Cheap GPU For Now?

[Preytheon]

would you reccommend the b450 or the b550 mbo for it? i think ill just re use my ssd, HD, psu and gpu for the time being until gpu prices go down unles you think there will be any problems with that?

A B450 would be fine if you find one at a bargain price, but otherwise you might as well go B550 - there used to be a £40-£50 premium for the B550, but that is gone now as you'll find the entry level B550's for £80-£100.

Don't worry about going for the top of the range boards - even the Asustek or the very entry level boards from the big manufacturers should be fine: personally I have a preference for Asus, but I won't bad-mouth anything else that I haven't researched. Likewise I have a preference of avoiding the WiFi/fancy extras unless there's something that I can't add of my own accord (you can keep the WiFi more up to date if it's just your own choice of PCI-E card). The only reason for going for anything more than the entry level is if you REALLY need 3 or 4 onboard NVME slots - clearly NOT your use-case!

Pro's and Con's:

The only "con" of the B550 is around price: a small price premium if you['re buying new. The main price difference now is due to being less likely to find a heavily discounted or second hand one.

The obvious pro's are the PCI-E gen4 for future upgrades (GPU + NVME) and some of the B550 boards have multiple NVME slots, which is a nice-to-have. The less obvious and my main reason is that the B550 spec for the VRM's is a nice little step up (I forget the exact changes, but that was the reason given for some of the initial price increases), which would allow you to upgrade to a 5900X or 5950X in a few years' time. Technically a B450 could handle those, but I gather that the older motherboard spec has the VRM's are a little stretched with the top-end CPU's. Not worth paying a huge premium for, but I like the idea of better VRM stability for the short term to have the BIG step up as an option later.

Honestly - the rest of the kit will probably be fine. If you're feeling flush and holding off for further GPU price-drops, I would recommend a small NVME as a boot drive - even something like a WD Blue SN550 (500Gb?) would absolutely wipe the floor with even the very best SSD... and you could still keep the SSD for games. I used to have pretty decent SSD's (2x Samsung 850 PRO's in RAID0) and I was blown away with how much faster the NVME's are.

 

[andeyknox]

A B450 would be fine if you find one at a bargain price, but otherwise you might as well go B550 - there used to be a £40-£50 premium for the B550, but that is gone now as you'll find the entry level B550's for £80-£100.

Don't worry about going for the top of the range boards - even the Asustek or the very entry level boards from the big manufacturers should be fine: personally I have a preference for Asus, but I won't bad-mouth anything else that I haven't researched. Likewise I have a preference of avoiding the WiFi/fancy extras unless there's something that I can't add of my own accord (you can keep the WiFi more up to date if it's just your own choice of PCI-E card). The only reason for going for anything more than the entry level is if you REALLY need 3 or 4 onboard NVME slots - clearly NOT your use-case!

Pro's and Con's:

The only "con" of the B550 is around price: a small price premium if you['re buying new. The main price difference now is due to being less likely to find a heavily discounted or second hand one.

The obvious pro's are the PCI-E gen4 for future upgrades (GPU + NVME) and some of the B550 boards have multiple NVME slots, which is a nice-to-have. The less obvious and my main reason is that the B550 spec for the VRM's is a nice little step up (I forget the exact changes, but that was the reason given for some of the initial price increases), which would allow you to upgrade to a 5900X or 5950X in a few years' time. Technically a B450 could handle those, but I gather that the older motherboard spec has the VRM's are a little stretched with the top-end CPU's. Not worth paying a huge premium for, but I like the idea of better VRM stability for the short term to have the BIG step up as an option later.

Honestly - the rest of the kit will probably be fine. If you're feeling flush and holding off for further GPU price-drops, I would recommend a small NVME as a boot drive - even something like a WD Blue SN550 (500Gb?) would absolutely wipe the floor with even the very best SSD... and you could still keep the SSD for games. I used to have pretty decent SSD's (2x Samsung 850 PRO's in RAID0) and I was blown away with how much faster the NVME's are.

Appreciate all the feedback it really helps a lot mate! I can get a msi b550m pro-vdh wifi for around 68ish? or a b450 for about 55-60. Ill look into the NVME drives too. Thanks again mate!

