Time to upgrade my 2500k. I want Ryzen (fits my dsktop use better) but I want advice.

[SRRAE]

I'm biting the bullet and upgrading my computer.
I currently have a i5 2500k with 16GB of ram.

Im thinking of getting a
Ryzen 5 2600x
ASUS PRIME AMD Ryzen X470-PRO AM4 ATX

but I can only afford 8Gb ram

I dont know whether to get 2x4GB sticks and then get the same in a few months or to get a single stick. Will it work like that?
As there is little price difference between the speed of memory, is faster the better?

Question is, would the Ryzen 5 2600x give much performance gain over my 2500K, which currently runs perfectly at 4.5Ghz.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

You probably aren't going to see significant gains, especially in single threaded tasks, but in reasonably threaded apps and games you should see some improvement. Probably not significant gains, since your i5 already runs faster than a 2600x can, but there will be some minor gains. Heavily threaded tasks such as video and rendering work, compression, and all the benchmarks folks always seem to like to run, will see significant gains.

Hamstringing a CPU with a single stick of memory is going to erase a lot of possible gains you might see, and you may see a difference when gaming on the 8 GB vs your current 16 GB, although newer DDR 4 will have much better throughput. Remember that Ryzen prefers higher clocked memory and Samsung B-Die parts seem to have the best compatibility, although other modules have done very well with support since launch.

 

[SRRAE]

So to ask another question.
My current system is the i5 2500K sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3(mid range stuff), GTX 1070. Storage a 500GB SSD, 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD.

My general use is gaming, with a little streaming, video editing and photo editing. The video editing and photo editing is done for fun, youtube, family videos and nothing job wise.

I was considering upgrading as I've noticed a few games are using more and more CPU and when I get significant performance drops its seems its because of CPU as all 4 cores are at 100%

Looking at what I've selected, I could save on the Mobo and ram a little and push for a Ryzen7 2700.

So is it really worth upgrading for the use I have?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

The 2700, especially the non-X is going to perform the same or worse than the 2600x in most of the tasks you list. Clock speed makes a big difference when comparing chips of the same architecture, and the 2600x starts with a higher overall speed and will boost slightly higher than all but the 2700x.

I would say, either go for the 2600x or the 2700x, and save until you can get a matched pair of 2x8 GB RAM modules. Pairing the CPU to less RAM or using it only in single channel mode is only going to limit it's performance. With the newer X models, overclocking is all but pointless, as the boost modes of the new CPUs is very, very good at doing it's job.

In tasks where your i5 CPU is hitting 100%, sure, even a 6 core CPU should give you a boost there. Probably not going to see huge gains, but you will see some gains. It's going to be game dependent of course, but you probably already understand that.

On the other hand, if you're running with a 60 Hz screen when gaming, there may be a limit to how much boost you going to see the benefit from, especially if you're already close to or above 60 FPS.

Your biggest improvement is going to be your video output. For the few minutes or hours you spend a week outputting video, you'll spend probably half that time or less outputting the video with the Ryzen CPU. The whole photo editing or video editing is probably going to feel roughly the same on either system. The user is generally the slowest link in the chain during the edit process, unless you're previewing a lot of effects or do a bunch of scripted tasks like is done when sites benchmark suites like Adobe. Actual time for you, the human, to perform the task is unlikely to change.