Upgrade from FX8350

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So, my PC crashed last night while playing Vermintide. Apparently the CPU was overtemp (192 degrees!).

I think I have a Noctua cooler of some kind, which should be fine, but then as always happens when I start thinking about replacing components, I start to wonder if it's time for a big upgrade?

I think the FX8350 is something like 6 years old now, so upgrading will mean new CPU, new RAM, new mobo. Everything else should be fine (case, graphics, hdds, etc.) I don't keep up with all the new CPU's etc., like I used to :(

I mainly use the PC for gaming, Photoshop, and general office stuff.

Do I go with AMD or Intel? Budget wise I'm maybe looking at £500 - £600, possibly more if the extra would be really worth it.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

Gray
 

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With upgrade path Ryzen would be natural choise.

That Noctua would likely need AM4 mountink kit.
Though there appears to be two different kits, so would have to know specific heatsink model.

SSD would be good to have at least for operating system.

And if PSU is still that HX620 of your signature I would consider it having served full time by now.
 

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craigyhay said:
definetely could see a big improvement upgrading from a fx8350, if i was you tho i would consider waiting for the ryzen 3000's which are rumoured be out around june
Click to expand...

I've heard that too... Do we know how much better they are supposed to be, and what sort of prices?
 

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EsaT said:
With upgrade path Ryzen would be natural choise.

That Noctua would likely need AM4 mountink kit.
Though there appears to be two different kits, so would have to know specific heatsink model.

SSD would be good to have at least for operating system.

And if PSU is still that HX620 of your signature I would consider it having served full time by now.
Click to expand...

I might look into water cooling if the stock cooler can't cut it. I have 3 SSD's so hard drives aren't an issue. If the PSU still seems to be doing its job, is it worth changing it? On another note, my sig is way old, I really need to update it! The only thing that's correct on it is the PSU :)
 

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My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £379.43 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​
^ A pretty standard budget Ryzen upgrade that offers the best bang for buck, and it'll be a huge improvement over the FX 8350. With your extra £120-£220 budget you have the option of extra bling. I upgraded from an FX 8350 to a Ryzen 2700 and the difference has been enormous.

Fortunately all Ryzens consume less power at stock than the FX-8350, so I'd be inclined to keep on with the PSU even though I see it came out in 2007. Mine came out in 2011 and isn't exactly the most reputable brand, but it's still going strong. I don't know what your graphics card is/how soon you'll be upgrading it, but I'd be inclined to leave the PSU decision until a GPU upgrade when you'll be better informed about the wattage you'd need for it.

Ryzen 3000 is a few months off. Going for Ryzen now with a decent motherboard isn't the end of the world though, as you'll still be able to upgrade to a Ryzen 3000 at a later date. Only time will tell for sure what the performance difference will be / which 3000s will work in any specific current AM4 motherboard, though it's looking very promising that the 3000s will deliver a very decent performance bump and probably at good value. It all comes down to if you're willing to wait it out on your FX.
 

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Gray said:
I might look into water cooling if the stock cooler can't cut it.
If the PSU still seems to be doing its job, is it worth changing it? On another note, my sig is way old, I really need to update it! The only thing that's correct on it is the PSU :)
Click to expand...
Waterpipes in places of heatpipes doesn't achieve really much anything except lot more things to degrade/fail catastrophically and lot higher price for same cooling per noise performance.
Of course would have to know precise model

While good PSU for its time dozen years ago, by now its design is basically medieval in PC tech terms.
Ripple and especially voltage regulation is lot better in todays PSUS.
Besides lot less waste heat especially at idle:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-5-Seasonic-idle.png
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-6-Seasonic-load.png
With modern PSU and parts change idle power draw of PC might nearly half.

Bitfenix Formula is good starting level, if fixed cables don't bother.
Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro has semi-modular cabling.
Then for fully modular cabling and 10 year warranty Seasonic Focus Plus is constantly well priced.
 

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So if I start with the CPU, should I go with a Ryzen 5 2600, or spend more on a Ryzen 7 2700, or even the 2700x? Would the extra money be worth it?
 

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Most people would say a 2600 with a view to upgrading to a 3000 series sooner rather than later. Personally I went with a 2700 as I'm probably not going to upgrade again for a good few years. I also already had compatible AIO watercooling so wouldn't have benefited from the X variant Ryzens better stock HSF over the non-X variants.