 

[andeyknox]

I've gone with 5600x for 200, b550 msi vdh WiFi mobo for 68 and 16gb crucial ballistix 3600mhz ram for 67. Will these be OK and compatible with everything? I'm going to invest in a new Psu and a m.2 drive in about a months time aswell.

 

[Alan McFall]

My advice would to be to build a new system. Your upgrade options are very slim, anything current generation you'll experience bottlenecks even at 1440p.. i'd suggest you build a new system and wait for a GPU.

10 series GPU is your best bet if you don't want (not enough budget) to upgrade your system, model depends on your PSU and even then I would not buy now, wait upto 6 months.

 

[andeyknox]

My advice would to be to build a new system. Your upgrade options are very slim, anything current generation you'll experience bottlenecks even at 1440p.. i'd suggest you build a new system and wait for a GPU.

10 series GPU is your best bet if you don't want (not enough budget) to upgrade your system, model depends on your PSU and even then I would not buy now, wait upto 6 months.

Would I still bottleneck playing 1080? That's all I'll be gaming at. Also what would bottleneck? Thanks for the reply!

 

[sy-core]

Keep an eye out for bargains as you'll always find them, 3060 is the place to start for lower end gpu's nowadays.

 

[Alan McFall]

Would I still bottleneck playing 1080? That's all I'll be gaming at. Also what would bottleneck? Thanks for the reply!

Yes, 1080p is a lot more CPU intensive than higher resolutions, the system just isn't fast enough to keep up with a modern GPU, 4 cores, no hyperthreading, slow ram, old architecture.. with a 3060 you'd likely be looking at performance comparable to a 10 series card, upto 30% fps loss, just a waste of money. You may even experience a serious bottleneck at 1080p with a 10 series card, around a gtx 970 is probably your ceiling and your current PSU would be enough to power it.

GTX 970 has 4gb of ram and is not fast enough to play modern games with high graphics or frame rates.

 

[andeyknox]

Yes, 1080p is a lot more CPU intensive than higher resolutions, the system just isn't fast enough to keep up with a modern GPU, 4 cores, no hyperthreading, slow ram, old architecture.. with a 3060 you'd likely be looking at performance comparable to a 10 series card, upto 30% fps loss, just a waste of money. You may even experience a serious bottleneck at 1080p with a 10 series card, around a gtx 970 is probably your ceiling and your current PSU would be enough to power it.

GTX 970 has 4gb of ram and is not fast enough to play modern games with high graphics or frame rates.

Hi again, even with the new parts Im going to order? Ie 5600x 16gb ram new mobo? Just so I'm clear in understanding, all them with my current GPU (r9 290) and 550w Psu (for time being) 500gb ssd & 1tb HD would bottleneck?

 

[Joxeon]

Why not pre order one of those 3060ti's OCUK have listed for just over £400?

 

[andeyknox]

Why not pre order one of those 3060ti's OCUK have listed for just over £400?

Yeah like I say mate, I'll be getting a new GPU and most probably 30 series, moneys just abit tight atm so in a month or two I'll look into it. I was more just going to use my GPU atm until then, but I wasn't sure if what Alan was saying about bottlenecking was I'm regard to that? As I have no idea what that even is

 

[sy-core]

I was just playing Metro Exodus at 1080p on a RTX 3060, everything turned up high + ray tracing getting a stable 50 fps

 

[Alan McFall]

Hi again, even with the new parts Im going to order? Ie 5600x 16gb ram new mobo? Just so I'm clear in understanding, all them with my current GPU (r9 290) and 550w Psu (for time being) 500gb ssd & 1tb HD would bottleneck?

No, you GPU would operate at max efficiency with a 5600x driving it

Your current system would bottleneck (severely reduce the performance of) a modern GPU.

 

[Alan McFall]

wrong button

 

[andeyknox]

No, you GPU would operate at max efficiency with a 5600x driving it

Your current system would bottleneck (severely reduce the performance of) a modern GPU.

Ah right okay! just wanted to make sure before I order it all. But thanks for clarification!

 

[Preytheon]

I assume the upgrade all went okay? Sounds like you were going to have a really solid base for upgrading to pretty much any GP in the range of 3060-3080Ti.... although if you're only aiming at 1080P, I reckon you might even get away with an RTX3050!! So check the games you're after with 1080P benchmarks before you waste any money