung drives are going to be fast & dependable but they tend to come at a 20% price premium over her in the UK.
 


Followed Your Advice mate.
Crucial MX300 275GB CT275MX300SSD1 2.5" SATA 3 6Gb/s (Solid State Drive, SSD) HKD 730
240G, Hyper-X FURY, 2.5", MLC, SHFS37A/240G, SSD, SATA3, HKD $705
240G, Kingston, 2.5", MLC, Hyper-X Savage, SSD, SATA3, HKD 829

If hyper-x savage does not have a big difference with fury, then I think I'll go the above two and see which one is cheaper based on in stock price.

For HD, I'll simply go this since it is the most cost-effective one compared to others.
TOSHIBA 3TB SATA3 Desktop Hard Drives (DT01ACA300 / 64MB Cache / 7200RPM) HKD 535
 


That extra 30 gb is pretty attractive to me too.

Just find out that amd ryzen cpu does not support windows 7?! Is that true? That will be annoying if I have to switch windows 10....
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11182/how-to-get-ryzen-working-on-windows-7-x64

People have it running on win 7.

The main issue is USB keyboard mouse support not working on installation - meaning you can't select anything to start the install.

Most (if not all) of the b350 boards have a ps2 port so a cheap ps2 or a ps2/USB adapter (which I have hundreds of) should bypass that issue.

The next major one is the blocking of updates on win 7 & 8.1 which as far as I'm aware is also an issue with kaby lake.

Make your self an integrated boot disk with the latest updates already installed & it will work.

Honestly though ?? You really do want to be on win 10 at the endnof the day.


 
Now that I have clarified all upgrade things. Thank you guys for helping me out. I really appreciate it!

I want to ask a extra question. As I mentioned before, my PC keep crashing and I am pretty sure it's the MB. Because it is the third time that it has broken. I have a spare MB which is ASUS M5A 78L-M LX V2. I want to switch from my gigabyte to it so that I can work and hold on a few days before I purchase the components. It's a common sense that changing components means reinstalling windows. But I find a case that I don't need to do so. It says just change it and load into the windows and reinstall the drivers is okay.

Is that true?http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2387589/upgrade-cpu-mobo-reinstalling-windows-ssd-write-limit.html

Also, I found out a few methods that makes you do not need to reinstall. But they include IDE/AHCI/RAID mode and I have using a ssd for windows. Do these methods work for my case?

http://www.dowdandassociates.com/blog/content/howto-repair-windows-7-install-after-replacing-motherboard/
http://www.wintips.org/how-to-replace-motherboard-without-re-installing-windows/