Base component selection, Ryzen5

slowpoke · 28 Jul 2021 at 14:28

So, my kids PC decided to blow its guts today. About time as its i5-2500k.
I find myself a BIT behind times when it comes to choosing base components for new build. Mostly trying to find a balance between longevity and performance (i5 had a nice long run

).

I want to get Ryzen5, motherboard for it, 16gb of ram and air cooler to suit cpu/mobo/ram combo. Rest is old bits that i have on hand - case, 650w PSU, ssd drives, gtx980ti. Dont care for overclocking.

What would be the most current tech on tight budget i can get ? Advice is really appreciated.

alec · 28 Jul 2021 at 14:39

Ryzen 5 5600X is the most current tech.
Mortar MAX is cheap but will serve well.
Memory I went with cheapest 3600 kit
For cooler pretty much anything should be ok with 65W usage.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £250.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C19 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £74.99
1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £54.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 CPU Cooler - 120mm= £32.99

Total: £424.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)

slowpoke · 28 Jul 2021 at 15:28

Shipping to northern ireland.

EsaT · 28 Jul 2021 at 15:42

alec said:
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 CPU Cooler - 120mm= £32.99

Very brand overpriced now with Arctic Freezer 34 in discount.
Arctic Freezer 34 CPU Cooler - 120mm= £19.99
Alpenfohn Brocken Eco Advanced would be another better for less.
Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99

alec · 28 Jul 2021 at 16:01

EsaT said:
Arctic Freezer 34

good choice, didn't see it.

Quartz · 28 Jul 2021 at 16:15

slowpoke said:
What would be the most current tech on tight budget i can get ?

If you're on a tight budget, go for the Intel 11400F on a B560 motherboard.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Arctic MX-4 2019 Edition Thermal Compound (4g)= £5.99
1 x Asus TUF Gaming B560M-Plus (Socket LGA 1200) Micro ATX Motherboard= £132.95
1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £149.99
1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX432C16FB3K2/8)= £59.99

Total: £389.41 (includes shipping: £10.50)

alec said:
MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £54.95

That doesn't support PCIe v4. The OP should get a B550 motherboard if going for AMD:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £134.99

Total: £144.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)

Joxeon · 28 Jul 2021 at 16:47

Maybe have a look through the B-grade section for deals and you can also make offers to OCUK for these.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x **B Grade** MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £120.00
1 x **B Grade** AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - MPK= £139.99

Total: £270.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Armageus · 28 Jul 2021 at 16:51

Quartz said:
That doesn't support PCIe v4. The OP should get a B550 motherboard if going for AMD:

Why?

It makes no difference to a budget build. Other than high end NVMEs it makes no difference (and arguably even then you'd struggle to notice outside of benchmarks)

Joxeon · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:06

Armageus said:
Why?

It makes no difference to a budget build. Other than high end NVMEs it makes no difference (and arguably even then you'd struggle to notice outside of benchmarks)

Could argue it makes no difference for a higher end build either, I'm running a B450 tomahawk + 5800X + RTX 3080 and everything runs fine with PCIe gen 3.0

Quartz · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:16

Armageus said:
It makes no difference to a budget build.

I disagree. It will affect NVME drives. It will affect DirectStorage. It will affect the GPU if you plug in a second PCIe card, turning the x16 slot into a x8 slot. There are places where you can save money and there are places where you should save money. The two are not the same.

Joxeon · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:34

Quartz said:
I disagree. It will affect NVME drives. It will affect DirectStorage. It will affect the GPU if you plug in a second PCIe card, turning the x16 slot into a x8 slot. There are places where you can save money and there are places where you should save money. The two are not the same.

The B450s second slot runs as a X4 and doesn't effect the main x16 atleast on my B450 tomahawk. I have a 2nd GPU in the 2nd slot of my board mining and it doesn't interfere with the first slots lanes which is running gen 3.0 X16

Direct storage is only running on Xbox currently and that uses a gen 3.0 2500MT nvme so I doubt it will only be reserved for gen 4.0 devices as this would cut out over 95% of gamers.

Armageus · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:43

Quartz said:
I disagree. It will affect NVME drives. It will affect DirectStorage. It will affect the GPU if you plug in a second PCIe card, turning the x16 slot into a x8 slot. There are places where you can save money and there are places where you should save money. The two are not the same.

It's an £80 difference on a budget build...

It's an ideal place to save money, without compromising performance

jigger · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:43

A Ryzen 1600AF is pretty much a 2600X. Pair that with a B450 motherboard and you would be in pretty good shape for not much money.

You could probably get the CPU, HSF, mobo and RAM for less than 300.

