[SOLVED] Upgrade after 10 years: 5600X build

[grole]

In short:

Comments please on these components for moderate gaming / photo editing. GPU will come later, hopefully a 3070 Ti or similar.

5600X
B550 AORUS PRO AC
Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600
Noctua NH-U12S OR CM Hyper 212
RMx (2018) 750
980 Pro 1 TB OR 980 1TB
(existing 1050 Ti + U3011 + case + storage etc.)

Long version with details:

I figure after 10 years it's time for a major upgrade. The current PC has served me very well, and I'd hope the new one would also last a long time.

Currently I'm playing through some 5-6 year old games (still new to me!), mainly sim racing. I'm running 2560x1600 at 60Hz for the foreseeable future. With a GPU upgrade later I'd hope to also play newer titles, with reasonable frame rates (much later perhaps with a higher refresh rate).

I also do photo editing in Lightroom, currently with 20 megapixel jpegs and sometimes raw, but maybe larger files in the future. No video editing thus far, if anything minor editing of family videos at 1080p.

Budget is open, although I do want good value for money and don't want to pay for features I don't need. No interest in RGB or asthetics, although the cleaner the case is inside the better.

I've added some comments and questions to the list below. I'd appreciate any suggestions on it. I'm mainly looking for pitfalls I may regret later, or things I should just upgrade now and not wait for. Thanks in advance!

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/3kfNt8

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (€264.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)

• already purchased, can be returned but I'm pretty settled on this. I like the low power usage and good performance for the price.
• I won't overclock for now but probably crank it up later, but only a moderate amount

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S (€67.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)

• I gather using the stock cooler is not the best even though I won't OC yet. Probably better to put a good one in and enjoy the reduced noise now rather than swap out later?
• I'd also consider the Cooler Master Hyper 212 for about half the price

Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO AC ATX AM4 Motherboard (€137.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)

• I like this board as it has lots of USB, mainly
• also considered the B550 Gaming Edge Wifi (over the Tomahawk as I don't need 2x LAN)
• don't really need wifi but I like the idea of BT which seems to come with it, and wifi might be handy if my LAN connection gives me trouble
• open to other cheaper suggestions as well, or others also up to 160€. I would want to stay with a B550 board though

Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory (€87.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
- Would the photo editing benefit from 32gb? If yes, should I go 4x8gb (with possible performance benefit?), or 2x16b leaving space for up to 64 later?

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€179.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)

• Is this overkill? Idea is to make use of the PCIe 4.0. Certainly any NVme PCIe SSD would blow away my current SATA (below). But if I will notice a sizable difference (even if it's not for gaming), I'm inclined to bite the bullet and enjoy the speed difference right from the start.
• if not, I'd consider the normal 980 1TB, or a WD Blue 1TB, or other suggestions?

Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€111.62 @ Amazon Deutschland)



Components to be re-used:

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB Video Card (Purchased For €0.00)
- to be used as bottleneck for now (as I said, I'm happy with older games) until GPU prices are normal, then probably a 3070 Ti or similar

Storage: Crucial BX500 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For €0.00)
- my current system drive. idea would be to complement the new 1TB drive for extra game storage

Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For €0.00)
- archive disk for photos and videos, currently also used for games

Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For €0.00)

• hoping to use this as I like it, will upgrade but only if necessary due to thermal or space issues
• one 120 front fan, one rear, and one 140 on top right now. could add another 120 to the front and I think to the side panel, although not sure that would do much

Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For €0.00)
- need this for optical photo backup

Monitor: Dell U3011 30.0" 2560x1600 60 Hz Monitor (Purchased For €0.00)

• love this thing and hate the fact that 16:10 was killed off. I use it together with two 2007fp vertically for work
• I'd only replace it with another 30" 16:10 or a 32" 16:9 with probably 4K or maybe 1440 and higher refresh

2nd Video Card: MSI Geforce GT 730 2GB (Purchased)

