[SOLVED] Upgrade of the PC

[namsary]

Hi everybody,

I would like to share my thoughts about upgrade of my PC, since my current MOBO Gigabyte Z87P-D3 is dead. Since it had no support of M2, DDR4 RAM, old socket with installed Intel Core i5-4570S, I have to upgrade not just MOBO (obviously), but also RAM and CPU as well.

What remained from my last built is following:
Case: Zalman Z9 U3
PSU: Corsair VS650
DVD-ROM: ASUS 24F1ST
SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300, 128 GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
GPU: Asus DUAL GTX 1060 O6G
CPU cooler: Scythe Katana 4

Regarding to the choice of the CPU, I am on the crossroads as probably the most people nowadays... AMD or Intel.

What I consider is: i5-9600KF or r5 3600, since I heard, that "X" of 3600 is not wort it.

Main job of the PC is gaming in 1080p, ideally 60 FPS. This I want to remain (if monitor will pass away, MAYBE I will upgrade for 2k, but I am pretty fine with my 1080p). As you noticed already, I have GTX 1060, so I am not willing to pay for GPU's great money... maybe it will change once, but that time I will swith to 4k, which is far away future for me now. Time-to-time I am rendering some videos on this PC as well, but it is really minimum time, which I spend with this stuff, so it is not necessary to take it into consideration. I think, that my current CPU was a little bit bottleneck for my GPU already and I would like to avoid this for a long time. I would like to have capable CPU which will not be bottleneck for GPU for some years, with stressed fact in my mind, that some guys are still running 3rd gen of i7 overclocked till today.

I am thinking in following way with following questions:
Should I buy ryzen 3600, which will be absolutely suitable for x years or to buy 9600KF, which will be capable for years as well and with some overclocking in the future (for this I probably have to buy a new cooler?) will be sufficient longer than r5 3600?

If I will have 3600, should I use box cooler or should I use my KATANA? For KATANA, I will have to buy probably some adapter for AM4 socket.

Since I plan to play in 1080p, 3600/9600KF will be sufficient, or should I spend some more money and buy 3700X/i7-9700 KF? Their price is maximum, which I am willing to pay for CPU, but if it is really not necessary to buy them, to have good CPU for 5-7 years, I am fine with 3600/9600KF.

My last question is, what MOBO and RAM would you recommend for your suggested build?

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[cdrkf]

Hi everybody,

I would like to share my thoughts about upgrade of my PC, since my current MOBO Gigabyte Z87P-D3 is dead. Since it had no support of M2, DDR4 RAM, old socket with installed Intel Core i5-4570S, I have to upgrade not just MOBO (obviously), but also RAM and CPU as well.

What remained from my last built is following:
Case: Zalman Z9 U3
PSU: Corsair VS650
DVD-ROM: ASUS 24F1ST
SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300, 128 GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
GPU: Asus DUAL GTX 1060 O6G
CPU cooler: Scythe Katana 4

Regarding to the choice of the CPU, I am on the crossroads as probably the most people nowadays... AMD or Intel.

What I consider is: i5-9600KF or r5 3600, since I heard, that "X" of 3600 is not wort it.

Main job of the PC is gaming in 1080p, ideally 60 FPS. This I want to remain (if monitor will pass away, MAYBE I will upgrade for 2k, but I am pretty fine with my 1080p). As you noticed already, I have GTX 1060, so I am not willing to pay for GPU's great money... maybe it will change once, but that time I will swith to 4k, which is far away future for me now. Time-to-time I am rendering some videos on this PC as well, but it is really minimum time, which I spend with this stuff, so it is not necessary to take it into consideration. I think, that my current CPU was a little bit bottleneck for my GPU already and I would like to avoid this for a long time. I would like to have capable CPU which will not be bottleneck for GPU for some years, with stressed fact in my mind, that some guys are still running 3rd gen of i7 overclocked till today.