Ryzen prices are fluctuating right now. The 2600 on OCUK is £20 more expensive than just a couple of months ago, but depending on where you look/what offers are on, the 2600x/2700/2700x can be picked up quite a bit cheaper than what they were, so it's now a closer call price wise to pick between them.
 

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Vexr said:
Most people would say a 2600 with a view to upgrading to a 3000 series sooner rather than later. Personally I went with a 2700 as I'm probably not going to upgrade again for a good few years. I also already had compatible AIO watercooling so wouldn't have benefited from the X variant Ryzens better stock HSF over the non-X variants.

Ryzen prices are fluctuating right now. The 2600 on OCUK is £20 more expensive than just a couple of months ago, but depending on where you look/what offers are on, the 2600x/2700/2700x can be picked up quite a bit cheaper than what they were, so it's now a closer call price wise to pick between them.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll go with a 2600, maybe with a better cooler so i can overclock it to something more like the 2700x. I'm certainly interested in the 3000 series whenever they come out.

What about a mobo? Obviously I'd need one that would recognise the 2600 off the bat, and that I could put the 3000 in later on in the year. I'm guessing I'd need a cooler that I could use for both CPU's, too.
 

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Gray said:
So if I start with the CPU, should I go with a Ryzen 5 2600, or spend more on a Ryzen 7 2700, or even the 2700x? Would the extra money be worth it?
Click to expand...
For long term upgrading later to Zen2 Ryzen is better than putting more money now into current models.

Gray said:
That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll go with a 2600, maybe with a better cooler so i can overclock it to something more like the 2700x.
Click to expand...
For near top level performance very affordably priced Mugen 5 would be complete overkill for most stock Ryzens.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html
And with eight core Zen2 engineering sample matching processing power of 9900K at 50W lower power consumption, it will handle easily likely pretty much any Zen2 models.

Cryorig H7 would be step lower, but should be well enough for most stock ryzens and for what little 2600 would overclock reasonably.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryorig-h7-single-tower-heatsink-with-120mm-fan-hs-008-cy.html
 

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cinebench r20 just in time for Ryzen 3000. Should see how ryzen and intel face up to each other more correctly.


R15 should ryzen doing damn well again Intel

https://www.techspot.com/review/1744-core-i9-9900k-round-two/

I believe Ryzen 3000 8 core engineering was running r15 when it beat intel with lower watts. R20 shows at clock for clock speed, intel still stronger ( though we knew it had stronger IPC) and at default clock speeds pulls away and then overclocking even more so .

Have a feeling Ryzen will land at exactly 9900k performance (8 core like for like) with boost , hopefully though will be able to overclock and beat 9900k at 5ghz all cores

Intel option- for ryzen 6 core to beat it, needs to be overclocked to 4.2ghz all cores with ram running 3466hz .
Intel would be the better option for photshop and adobe packages


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My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £383.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

boards also has wifi for same price - upgrade path- bit of a wait and see. if intel was smart, 10nm is just a node shrink with nothing else and will pop right in..... but it is intel

JULY is going to be very interesting!!!!
 

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Gray said:
That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll go with a 2600, maybe with a better cooler so i can overclock it to something more like the 2700x. I'm certainly interested in the 3000 series whenever they come out.

What about a mobo? Obviously I'd need one that would recognise the 2600 off the bat, and that I could put the 3000 in later on in the year. I'm guessing I'd need a cooler that I could use for both CPU's, too.
Click to expand...

For motherboards, I'd use this as a guide:
xda4pmf92pw11.png

You want something with the better VRMs. I'd aim for the upper-midrange, where MSI B450s put in a strong show value wise. It certainly won't hurt to aim higher, though it's largely X470s after that which are a lot more expensive and largely for SLI/Crossfire as the main extra feature, which may be redundant.

To make things more interesting, there's the possibility this generation of boards will get PCI-E 4 through a future BIOS update, though only if the top graphics card slot is within a certain distance. There's been talk this may only be relevant if the PCI-E 4 x16 slot is the top-most, not a PCI-E x1 slot. It seems to be 50/50 on whether that's so on most AM4 motherboards at the moment.

Cooler wise, all AM4 coolers will work with any generation of Ryzen, including the upcoming 3000 series.
 
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