• I know. I'm currently using this beside the 1050 Ti just to run a TV beside my PLP setup, no big graphic demand on it and not running while gaming. Works fine, btw, with my 15 year old 550W PSU. I think it runs on x4 maybe?
• to be removed when I get a new GPU with 4x video out

 

[Lutfij]

Your build looks good, should last you a while but that case...needs a change in 10 years a lot has changed some of them being layout, size and the stuff that you can cram in said chassis. Might want to drop a little love on that aspect. Also, as for your Storage recycling, please be sure to reinstall your OS since migrating the installation from one platform to another will cause you to rip your hair out.

 

[mdd1963]

Skip the Hyper 212...

If your case accommodates the mounting 166 mm mounting height of of Noctua's NH-D15, it a near-silent masterpiece of cooling. (There is a a slightly smaller Dark Rock Pro 4 that is about half the cost )

Samsung's own 970 EVO Plus, although 'only' PCI-e 3.0, is still an adept addition to any storage when it can be acquired for quite a bit less than the 980 Pro, and no one is likely to notice the 1/8 of a second difference in game launch or OS boot times....

 

[mamasan2000]

16 Gigs of RAM is starting to be a limiting factor in games. AC: Valhalla pulls 10-12 gigs (this is WITH Win10 using roughly 4 gigs, wanted to make it clear), GR: Breakpoint is the same or more. Add a couple pages open in a webbrowser plus other programs in the background and you have a nice bottleneck.
I would definitely recommend 32 gigs, 2x16. 2 sticks are easier to run than 4 so you should be able to run RAM at XMP without any problems. 4 sticks might work but also might not work at all @ XMP. Can you upgrade RAM later? Not without issues. RAM doesn't like mixing. It might work with another kit of RAM, it might not. My recommendation is to buy what you need, now, the right capacity and speed.
You should be able to tell us how much RAM Lightroom uses. What does Task Manager say Adobe Lightroom is using? Run a few different loads and see how it fluctuates. Should give you an idea of what you need.

I have an Antec P280, love the case, fulltower. Thumbscrews everywhere, tons of room. Only downside is, it only takes 240mm radiator. If I could fit a 280 or 360mm Rad I would be good for another 10 years. But who knows, maybe in the future CPUs come with waterchannels in them and it's fine with 240mm Rad. I got this case because newer GPUs wouldn't fit in old case, neither would CPU aircoolers. An old Chieftec case from year 2000.

A couple critical measures to look at for cases: Max GPU length, Max HSF (heatsinkfan, CPU aircooler) height, Max PSU length and possibly Max Radiator space at the top or in the front, 240mm minimum, bigger is better.
Around 30-35 cm for GPU is nice, depends on your GPU of course. 16-18 cm for HSF. PSUs look to be 14-16 cm, modular is very nice, only need to connect cables you actually need. Doesn't become a cluttered mess. 280/360mm for Rad if you plan to get one.

In terms of GPU length, I wonder how large they will be in the future. AMD has MCM coming in RDNA3 and Nvidia has something very similar in Hopper, should be out next year. 2 GPU chips on one card, as I understand it. I assume those cards will be larger.

 

[Flayed]

I think I would get an 850W PSU over a 750W one just to be sure, having been caught out with a PSU in the past. Who knows maybe you will find a great deal on a 3080 ti sometime in the future.

 

[g-unit1111]

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€179.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)

• Is this overkill? Idea is to make use of the PCIe 4.0. Certainly any NVme PCIe SSD would blow away my current SATA (below). But if I will notice a sizable difference (even if it's not for gaming), I'm inclined to bite the bullet and enjoy the speed difference right from the start.
• if not, I'd consider the normal 980 1TB, or a WD Blue 1TB, or other suggestions?