A 5600X, A520 board and some 3200MT RAM might be the way to go.

slowpoke · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:50

This time i'm giving my money to team red. Intel is gonna sit this one out.
Read up a bit on things and i want to keep to r5-5600x, as for motherboard, i will be reusing old sata ssd's and a 980ti in it.
Motherboard has to have 4 ram slots, with 2 slots filled by 2x8gb, leaving potential to add more later.
As for pci lane speed, i'm not sure, the 980ti might go, or i might want to add another one to sli, or something. (new gpus are definitely out, not until market comes back to its senses...)...

Joxeon · 28 Jul 2021 at 17:59

slowpoke said:
This time i'm giving my money to team red. Intel is gonna sit this one out.
Read up a bit on things and i want to keep to r5-5600x, as for motherboard, i will be reusing old sata ssd's and a 980ti in it.
Motherboard has to have 4 ram slots, with 2 slots filled by 2x8gb, leaving potential to add more later.
As for pci lane speed, i'm not sure, the 980ti might go, or i might want to add another one to sli, or something. (new gpus are definitely out, not until market comes back to its senses...)...

One thing to bear in mind is the 5600X wont provide any additional gaming performances over the much cheaper 2600 / 3600 until you spend £700 on a GPU and even then its only slightly faster.

The 980ti is slower than all these GPUs so it maybe better to go for a cheaper CPU now and then upgrade to a more powerful 8 core ryzen 5000 chip in a few years time when the prices have dropped as £250 is quite a lot to pay for 6 cores especially when its not bringing any additional benefit.

slowpoke · 28 Jul 2021 at 18:08

I'm thinking opposite way - make base strong for a long run, add expensive bits later. I need to figure out what can i cram into 400 (+-) quid that will scale better with addition of new gpu's/ram in the future. I did the same with 2500k and still alive workstation with 2600k - gpus were rubbish (8800?), but later upgraded. Lasted me a looong time.

Granted my motherboard in i7 rig cant take nvme's, so i just slapped in an adapter to accomodate it, but i still play a bit of Just Cause 3-4, Path of Exile, Arc, etc... And that rig is covered in moss, 10 years old

Trying to replicate this...

EsaT · 28 Jul 2021 at 18:24

Quartz said:
Arctic MX-4 2019 Edition Thermal Compound (4g)= £5.99

Alpenfohn's bundled TIM is perfectly good for budget PC.
https://www.igorslab.de/en/waermeleitpasten-chart-2/3/

alec said:
good choice, didn't see it.

Freezer 34's normal price has been £25 for years making it usually the best choise for lower to mid range budgets.
Even construction is better than in Coolermaster with heatpipes tightly together without gaps in base.

Joxeon · 28 Jul 2021 at 18:25

slowpoke said:
I'm thinking opposite way - make base strong for a long run, add expensive bits later. I need to figure out what can i cram into 400 (+-) quid that will scale better with addition of new gpu's/ram in the future. I did the same with 2500k and still alive workstation with 2600k - gpus were rubbish (8800?), but later upgraded. Lasted me a looong time. Granted my motherboard in i7 rig cant take nvme's, so i just slapped in an adapter to accomodate it, but i still play a bit of Just Cause 3-4, Path of Exile, Arc, etc... And that rig is covered in moss, 10 years old Trying to replicate this...

If thats the case then you should go for an 8 or 12 core right away as 6 cores are minimum for gaming these days and some games like warzone / cyberpunk are already benefiting from 8+

Todays 6 core is equivalent to a dual core from 2011, the 2500K was the 2nd best chip at the time so todays equivalent is the 5900X and thats the chip to buy if you want it to last 10 years.

EsaT · 28 Jul 2021 at 18:38

Quartz said:
I disagree. It will affect NVME drives. It will affect DirectStorage. It will affect the GPU if you plug in a second PCIe card, turning the x16 slot into a x8 slot.

No it won't affect.
Nothing shares lanes with CPU connected PCIe slot.
But second M.2 slots shares lanes with PCI_E4
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-MORTAR-MAX/Specification

Also NVMes can load games in seconds just fine without any Direct-overhype-Storage, if game is coded well:
https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/silicon-power-us70-1tb-review/11/

slowpoke · 28 Jul 2021 at 21:14

Joxeon said:
Todays 6 core is equivalent to a dual core from 2011, the 2500K was the 2nd best chip at the time so todays equivalent is the 5900X and thats the chip to buy if you want it to last 10 years.

Checked out the price of 5900x and noped out real quick. Even 5800x is eating most of the budget. Think i'll stay with 5600x for kids pc, will be going 5900x for my main workstation (Corel / Laser cutting graphics prep / occasional GIMP/PS job).

Presently (Comments ?):
My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £250.99
1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £54.95
1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C19 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £74.99
1 x Arctic Freezer 34 CPU Cooler - 120mm= £19.99
1 x Arctic MX-4 2019 Edition Thermal Compound (4g)= £5.99

Total: £417.41 (includes shipping: £10.50)