Help picking CPU/Mobo? Gaming and video converting

Sprtfan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
Messages
327
I haven't built in a while and have a friend looking to put together a PC for some light gaming and video converting. He has 16 GB of DDR4, 1 TB SSD, GTX 1060. I was thinking going with an i5 8400 would be a good choice but wasn't sure what motherboards would be good. He will not be overclocking. Thanks
 
AMD has caught up to Intel in the CPU side for this type of use since you probably last looked with Ryzen. 1700 or a 2700 is a very fast 8 core for not much. Just check ram compatibility/speed as this is a performance consideration for the Ryzen CPUs.
P.s. the 2000 series auto overclocks better than anything else on the market.. so he doesn't have to do anything for extra performance.
 
I asked him for more info on his ram, he has 2x Ballistix Sport LT 8GB Single DDR4 2666. Would that work ok with a Ryzen setup? Any motherboard recommendations?
 
I asked him for more info on his ram, he has 2x Ballistix Sport LT 8GB Single DDR4 2666. Would that work ok with a Ryzen setup? Any motherboard recommendations?
Could be a little on the slow side TBH, Ryzen likes 3000-3200 with as tight timings as possible (B-die is best but not essential) and zen+ new one (2700 etc) likes up to 3600mhz, might be safest to stick with a cheaper intel quadcore system or i5 8400 as you suggest, or even used in the meantime. Or sell the ram, can get 16gb 3200 ~130-150 USD these days.

Next year AMD drops 7nm, should make the 9900k look like a waste of money and an overheating pos at worst. So this is why I suggested going AMD as you can drop in the upgrade as long as the motherboard maker supports it.
 
Are there any Ryzen Mobo's that I can still use ddr 3 ram with? I'm looking to upgrade my system and I'm not sure weather I should go with intel or AMD and I'm hoping I can save some money by using my old ddr 3 ram.
 
@OP ryzen is definitely the best bang for your buck(especially if you live near a microcenter). an 8core 16 thread 1700/1700x or 2700/2700x with even a cheap b350/450 motherboard will perform very nicely for his use case. running that ddr4 2666 wont hurt performance except in specific operations. just check the mb qvl list to see if that memory has been tested with it. even if it hasnt bios updates have come a long way in ensuring many ddr4 kits will run problem free.

@ brank, nope on both counts unfortunately. either new platform will require ddr4.
 
Ryzen 1700x has got to be the best bang for your buck. I got a 1700X and ASUS B350 Strix combo at Microcenter recently for $215 including tax..
 
Ryzen 1700x has got to be the best bang for your buck. I got a 1700X and ASUS B350 Strix combo at Microcenter recently for $215 including tax..
Wow. You got the mainboard for free.

In Europe one has to buy from Amazon all except the hard drives (the delivery guy may drop or crash it and those things are a bit more fragile than an ssd) since it's the best price one can get. In fact you have to buy from the cheapest Amazon (avoid marketplace) in Europe, whether UK, DE, FR, ES or IT. Amazon itself sells the same stuff with completely different prices. You can get a Ryzen 1700 VTA included for 160 euros in one country and 225 in another. Delivering from each country is for free. Best of all is you can get most of those things from Amazon US too but delivering and tax penalty won't make it cheaper than the cheapest in EU.
There used to be plenty of chinese shops with very good prices but not very trustworthy and out of stock for what one precisely needed, had to buy something close to it every time. That was in the 90s.

And UK is still in EU by all the rules and EU laws till late 2020. No worry on that. Not even sure they will be getting out for real, maybe not at all.
Not sure if there is some way to get into Amazon Japan or India or somewhere else with one's country account as for those areas.

VTA is close to 20% in most EU countries so you may get same price in dollars and euros even if the euro is worth more.
 
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Are there any Ryzen Mobo's that I can still use ddr 3 ram with? I'm looking to upgrade my system and I'm not sure weather I should go with intel or AMD and I'm hoping I can save some money by using my old ddr 3 ram.
Not at all. Ryzen CPU controls the RAM as did previous AMD CPU (before Intel) For instance Core 2 Duo and Quad used a mainboard controller for RAM. Using DDR2 at first. Even some mainboards were at the beginning made for Pentium 4 socket 775. Last chipsets for Core 2 mainboards were using DDR3. Amd Athlon CPU socket 939 and 754 were the first to have controller implemented in the CPU. That was DDR2. Then came the first socket AM2 which on the same coket moved to AM2+, AM3, AM3+. Most incompatibilities came from the CPU supporting DDR2 or DDR3 and depending on which were present on the board. Some boards would have both RAM slots and some CPU would support both kind of RAM.
Now AM4 is a different socket was only meant for CPU supporting DDR4 and there hasn't been any new kind of RAM supported by those CPU. Not sure for instance that in 2020 Zen 3 would not have dual support for DDR4 and for next to come DDR5 and still on AM4 or same compatible socket AM4+ or AM5.
 
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