There really isn't such a thing as overkill when it comes to storage. However I will say that after building a 3900X rig with a 4th gen drive (Sabrent Rocket) and a 5600X rig with a 3rd gen drive (WD Black SN750), I really haven't seen much of a difference in read - write times. You can always reuse your older, slower drives for secondary or backup storage.

Skip the Hyper 212...

If your case accommodates the mounting 166 mm mounting height of of Noctua's NH-D15, it a near-silent masterpiece of cooling. (There is a a slightly smaller Dark Rock Pro 4 that is about half the cost )

Agreed. That's a definite no for any current gen AMD or Intel CPU.

16 Gigs of RAM is starting to be a limiting factor in games. AC: Valhalla pulls 10-12 gigs (this is WITH Win10 using roughly 4 gigs, wanted to make it clear), GR: Breakpoint is the same or more. Add a couple pages open in a webbrowser plus other programs in the background and you have a nice bottleneck.

Also agreed, especially considering now that RAM modules are coming down in price, you can pick up a 32GB klt for not that much more than a 16GB kit if you don't mind losing the RGB bells and whistles.

 

[grole]

Your build looks good, should last you a while but that case...needs a change in 10 years a lot has changed some of them being layout, size and the stuff that you can cram in said chassis. Might want to drop a little love on that aspect. Also, as for your Storage recycling, please be sure to reinstall your OS since migrating the installation from one platform to another will cause you to rip your hair out.

Certainly I'll do a fresh install on the new drive. What exactly would i have for problems with the case? Just curious because if I'm expecting issues I might just order a new one and send it back if not needed. Until now I was under the impression mine would work assuming I'll not be water cooling.

 

[grole]

Skip the Hyper 212...

If your case accommodates the mounting 166 mm mounting height of of Noctua's NH-D15, it a near-silent masterpiece of cooling. (There is a a slightly smaller Dark Rock Pro 4 that is about half the cost )

Samsung's own 970 EVO Plus, although 'only' PCI-e 3.0, is still an adept addition to any storage when it can be acquired for quite a bit less than the 980 Pro, and no one is likely to notice the 1/8 of a second difference in game launch or OS boot times....

The U12s is 57€, dark rock 4 is 72€, and the d15 is 90€. Would the upgrade really be worthwhile for the price difference? I'd like a quiet PC at low loads but don't mind hearing it a bit while gaming.

The 970 is Scott 145 compared to 180€ here, so not that much less. Whereas the 980 or WD blue, or crucial go for 95-110€. That'd be more of a savings if they're also good. Or should I go for the 970 minimum?

 

[grole]

There really isn't such a thing as overkill when it comes to storage. However I will say that after building a 3900X rig with a 4th gen drive (Sabrent Rocket) and a 5600X rig with a 3rd gen drive (WD Black SN750), I really haven't seen much of a difference in read - write times. You can always reuse your older, slower drives for secondary or backup storage.



Agreed. That's a definite no for any current gen AMD or Intel CPU.



Also agreed, especially considering now that RAM modules are coming down in price, you can pick up a 32GB klt for not that much more than a 16GB kit if you don't mind losing the RGB bells and whistles.

Actually 32gb is just about twice the price of 16gb. Hence the idea to start with 2x8gb with the option to add another 2x8gb later or of needed (identical RAM)

 

[grole]

I think I would get an 850W PSU over a 750W one just to be sure, having been caught out with a PSU in the past. Who knows maybe you will find a great deal on a 3080 ti sometime in the future.

Thanks! I'll look at that.

 

[grole]

16 Gigs of RAM is starting to be a limiting factor in games. AC: Valhalla pulls 10-12 gigs (this is WITH Win10 using roughly 4 gigs, wanted to make it clear), GR: Breakpoint is the same or more. Add a couple pages open in a webbrowser plus other programs in the background and you have a nice bottleneck.
I would definitely recommend 32 gigs, 2x16. 2 sticks are easier to run than 4 so you should be able to run RAM at XMP without any problems. 4 sticks might work but also might not work at all @ XMP. Can you upgrade RAM later? Not without issues. RAM doesn't like mixing. It might work with another kit of RAM, it might not. My recommendation is to buy what you need, now, the right capacity and speed.
You should be able to tell us how much RAM Lightroom uses. What does Task Manager say Adobe Lightroom is using? Run a few different loads and see how it fluctuates. Should give you an idea of what you need.

