CPU Upgrade for 1440p gaming

Chuk_Chuk · 29 Mar 2020 at 13:26

Hi All,
After nearly 6 Years (Will be this September) I’ve finally decided to upgrade my PC.

My goal is to get to 1440p >60Hz gaming over the next 18 months (I’ll keep my current monitors so it will be a 3 monitor set up). I’ll be rolling out my upgrade in stages rather than all at once. This stage is the CPU upgrade. With the GPU happening after the release of RDNA2 (to see how this affects the pricing)

My current system:
I5 4690k
Cryorig R1 Ultimate
8Gb RAM
GTX 970
650W Gold PSU (Superflower HX Series)
2x 1080p 60Hz Monitors
2x 250Gb SSD

I’m hoping that by the time I’ve finished my upgrades I would be looking at around 10 years with at most 1 or 2 upgrades to the GPU. (Is this wishful thinking especially now that AMD has come out guns blazing on the CPU side?)

Current usage for my PC is gaming (I do like to leave a tab heavy browser open to watch videos at the same time. Nice to have when doing long grinds or side missions). I play any game bar apart from sports games

I would like to get back into 3D modelling. One of the reasons I stopped was that things took too long to render or my PC would run out of RAM (yes I should have upgraded to 16Gb years ago).

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £103.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £299.99
1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C7K)= £98.99

Total: £513.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Would I be better off with a Ryzen 5 and then looking to upgrade when Ryzen 4000 is out (or when Zen 4 is released and knocks the prices of ryzen 4000 down?)
Would a ryzen 5 bog down to much if i've got videos running on another monitor?
Is the RAM suitable and Are there any better options?
I know that for Ryzen memory speed is quite important. What speed is the sweet spot for performance vs cost?
Due to my tab heavy usage would i better off with a cheapish 32Gb kit?
Will my PSU be okay or will I need to upgrade?
Does the cryorig cooler I have, fit on the B450 tomahawk (Clearance wise)?
I also need an extra SSD (2.5” not NVME don’t want to lose 2 SATA slots for marginal gains) at some point (maybe in a month or 2). Which companies would you recommend?

As for my budget. I would rather not exceed £500 (by a significant amount) without a substantial gain in system performance.

Thanks for your help.

Grimley · 29 Mar 2020 at 14:24

Chuk_Chuk said:
1.Would I be better off with a Ryzen 5 and then looking to upgrade when Ryzen 4000 is out (or when Zen 4 is released and knocks the prices of ryzen 4000 down?)
2.Would a ryzen 5 bog down to much if i've got videos running on another monitor?
3. Is the RAM suitable and Are there any better options?
4.I know that for Ryzen memory speed is quite important. What speed is the sweet spot for performance vs cost?
5.Due to my tab heavy usage would i better off with a cheapish 32Gb kit?
6.Will my PSU be okay or will I need to upgrade?
7.Does the cryorig cooler I have, fit on the B450 tomahawk (Clearance wise)?
8.I also need an extra SSD (2.5” not NVME don’t want to lose 2 SATA slots for marginal gains) at some point (maybe in a month or 2). Which companies would you recommend?
As for my budget. I would rather not exceed £500 (by a significant amount) without a substantial gain in system performance.

Thanks for your help.

1. If you are looking to upgrade to Ryzen 4000 yes. For Encoding my R5 3600 is almost 2x faster than my other PC, an Intel i5 5675c.
2. I encode & have a couple of browser tabs open at the same time & I don't see any slow downs.
3. The RAM choice is spot on.
4. See answer to question 3.

5. I'd check RAM usage on your existing rig first before making that choice, when you are doing what you said above.
6. You're good to go with your current PSU. I've used SW HX golden green PSU's in other rigs & they are solid.
7. If your cooler is older than 3 years then I doubt it will have fittings for an AM4 motherboard. If it does, I think it will provided the fan is fitted next to the RAM.
8. Samsung is King for SSD's but overpriced. All SATA SSD's more or less run at the top speed SATA3 will allow it to. I'd consider SSD size & warranty when buying.

