[SOLVED] Upgrading aging prebuilt which has had some work

[Roland Thompson]

I bought a pre-built PC about 5 years ago, and didn't get ripped off too badly for the price. I've had some bumps and hiccups along the way, including a failing GPU that was luckily covered by warranty. Now it's time for an upgrade and I think I have a decent parts list figured out and am mainly just looking for advice and verification that I haven't made any terrible choices

My old rig:

ASUS P9X79 LE
i7-3820
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (This used to be a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780 3GB, which died and was replaced under warranty)
Noctua NH-U14S (I added this myself before the GPU failure, I falsely attributed the computer shutting down to temperature. Of course before actually checking said temperatures because I am an idiot.)
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, 750W
HyperX Fury DDR3 1600MHz 2x8GB (4 sticks for a total of 32GB)
Windows 7 64bit
And it's all housed in a Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Limited Edition


The main thing I'm looking to replace is my CPU and motherboard and at some point down the line the GPU. My knowledge on PCs is very limited, but asking around I was recommended to start looking at the B450 series for motherboard, and a Ryzen 3600 for the CPU. I have no particular allegiance to either CPU brand and I'd be fine with switching to AMD from Intel, or sticking with Intel. I mainly use my computer for gaming, and I'd really like to future-proof my rig as much as possible. I don't necessarily have a budget but looking around I think the Ryzen 7 3700x is about as expensive as I can reasonably go CPU wise.

I was recommended to check parts for compatibility on PC part picker and my current plan is:

MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
HyperX Predator DDR4 3000MHz
Noctua NM-AM4-UxS CPU Mounting Kit (which PC part picker helpfully pointed out I would need)
Windows 10

In summary: Is this a decent plan, are there any other things I need to worry about? I for example notice that the B450 might need a BiOS update, if so, how would I do that, and is it enough of a worry to a novice such as myself as to avoid it all together? I apologize if omitted anything important or if my formatting is terrible.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[logainofhades]

What is your max upgrade budget? The max series line does not need a bios update, to run that 3700x, but some have stated stability issues, with said board. I would probably recommend an X570 board, instead. Ryzen likes fast ram, I would go with 3200 ram.

 

[Roland Thompson]

What is your max upgrade budget? The max series line does not need a bios update, to run that 3700x, but some have stated stability issues, with said board. I would probably recommend an X570 board, instead. Ryzen likes fast ram, I would go with 3200 ram.

My max budget really doesn't have a ceiling, but I'd like to keep it under 1000 euro. An X570 seems to be rather big leap in price from a B450, do you have any advice for which ones to look at first? Because the price seems to vary rather wildly between different MOBOs. And I'll definitely keep the ram suggestion in mind.

 

[Sleezy]

I would have to

I bought a pre-built PC about 5 years ago, and didn't get ripped off too badly for the price. I've had some bumps and hiccups along the way, including a failing GPU that was luckily covered by warranty. Now it's time for an upgrade and I think I have a decent parts list figured out and am mainly just looking for advice and verification that I haven't made any terrible choices

My old rig:

ASUS P9X79 LE
i7-3820
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (This used to be a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780 3GB, which died and was replaced under warranty)
Noctua NH-U14S (I added this myself before the GPU failure, I falsely attributed the computer shutting down to temperature. Of course before actually checking said temperatures because I am an idiot.)
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, 750W
HyperX Fury DDR3 1600MHz 2x8GB (4 sticks for a total of 32GB)
Windows 7 64bit
And it's all housed in a Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Limited Edition


The main thing I'm looking to replace is my CPU and motherboard and at some point down the line the GPU. My knowledge on PCs is very limited, but asking around I was recommended to start looking at the B450 series for motherboard, and a Ryzen 3600 for the CPU. I have no particular allegiance to either CPU brand and I'd be fine with switching to AMD from Intel, or sticking with Intel. I mainly use my computer for gaming, and I'd really like to future-proof my rig as much as possible. I don't necessarily have a budget but looking around I think the Ryzen 7 3700x is about as expensive as I can reasonably go CPU wise.

I was recommended to check parts for compatibility on PC part picker and my current plan is:

MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
HyperX Predator DDR4 3000MHz
Noctua NM-AM4-UxS CPU Mounting Kit (which PC part picker helpfully pointed out I would need)
Windows 10

In summary: Is this a decent plan, are there any other things I need to worry about? I for example notice that the B450 might need a BiOS update, if so, how would I do that, and is it enough of a worry to a novice such as myself as to avoid it all together? I apologize if omitted anything important or if my formatting is terrible.

Thanks for any advice!

I would have to check but i think your cpu is really good compared to your gpu, I'd recommend getting a RTX 2070 super and watercooling for your cpu. you can sell your extra parts to make a bit of extra cash which should ease your wallet's pain. The advice goes assuming you have a large budget. If not you can shoot for a used 2070 or 1080. just make sure they didn't use it for mining