[SOLVED] New Build

Conspiracy5

Distinguished
Mar 18, 2011
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Alright all, it's time for a new build as my current MOBO is 11 years old. The market has changed considerably since then. First off, i don't really do gaming. This will be a family desktop for school work and amazon shopping. Oldest child is 14 so maybe one day gaming, video editing, coding become a thing but for now I need to handle 134 browser windows open, 12 folders, 17 word/excel documents and stuff like that. :tonguewink:.

I've all but ruled out the i5 11400 because it costs as much as the i5 11600k (just would be a more expensive mobo). But i'm strongly leaning towards the Ryzen 5 5600x. Reason being, performance look very very very close between the ryzen and the 11600. I don't think i would notice the difference at all. When I do see meaningful differences is in ram (intel needs gear 2 for 3200 ram where as the ryzen does not.) Perhaps biggest issue is the power draw. Not because of the electric bill so much as I like to keep a UPS on my computer and those batteries are annoyingly expensive. The extra 100 watts of the intel (blogs indicate it hits nearly 180 watts on stock settings vs 77 for the AMD.) is not a small consideration. Not to mention I don't want to bother with a water cooler that so many recommend on the intel. I don't expect really to overclock for my needs but regardless of aftermarket cool on the intel, I understand the AMD stock cooler is more than adequate. Oh did I mention the 5600x and 11600k are basically the same price as well even before replacing cooler on the intel. Is everyone on the same page there or am I missing something?

Where I am really struggling to be objective is in the MOBO. I remember reading during my research on the 11600k that to get the PCIe 4.0 capability you need to have the z590 mobo. OK fine. I also read that 4.0 is better on AMD boards 24 lanes vs 20? But my desire for 4.0 support is purely to futureproof (which is reasonable as like I said, current machine has 11 year old guts.) But what am I going to need these lanes for? That's the part that is new to me. and M.2 connections. I see mobo reviews listing in the CONS that it only has two M.2 connections. What am going to put in there. Maybe an SSD one day but what else? how many connections does one use? So anyway, back to 4.0, newegg currently lists the cheapest PCIe 4.0 gpu at $420. Holy smokes no thanks, so I'll keep my old GTX 1050 2gb which is PCIe 3.0. I also figure for now to keep my SATA SSD, HDD, and optical drive. Perhaps a NVMe SSD down the road shortly and I do have a M.2 SATA I took from a dead laptop so I would like support for that.

So have I talked myself into the AMD with either x570 or b550? Is there something I am not considering? Any advice on MOBO with the factors I laid out? I'll use wired connection for internet.

Whoops, that was long, thanks for reading.
 
Solution
You have done your research well. But the thing is, the Intel and AMD recommended guidelines have gone for a toss while implementing by board partners. You will find some boards from both B560(Intel) and B550(AMD) supporting PCIe.4, so there are more options than intended. You will need the Z chipset to overclock the CPU though, for Intel. But unlike previous gen. other Intel chipsets are allowing memory overclock. The current generations of both Intel and AMD processors boosts so well to load balancing that there is not much room for OCing, specially with RYZEN. Intel still consumes more power for using the same 14nm node for ages now. To put it in perspective, the current gen. of both Intel and AMD are very good and you cant go wrong...
You have done your research well. But the thing is, the Intel and AMD recommended guidelines have gone for a toss while implementing by board partners. You will find some boards from both B560(Intel) and B550(AMD) supporting PCIe.4, so there are more options than intended. You will need the Z chipset to overclock the CPU though, for Intel. But unlike previous gen. other Intel chipsets are allowing memory overclock. The current generations of both Intel and AMD processors boosts so well to load balancing that there is not much room for OCing, specially with RYZEN. Intel still consumes more power for using the same 14nm node for ages now. To put it in perspective, the current gen. of both Intel and AMD are very good and you cant go wrong either way.
As for the PCIe lanes, there are many uses of the different PCIe. slots like sound cards, network cards, pcie. storage cards, usb expansion cards, etc, NVME storage, etc, but for a typical utility system you might not need all of those things.

What is your budget and location???
 
Solution