Time to upgrade i5-3450? Build suggestions?

Skoll357

Honorable
May 29, 2012
12
0
10,510
I feel like after 6 years my CPU is holding my system back. I'm looking at getting a Ryzen 2600 due to the price/performance on it. Thinking of:

G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($104.99 @ Newegg)
AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.99 @ Amazon)
MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard ($105.00 @ OutletPC)

Total: $369.98

Alternate suggestions for components are welcome but my budget is $400 or less, closer to $350 would be better.

Currently play most things at 1080p with a 60Hz monitor. May be looking to move to a 1440p 144Hz monitor at some point. Also looking at purchasing an Oculus Rift. My conundrum is whether to purchase the Rift now and wait about a year to upgrade, or upgrade now and purchase the Rift later. I'm worried about the 3450 being enough for the Rift though, plus that would be another year of sub-par performance on non-VR games which would still compose the bulk of my gaming.

Current specs:

Sapphire 390X
i5-3450
8 GB Gskill Ripjaw DDR3 RAM @ 1600mhz
750 Watt Seasonic Focus Gold PSU
Also have a Hyper 212 EVO that I could attach to the new CPU for some light overclocking.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.
 

huntlong

Respectable
Aug 17, 2017
335
1
2,115
If you find a cheaper B350 board that would save you some money. Also I’d definitely make an SSD my boot drive if you don’t have one already. It makes such a huge difference. A 1tb Samsung 860 evo is only about $145 right now. You should be able to swing this saving the money on the motherboard. If not then a 500gb would be fine for a boot drive and also give you some extra high speed storage.
 

Skoll357

Honorable
May 29, 2012
12
0
10,510
I already boot from an SSD and have another small one installed for the select few games that massively benefit.
 

huntlong

Respectable
Aug 17, 2017
335
1
2,115
I’d still take the B350 board with the Ryzen 2600 and save the rest toward a new GPU unless the look of the motherboard is just very important to you. That is a very good upgrade path though.