I am thinking in following way with following questions:
Should I buy ryzen 3600, which will be absolutely suitable for x years or to buy 9600KF, which will be capable for years as well and with some overclocking in the future (for this I probably have to buy a new cooler?) will be sufficient longer than r5 3600?

If I will have 3600, should I use box cooler or should I use my KATANA? For KATANA, I will have to buy probably some adapter for AM4 socket.

Since I plan to play in 1080p, 3600/9600KF will be sufficient, or should I spend some more money and buy 3700X/i7-9700 KF? Their price is maximum, which I am willing to pay for CPU, but if it is really not necessary to buy them, to have good CPU for 5-7 years, I am fine with 3600/9600KF.

My last question is, what MOBO and RAM would you recommend for your suggested build?

Thank you so much for your help!

So I would say go for the Ryzen 5 3600 over the 9600 KF- it has way more cache and twice the thread count. It's going to be a much better bet to last you for the future and actually can already outpace the 9600 KF in many of the most recent titles that need more than 6 threads (even if you take serious overclocking on the 9600KF into account- you might get higher averages in many games but the 3600 will give far better 1% and 0.1% lows resulting in a much better overall experience).

In terms of upgrading over that, as of right now with gaming for a focus you aren't going to get much advantage going higher- although if you plan to keep the machine for a long time the step up to the R7 3700X might be worth it as with previous generations the old i7's are still going strong whereas the lower core / thread count i5's are really starting to struggle in modern titles.

In terms of motherboards, a decent board based on the B450 chipset is probably all you need- look out for 'Max' models as these have out of the box support for Ryzen 3000 (all B450 chipset boards can support Ryzen 3000 but many older models will need a bios update first). The MSI B450 Tomahawk Max is very well regarded as it has a strong VRM meaning it can handle a bit of overclocking as well as the higher core count Ryzen cpu's without issues should you wish to upgrade in the future (e.g. the 12 core R9 3900X).

Ram wise, a decent kit of 3200 mhz ram is generally enough if you are watching your budget. For the very best performance Ryzen 3000 likes fast ram so a 3600 mhz kit is the best bet performance wise but the difference isn't much so not worth paying a massive premium to get. 16gb is a must, and make sure it's dual channel (i.e. 2 x 8gb sticks rather than 1 x 16).

Final point on coolers- for stock operation the bundled cooler works fine, although if you can find a cheap kit to mount your better cooler on there it might net you a small boost when turning on 'PBO' (effectively an auto OC feature that bumps clocks a bit if there is headroom).

 

[namsary]

thank you for your opinion, I will definitely consider!

does anybody have a different point of view?

 

[cdrkf]

thank you for your opinion, I will definitely consider!

does anybody have a different point of view?

As no one else replying- if you would really prefer Intel I'd suggest waiting a bit.... the (pretty much confirmed) rumours are that Intel will be refreshing their current lineup with new '10th gen' desktop parts early next year.

These are still built upon the same core design as the current 9000 series, however they are increasing core and thread counts across the board to be more competitive, so the updated 10th Gen Core i5 are going to be 6 core, 12, i7 will be 8 core 16 thread and the range will top out with a 10 core 20 thread i9.

If you really want to go Intel and need something asap then go with the 9700k- that being a full 8 core (albeit without HT) should last quite a few years, I think it's worth the extra investment over the 9600K and added bonus gets you essentially the best gaming performance that you can get right now (it essentially ties the 9900K in most cases). The main downside to that (and why I personally lean more towards the AMD stuff at the moment) is that Intel are confirmed to be changing socket again for 10th gen, so there won't be much of an upgrade path- that said I think the 9700K is fast enough that you probably wouldn't need to upgrade it (the same applies to AMD, I guess I just like the fact that you can on their platform).

 

[namsary]

actually, I liked really much your first answer with reasonable opinions and I am leaned quite really towards to ryzen 3600, which is for good price and with good value... I am not the business trip right now, so I have a little time to hesitate, not because I would go just for intel....

 

[namsary]

As no one else replying......

So, I am going to buy Ryzen r5 3600, thank you for your advice