Question Upgrade / replace gaming desktop PC ~1000 USD/EUR

[jahu00]

Approximate Purchase Date: this/next week
Budget Range: 4500PLN ~= 1000 USD/EUR (including tax; expecting free shipping)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming, surfing the internet, watching movies, programming
Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Probably everything
Do you need to buy OS: yes (might be able to buy a used key, thanks to EU ruling)
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: (https://www.morele.net, https://www.komputronik.pl/, https://www.x-kom.pl/, https://vobis.pl/, unfortunately all in PL)
Location: Poland
Parts Preferences:

• GPU with freesync support,
• Horizontal PC case (preferably Cooler Master HAF XB EVO),
• I want to reuse storage and optical drive from my old PC,
• Maybe get a CPU with integrated GPU (backup GPU),
• Ethernet on MOBO (I guess most have this already)
• WiFi on MOBO is a plus

Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: 3440x1440 @75Hz (I'm fine with 2560x1080 @ 60Hz)
Additional Comments: Quite stable PC, performance can be similar to my current PC, but without issues (something I could use for many years)
Why Are You Upgrading: Current PC reboots randomly when gaming and has issues with USB hubs. There were other problems but I managed to solve them or find a workaround.


What I'm replacing (bought based on this thread):
MOBO: MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX 450
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: Patriot 2x8gb DDR4 3200mhz CL16
GPU: ASUS Radeon RX 5700 ROG STRIX OC 8G
SSD: Crucial P1 1tb 500
HDD: Dysk Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5"
PSU: SilentiumPC Supremo FM2 80 Plus Gold 750W

I plan to keep the old PC for less intense tasks.

 

[4745454b]

GPU in old build isn't listed.

I plan to keep the old PC for less intense tasks.

That's going to be a problem. Because building a good gaming PC for $1k right now is pretty hard to do. GPU have mostly returned to normal, at least here in the USA. Depending on what you have it might make some sense to build a new PC and move the old GPU over. Perhaps buy a cheapo GPU so the old one can still be used. Otherwise I suggest fixing the old one and continue to use that. For only $1k it's just to hard to build a viable gaming PC.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Approximate Purchase Date: this/next week
Budget Range: 4500PLN ~= 1000 USD/EUR (including tax; expecting free shipping)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming, surfing the internet, watching movies, programming
Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Probably everything
Do you need to buy OS: yes (might be able to buy a used key, thanks to EU ruling)
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: (https://www.morele.net, https://www.komputronik.pl/, https://www.x-kom.pl/, https://vobis.pl/, unfortunately all in PL)
Location: Poland
Parts Preferences:

• GPU with freesync support,
• Horizontal PC case (preferably Cooler Master HAF XB EVO),
• I want to reuse storage and optical drive from my old PC,
• Maybe get a CPU with integrated GPU (backup GPU),
• Ethernet on MOBO (I guess most have this already)
• WiFi on MOBO is a plus

Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: 3440x1440 @75Hz (I'm fine with 2560x1080 @ 60Hz)
Additional Comments: Quite stable PC, performance can be similar to my current PC, but without issues (something I could use for many years)
Why Are You Upgrading: Current PC reboots randomly when gaming and has issues with USB hubs. There were other problems but I managed to solve them or find a workaround.


What I'm replacing (bought based on this thread):
MOBO: MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX 450
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: Patriot 2x8gb DDR4 3200mhz CL16
SSD: Crucial P1 1tb 500
HDD: Dysk Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5"
PSU: SilentiumPC Supremo FM2 80 Plus Gold 750W

I plan to keep the old PC for less intense tasks.

Your other thread says you have an RX 5700XT. To get better GPU performance you are going to have to upgrade to at least an RX 6700 or RTX 3060 Ti. Those will eat up almost your entire budget for a whole new build. What CPU cooler are you using on your 3600? Heat can be a cause of random reboots.

 

[jahu00]

My GPU is actually RX 5700 (not XT). I suspect it's faulty, but I think I will postpone buying a new one. If problems continue on the new machine, I'll buy a new GPU (and use integrated graphics in the meantime).

I'm not really aiming for an increase in performance with this upgrade, it can stay similar to the current one. I just want the machine to be stable and quiet if possible. Seeing how GPUs can sag in vertical position (my RX 5700 definitely is) I was thinking about a horizontal case, but there are few on the market.