I have an Antec P280, love the case, fulltower. Thumbscrews everywhere, tons of room. Only downside is, it only takes 240mm radiator. If I could fit a 280 or 360mm Rad I would be good for another 10 years. But who knows, maybe in the future CPUs come with waterchannels in them and it's fine with 240mm Rad. I got this case because newer GPUs wouldn't fit in old case, neither would CPU aircoolers. An old Chieftec case from year 2000.

A couple critical measures to look at for cases: Max GPU length, Max HSF (heatsinkfan, CPU aircooler) height, Max PSU length and possibly Max Radiator space at the top or in the front, 240mm minimum, bigger is better.
Around 30-35 cm for GPU is nice, depends on your GPU of course. 16-18 cm for HSF. PSUs look to be 14-16 cm, modular is very nice, only need to connect cables you actually need. Doesn't become a cluttered mess. 280/360mm for Rad if you plan to get one.

In terms of GPU length, I wonder how large they will be in the future. AMD has MCM coming in RDNA3 and Nvidia has something very similar in Hopper, should be out next year. 2 GPU chips on one card, as I understand it. I assume those cards will be larger.

Thanks! I'll have a good look at the RAM, probably start with 2x8gb and add 2 more soon if I think there will be an issue.

I've got a scythe Mugen 2 in the current case, which isn't small, so i assumed it will work. I might just order a new one anyway though so that it's there when I build if needed. Any recommendations for a tower? Nothing flashy, just simple and good quality. I guess the antec 300 is a mid tower so I'd want to keep that size.

 

[Flayed]

If you already have a Mugen 2 I would just reuse that

 

[Vic 40]

Don't think a Mugen 2 has AM4 mounting hardware ...

 

[mamasan2000]

Thanks! I'll have a good look at the RAM, probably start with 2x8gb and add 2 more soon if I think there will be an issue.

I've got a scythe Mugen 2 in the current case, which isn't small, so i assumed it will work. I might just order a new one anyway though so that it's there when I build if needed. Any recommendations for a tower? Nothing flashy, just simple and good quality. I guess the antec 300 is a mid tower so I'd want to keep that size.

I'm not in the market for a case so I haven't payed a lot of attention. Plus, I only go for fulltowers. Can't beat that space, easy to install into, work with, has room for everytthing you can think of. 6 harddrives? Go ahead!
That said, Fractal Design-cases are nice. Silent, roomy. The Define 7-series.
I think this Antec case was released recently: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/antec-p82-silent-review Midtower, silent.
P101 might be worth a look too, midtower still. https://www.antec.com/product/case/p101-silent
I'm also not into tempered glass or RGB. You might be so shop around.

 

[g-unit1111]

Actually 32gb is just about twice the price of 16gb. Hence the idea to start with 2x8gb with the option to add another 2x8gb later or of needed (identical RAM)

Depends on the modules. I just bought a set of G Skill 32GB Ripjaw V modules for $139 which is about the same as what I paid for a 16GB set like 2 years ago.

 

[grole]

Ok so I've switched gears and decided to leave my current PC alone and use it for office and photo editing, while building a new system just for gaming. I'm going to bite the bullet and get a graphics card now, paying "only" about 50% over MRSP. Any final thoughts on this setup?

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/QBn9kX

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For €0.00)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler (€72.16 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard (€154.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory (€77.77 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€117.89 @ Mindfactory)
Video Card: Palit GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB Dual Video Card (€647.99 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (€87.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€103.46 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1262.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-08-10 13:41 CEST+0200