The above RAM & board for Ryzen 3000 is as good as you'll get for the price. Choose either the R5 3600 or R7 3700x (I wouldn't go higher than that TBH, the board will take a R9 3900x/3950x but NO OVERCLOCK or Full load without good airflow in your PC case)

Chuk_Chuk · 29 Mar 2020 at 20:35

Thanks for the assistance. Tempted to go for 3600 based on your experience.

GregI · 29 Mar 2020 at 22:05

I'm abit sceptical of that ram. You basically need to run geardown mode even with XMP so that means you're going to have to run it at C18 primary. If that's the case then better options probably exist.

Chuk_Chuk · 30 Mar 2020 at 09:44

GregI said:
I'm abit sceptical of that ram. You basically need to run geardown mode even with XMP so that means you're going to have to run it at C18 primary. If that's the case then better options probably exist.

Could you please eloborate more.
Whar is gear down mode?

Pabl0 · 30 Mar 2020 at 12:00

I'm also in a similar position so to save a thread happy to lurk for advice.

EsaT · 30 Mar 2020 at 18:06

SuperFlower bait and switched capacitors from Chemicons to cheap C(r)apXons from Golden Green to HX.
So would replace that after this many years.

3D modeling/rendering can use all cores it can touch, so in that sense 3700X is jusifiable.
(though price jumped recently)
Upgrade to like 12 core Zen3 once those go into discount would get the longest life out of platform.

At some point you'll need more memory for simultaneous heavier games and multi-tab web browser etc background stuff.

Cryorig no longer sends free AM4 mounting kits and you need to buy one yourself.
http://www.cryorig.com/news.php?id=85
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryorig-am4-bracket-for-r1-coolers-type-ar-hs-00w-cy.html

Tomahawk's M.2 slot doesn't affect SATA ports.
It's secondary M.2 slots of B450/X470 boards which have I/O bandwidth issues.

Grimley said:
8. Samsung is King for ~~SSD's but~~ overpriced.

Too many words there.
I mean half TB NVMe drive at same price as 1TB drives of others...
SATA drive more expensive than NVMe drives...
QLC drives at price of TLC drives of others...

Get ready for basic Galaxy S soon coming at £1000 if this continues.

Grimley · 30 Mar 2020 at 18:31

/\/\/\/\ Agreed. Samsung is getting into Apple territory.

Chuk_Chuk · 31 Mar 2020 at 10:43

So I went with the 3600 in the end since the rumours around the 4000 series were quite tasty and too hard to ignore.

EsaT said:
SuperFlower bait and switched capacitors from Chemicons to cheap C(r)apXons from Golden Green to HX.
So would replace that after this many years.

3D modeling/rendering can use all cores it can touch, so in that sense 3700X is jusifiable.
(though price jumped recently)
Upgrade to like 12 core Zen3 once those go into discount would get the longest life out of platform.

At some point you'll need more memory for simultaneous heavier games and multi-tab web browser etc background stuff.

Cryorig no longer sends free AM4 mounting kits and you need to buy one yourself.
http://www.cryorig.com/news.php?id=85
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryorig-am4-bracket-for-r1-coolers-type-ar-hs-00w-cy.html

Tomahawk's M.2 slot doesn't affect SATA ports.
It's secondary M.2 slots of B450/X470 boards which have I/O bandwidth issues.

I'll look towards upgrading the PSU soon then.
Wasn't aware that Cryorig had stopped sending them out. I'll see where i can pick up the AM4 bracket from.
Are you thinking of a different motherboard. The online manual for the MB states that slot 5 and 6 are disabled.
I'll probably pick up more RAM when i get a beefier CPU later on.

EsaT · 31 Mar 2020 at 14:04

Now that I looked SATA drive in M.2 indeed steals I/O from SATA ports in that board.
But there's no sense to waste M.2 slot for SATA drive, which is equally fast in end of SATA cable.