Here is what I came up with:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, 3.9 GHz, 16 MB, BOX - 829 PLN
MOBO: Asus TUF GAMING B550M-E WIFI - 829 PLN
PSU: Cooler Master MWE Gold V2 750W - 438 PLN
RAM: Patriot Viper Steel, DDR4, 16 GB, 3600MHz, CL17 - 330 PLN
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - 565 PLN

Total: about 2990 PLN ~ 677 USD

Without GPU this is well within budget, but I'm not sure if those parts are good, best performance for the money. I could go with older generation parts if they are known to be more stable\durable.

 

[4745454b]

Links/prices? Nothing jumps out to me as bad. I do have a couple thoughts. I'm not sure I'd get a B550 board. I personally get Z, X, or other higher end boards. They cost, but if you want stability that's how you get it. You don't have to spend crazy money to get one of the highest end boards. And to be honest I haven't looked at the board you picked, I'm only going by chipset. For example this is one I'd run.

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-X570-AORUS-802-11AC-Motherboard/dp/B07WL5MFXL

$150 isn't a bad price for a good board. And it still has wifi. On amazon that board is even cheaper than the one you picked.

My other thought is most people don't pick CM PSUs. Going from memory that PSU is fine to use. But it's not the most popular choice. Without prices I'm not sure if that's the best buy.

 

[helper800]

Considering the issue your problem is most likely GPU or PSU related. I suggest doing this before shelling out more for an entirely different build;


PCPartPicker Part List

Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 LHR 8 GB XC3 BLACK GAMING Video Card ($597.99 @ EVGA)
Power Supply: EVGA G5 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $687.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-06-20 20:14 EDT-0400

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Considering the issue your problem is most likely GPU or PSU related. I suggest doing this before shelling out more for an entirely different build;


PCPartPicker Part List

Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 LHR 8 GB XC3 BLACK GAMING Video Card ($597.99 @ EVGA)
Power Supply: EVGA G5 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $687.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-06-20 20:14 EDT-0400

I agree. Upgrade the power supply. The Ryzen 5 3600 is still a decent cpu. I’d go power supply and you could grab a 3070 or 3070 ti, amd side look at the 6700xt or 6800xt perhaps. You may find your board has a bios update that would allow a 5700x or any other 5000 series cpu, so you may do that as well and keep the 3600 and start buying parts when you get deals and put together another pc if desired, or sell the parts for cash.

I’ve got a ryzen 3600 using a b350 board that has another update so that’s my plan is eventually upgrade cpu, I’ve got a 6700xt, then sit on that build a little.

 

[jahu00]

I did replace the PSU. When I first built the PC, I had a Cooler Master B600 V2 600W (it was already 3 year old at that time). I replaced it with SilentiumPC Supremo FM2 80 Plus Gold 750W, but it didn't resolve the reboot issue. Current MOBO has problems with USB hubs, I can live with them, but if it has those, there might be other problems. For example, turning the computer on with more than one USB device plugged on the front causes Windows to forget monitor's native resolution (which requires a monitor driver reinstall to fix).

I didn't put links, because when I was making this post, the forum would prevent me from saving while I had some links (saying it might be spam). I'll try adding them again.

Gigabyte X570 AORUS 802 11AC Motherboard appears to be very pricey at this moment in my country (so pricey, I could almost buy a GPU for the price).

I'll try finding something, but reasonably priced X570 boards seem hard to find right now (unless they have limited connectivity).

 

[helper800]

I did replace the PSU. When I first built the PC, I had a Cooler Master B600 V2 600W (it was already 3 year old at that time). I replaced it with SilentiumPC Supremo FM2 80 Plus Gold 750W, but it didn't resolve the reboot issue.

I didn't put links, because when I was making this post, the forum would prevent me from saving while I had some links (saying it might be spam). I'll try adding them again.

Gigabyte X570 AORUS 802 11AC Motherboard appears to be very pricey at this moment in my country (so pricey, I could almost buy a GPU for the price).

Try this instead;

PCPartPicker Part List

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 LHR 8 GB VISION OC Rev 2.0 Video Card (€654.90 @ Alza)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS GX 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€96.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €751.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-06-21 07:34 CEST+0200

 

[KyaraM]

I would switch out the GPU first, too. if you go issues with your mainboard, you could a more recent one, too, but I would first try to reinstall Windows and update the BIOS to rule out software issues. I had some in the past. That would actually be a good first step in general before spending money on new hardware. Or at least try to reinstall USB drivers, maybe something is wrong there. For GPU sagging issues, get a brace first before switching out the case. I use one, it works. Btw, did you take a look at Alternate as well? They have a Polish website, and they ship to the entire EU. Try see if they are cheaper than your websites, too, nothing lost comparing prices.

 

[jahu00]

I tried a variety of things to resolve both issues. I've updated MOBO BIOS and GPU BIOS. Updated GPU drivers countless times as well as chipset drivers. Tweaked USB settings in both BIOS and Windows power plan, replace the PSU. It could appear that something helped, and PC would run without issues for a few days or moths, but then a random reboot would happen and prove that it's still there (same with the USB problem). The reboots themselves don't leave a trace, no events, nothing particularly interesting in hardware monitor log (overheat etc.). I even put a heatsink on the NVME drive as the controller was getting toasty, but that wasn't it either.

This machine had some issues from the start. Initially it would also reboot when left idle for a few minutes, but this was resolved by installed AMD chipset drivers (apparently something to do with Windows power plan). Chipset drivers from AMD work, but drivers from MSI would not install at all (even the ones that came with the MOBO). Also, had to disable Windows startup as it would fail sometimes requiring a hard reset.

I had the most reboots when playing Transport Fever 2, No Man's sky and Mount and Blade 2 recently. In fact, Mount and Blade seems to cause the reboot within 2h time (that's the most "reliable" way to recreate the problem so far). Last time GPU drivers actually caused a BSOD shortly after the reboot.

Seeing that the machine is not yet dead, I'll try running some more tests (mem test etc.), though I don't have high hopes they will reveal anything. And a new BIOS update for MOBO came out recently, so I'll check that out as well. I do need a working PC for work, but a potato with a display port would do. That said, using one machine, for both work and games is just more convenient.

I just remember that AMD GPU software had an issue in the past that could cause input hiccups when other monitoring software was present (not unlike what I'm experiencing with USB hubs now), but I suspect this isn't it either.

That GPU brace seems like a good idea.

 

[4745454b]

PC would run without issues for a few days or moths,

I could see days being an issue, but months passing between issues I wouldn't think would be a big thing. My machine is super stable. I leave it on 24/7 and the only time it's not in the state I left it is when window or my AV forced a reboot for updates. It's an AMD 2600 on an X470 board with a seasonic PSU. I'm tempted to say if it's having issues with no traces being left it's a power issue. Could be an issue with the PSU or maybe even your house wiring. (There is an old tech support story where the guy handling the call was stumped because he didn't know why the PC would reboot when the toilet was flushed. Finally figured out the owner lived in the middle of no where and the pump was triggering a brownout.)

Unless you really need two machine I strongly suggest just upgrading the one you have. Get a quality higher end board and PSU.

 

[jahu00]

Recently, Game Nexus released a video about an issue that sound very similar to this one. There, they pointed out that, modern GPUs tend to have power spikes where they double or even triple power consumption for a millisecond. Many PSUs may struggle with those.
If this is indeed my problem, I could replace my PSU with a better quality one (even with the same wattage).

However, what I did instead was switch the power lines going to the GPU from my current PSU. The PSU has 2 pairs of dedicated GPU power lines, I can only assume they are intended to power 2 separate GPUs.
Previously I had a single pair plugged to my GPU, now I have one from each pair plugged into the GPU (I think someone in the the comments under GN video mentioned solving similar issue with 5700XT this way). I'm guessing that each pair has separate caps to protect against power spikes.

I did try a few other things as well. I upgraded BIOS to the newest version, updated GPU drivers and did some good old dusting. If any of those had a chance of fixing this issue, it was likely the GPU driver or the PSU trick. So far I had no random reboots even after many hours of playing M&B2 (and there is a heatwave raging in the region currently).

 

[4745454b]

Sweet. I hope its fixed. It sucks you did several things at once so we'll never really know which thing fixed it. But it certainly sounds like you've done everything I would try to do to fix it.

 

[jahu00]

PC worked fine for a month, but started having issues again, seemingly after a GPU driver update. It had one of those random reboots, but most of the crashes were accompanied by GPU driver timeout and sometimes artifacts (this GPU has always been unstable after power drops ie. sleep mode). PC would recover from some of those (but only stable enough to preform a restart), BSOD from others. I've downgraded the GPU driver, but the problem doesn't appear to be resolved.

If I play a game for some time (1-2h) the computer is very likely to BSOD. I'm even getting a different errors every time: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Another issue that showed up is system getting stuck reading stuff from hdd/ssd. It happened once while browsing. The hdd led would blink on off continuously in 1s intervals, windows was barely responsive and I had to do a hard reset. It also happened once when booting windows (spinner continued indefinitely and had to do a hard reset). There isn't anything interesting in event viewer around this time.

Due to reasons, I've replaced CPU with Ryzen 5 5500, and installed CPU cooler and case fans (all plugged to fan headers on MOBO) and put everything in a vertical case. The PC runs cool and fans don't even spin at 100%. If I run stress tests in OCCT (GPU, VRAM, CPU), nothing shows up and there are no BSODs.

I think it boils down to one of the following being faulty: MOBO, GPU, PSU. I'll try swapping parts with my wife's PC (that's where the 5500 came from) and try to figure out which could be faulty.

With current prices I don't want to dish out for a new machine that preforms the same. Maybe if the prices had a significant drop or the new stuff was out. If I were to buy a new machine I would aim for something that could do PS3 emulation reasonably well.

 

[helper800]

PC worked fine for a month, but started having issues again, seemingly after a GPU driver update. It had one of those random reboots, but most of the crashes were accompanied by GPU driver timeout and sometimes artifacts (this GPU has always been unstable after power drops ie. sleep mode). PC would recover from some of those (but only stable enough to preform a restart), BSOD from others. I've downgraded the GPU driver, but the problem doesn't appear to be resolved.

If I play a game for some time (1-2h) the computer is very likely to BSOD. I'm even getting a different errors every time: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Another issue that showed up is system getting stuck reading stuff from hdd/ssd. It happened once while browsing. The hdd led would blink on off continuously in 1s intervals, windows was barely responsive and I had to do a hard reset. It also happened once when booting windows (spinner continued indefinitely and had to do a hard reset). There isn't anything interesting in event viewer around this time.

Due to reasons, I've replaced CPU with Ryzen 5 5500, and installed CPU cooler and case fans (all plugged to fan headers on MOBO) and put everything in a vertical case. The PC runs cool and fans don't even spin at 100%. If I run stress tests in OCCT (GPU, VRAM, CPU), nothing shows up and there are no BSODs.

I think it boils down to one of the following being faulty: MOBO, GPU, PSU. I'll try swapping parts with my wife's PC (that's where the 5500 came from) and try to figure out which could be faulty.

With current prices I don't want to dish out for a new machine that preforms the same. Maybe if the prices had a significant drop or the new stuff was out. If I were to buy a new machine I would aim for something that could do PS3 emulation reasonably well.

You seem to be on the right path. I would suggest not using sleep mode and if you do I would look into sleep states for the CPU. There are a bunch of options in the motherboards BIOS.

 

[jahu00]

Started by removing internal WiFi card, but it didn't stop the crashes.

Stole borrowed RX 6500 XT from wife's computer, did some intensive testing with Crew 2 and there were no issues. Those 2 GPU are quite different, one has higher TDP and the other is only 4x PCIe, but this makes the GPU or PSU the most likely culprit. New PSU wont break the bank and will remain useful if I have to make a new build down the line, but right now is not a good moment for buying a new GPU. Mu current machine is stuck with gen 3 PCIe, which means my best bet is getting a 16x GPU. Crew 2 worked surpsingly well on this RX 6500 XT (had to drop resolution to 2560x1080), but this PCIe gen mismatch causes some realy low lows when it comes to FPS (that's why I made the CPU swap with wife's machine).

If I could get a GPU of RX 6500 XT class (but with 16x PCIe) for a similar price to a PSU (~100USD), I would go for it. Heck, if a card of RX 5700 class had a price drop by 50% (and would cost ~200USD), I would buy that. That would be RTX 3060 or RX 6600, but the second one has only 8x PCIe. Maybe there will be a sale of NVIDIA cards in the future, but that has not yet happened.

 

[jahu00]

I've replaced the GPU with RX 6700 (non-XT). I've ran Crew 2 on high (ultra caused GPU to be loud), but it eventually caused a reboot.
I've replaced the PSU with Cooler Master V850 GOLD V2 and everything seemed fine at first, but there are BSODs and freezes sometimes. BSODs happen when doing simple things like browsing, freezes when gaming.

I've replaced almost everything in this PC. If there is a hardware cause, it would likely have to be MOBO (there is also RAM and drives, but that's probably not it). There are definitely some issues on the software side. Even the old GPU and PSU combo, didn't BSOD when browsing, at least not on older GPU drivers. Wife has 22.6.2 on her machine and there appears to be a driver memory leak sometimes (this can lead to that unresponsive Windows and the blinking HDD led might have been Windows attempts to swap, which it cannot do for driver used memory).

Random idea I had for checking if the problem is hardware or software related, I've installed SteamOS on a new drive. A game (Trailmakers) ran fine and was stressing the GPU less than on Windows (might be down to 75Hz vs 60Hz though), but it eventually froze along with the SteamOS. Either GPU driver issues I have on windows are also present on Linux or there is a hardware cause. Maybe the MOBO part of PCI power supply is faulty. RX 6500 XT didn't cause any issues when gaming (I think I was using 22.5.1 driver), but it only has 105W TDP.

If I go with a B550 board, replacing MOBO wouldn't be that costly. If the price is right, I might replace the CPU with Ryzen 7 5800X or 5800X3D in the future (for now, I'll stick to the Ryzen 5 5500 that I have). Would B550 work well with such Ryzen 7?

I'll test different versions of drivers and if there is another BIOS update first.

 

[jahu00]

A little bit of closure to this misadventure. MOBO (MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX 450) was the last part I replaced (and I replaced practically everything) and the reboot issue stopped appearing after that. Only other way to avoid this issue was to use a low TDP GPU.

Maybe each part replacement individually seemed sensible (at the time), but as a whole I did a really botched PC upgrade.

- Buying Ryzen 5 5500 was a mistake because of lack of PCIe gen 4 support (it's a serviceable CPU if you don't need gen 4).
- Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo 2x120mm is a good and quiet cooler for Ryzen 5 5500 . I can even cool Ryzen 7 5800X perfectly fine, but at full load, it's very noisy. I should have looked into AIO cooler for the CPU.
- Gigabyte B550 GAMING X V2 was the cheapest, but decent B550. Not sure if there is a single dubug LED on the board (it appears there are none), but it doesn't support hot swap. I can now only do cold swap with my 3 drive bays.
- Buying Sapphire RX 6700 was a mistake. 2 fans at this TDP result in a lot of noise under load. I should have known, I made the same mistake with RX 480. Knowing what I know now, I should have bought an RX 6800 or similar card with adequate cooling.
- If I had known that the MOBO was the cause, I probably could have saved some money on the PC for my wife (by reusing parts from my machine).

I could have avoided some of those mistakes, but everything is simpler in hindsight. You live and learn.

 

[healthy Pro-teen]

A little bit of closure to this misadventure. MOBO (MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX 450) was the last part I replaced (and I replaced practically everything) and the reboot issue stopped appearing after that. Only other way to avoid this issue was to use a low TDP GPU.

Maybe each part replacement individually seemed sensible (at the time), but as a whole I did a really botched PC upgrade.

- Buying Ryzen 5 5500 was a mistake because of lack of PCIe gen 4 support (it's a serviceable CPU if you don't need gen 4).
- Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo 2x120mm is a good and quiet cooler for Ryzen 5 5500 . I can even cool Ryzen 7 5800X perfectly fine, but at full load, it's very noisy. I should have looked into AIO cooler for the CPU.
- Buying Sapphire RX 6700 was a mistake. 2 fans at this TDP result in a lot of noise under load. I should have known, I made the same mistake with RX 480. Knowing what I know now, I should have bought an RX 5800 or similar card with adequate cooling.
- If I had known that the MOBO was the cause, I probably could have saved some money on the PC for my wife (by reusing parts from my machine).

I could have avoided some of those mistakes, but everything is simpler in hindsight. You live and learn.

Did you try under-volting your CPU and GPU? There are a lot of good tutorials and I managed to shave off a couple degrees with a lot less fan noise at 1030mv (almost golden for a 7900XTX sample). Most GPUs can handle 5% under-volt easily

 

[jahu00]

Did you try under-volting your CPU and GPU? There are a lot of good tutorials and I managed to shave off a couple degrees with a lot less fan noise at 1030mv (almost golden for a 7900XTX sample). Most GPUs can handle 5% under-volt easily

Not sure how much I can do about the GPU, but this thread suggest that a lot can be done about the CPU with a minor tweak. If that fails, there is also ECO mode (I think it makes the CPU work at the same level as 5700X). XMP also affects CPU temp quiet a bit. If it won't affect my use of the computer, I might consider disabling it.

 

[jahu00]

Gigabyte B550 GAMING X V2 was the cheapest, but decent B550. Not sure if there is a single debug LED on the board (it appears there are none), but it doesn't support hot swap. I can now only do cold swap with my 3 drive bays.

Oddly enough, Hot swapping got enabled by BIOS update on the MOBO.