CPU and mobo upgrade recommendations needed

T

tantalus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 25, 2006
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I haven't looked at hardware in awhile, so I'm out of the loop and could use some help.

My current rig is in my signature. I need to upgrade to Windows 10 and figured I might as well upgrade my old-ass mobo and CPU while I'm at it. I'll keep all the other parts. I definitely don't want to upgrade my GPU. I also find that even my current system runs games just fine given my small-ish monitor running at 1900x1200.

I use the computer mostly for work, and a little bit of gaming (Dark Souls series, Witcher II, stuff like that). My sense of CPUs is that Intel is better for single apps like games, while the Ryzen chips are better for multitasking. My multitasking is limited to working on Word and listening to Spotify and maybe running Utorrent :)

I would like the new build to last me awhile, so solidity is more important than maximum speed.

I would like to spend a max of 350 for CPU/mobo combined. I don't have any allegiance to either Intel or AMD. I'm fine with new or used.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!
 
tantalus said:
I'll keep all the other parts
Click to expand...

That is hard, because DDR4. Your system you have now will be based on DDR3, and DDR4 is expensive and will likely break your budget if you move beyond some of the lowest end CPU/Mobo/RAM combos.

Technically Intel's Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs support DDR3, and there were a handful of 100-series chipset boards that supported DDR3, but they were fairly rare. I've got a buddy who owns one and just upgraded to a DDR4 system and might be interested in selling his (along with his i5 6500) so I'll ask him if he wants to sell.

Other than finding one of those boards second hand, you're really looking at replacing the RAM too. On the upside, beating a Phenom II 965 won't be hard performance wise. If you're going to spend the cash, I'd go with something like this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fg3rtg

That's a bit above your budget, but within reason. You could go with less RAM and save money as well, obviously, just be careful with the memory on the Ryzens as it's still picker than Intel.
 
Crap this is the kind of thing I was worried about. So I can't use my old RAM on a new board, damn. Thanks for the shoutout to your friend, I would be interested.
 
Follow up question - do I really need 16 GB RAM? Or is it stupid to pinch pennies on this point?
 
Need is a strong word. Windows 10 is fairly memory hungry, and your common applications get more and more so as well as time goes by. 8 GB is workable for sure, 12 GB is better, but you typically want to aim for only using 2 slots on a board to leave room for expansion later and you can't hit 12 without 4 sticks.

My thoughts are, you're either gonna put the money in for the upgrade or you're not. If you are, and if this computer is planned to last as long as your Phenom II build presumably has (since the CPU is circa 2009), then you should either do it right or not at all. If that means you wait another month so you can save up the extra $50 to have a $400 budget instead of $350, then maybe that's the way you go.

With all that said, I'm a *huge* fan of secondary market purchases. My wife has a Ryzen 1600 that I purchased bundled with a motherboard from a guy over on the Anandtech FS/FT forums for $160 flat; basically got the mobo for free. If you can find a secondary market Ryzen 1600 or 1700 and associated motherboard, you would likely have enough cash to pick up the RAM new and stick to your $350 budget.
 
One last thing, if you've got a Microcenter near you, their Mobo + CPU combos are no joke. You can pick up the same mobo and CPU I listed on my parts sheet, but it's $199.98+tax out the door at Microcenter because the CPU is cheaper there and they give you a $30 discount for bundling a CPU with a compatible mobo.
 
If you are patient and wait for sales you can probably get a Ryzen 2600, 16GB of ram, and a decent motherboard for a little under $400.

If you just went to Newegg right now:
Ryzen 2600...................$190
Gigabyte B450 Aorus....$120 -$10 rebate
G.SKill 16GB 3200........$138
Total...............................$448 -$10 rebate

I have seen Ryzen 2600 for $165, 16GB 3200 for $128 and the motherboard for $90 all in the last 2-3 weeks.
 
Why are you folks so insistent on the OP buying a 6-core, when all he does is office and less-demanding games?

A Ryzen 2200g would give him a sizable performance upgrade, or a Core i3 8100 (is 20% faster than the ryzen 2200g). He could also get by with a $70 motherboard, and that would easily afford him 16GB memory without having to go shopping around.

He's not going to be playing demanding games at 144hz on that ancient 7950. Last time I checked, office apps run the same on 4 threads as they do on sixteen.

I wouldn't compromise on memory just to add more cores, as that's the one component that is probably not going to come down much more in price anytime soon. There's too few memory suppliers who like their high memory prices too much to build more fabs.
 
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defaultluser said:
Why are you folks so insistent on the OP buying a 6-core, when all he does is office and less-demanding games?
Click to expand...

tantalus said:
I would like the new build to last me awhile
Click to expand...

I considered the 2200g in my head, but at the price difference between the 2200g and the 1600 isn't so huge, especially if he can pick things up used. A 6C/12T will likely have a longer lifetime on it than the 4C/4T 2200g. The motherboard I recommended *is* $70. His best case scenario is used parts, because then he can have his cake and eat it too as far as the core count and the pricing, leaving room for the 16GB, but he oughta be able to get close even going new parts.
 
It's more about getting platform AM4 and 8Gb is enough for starts as I just got this Power Color Red Dragon RX 580 in at $199 as it was at stock for this run . https://www.3dmark.com/fs/16596948

Now here is the Ryzen 2200g at default running 2933Mhz memory with XFX RX 570 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/16614573

Same RX 570 on Ryzen 1600 with 2133Mhz memory https://www.3dmark.com/fs/16576280

I have not had time to test 580 with 1600 yet but I will post back when I do . but I feel the 2200g can push a video card very fast to be x8 PCI Express for $99 and you get a back up gpu as the meaning is build everything around it and then buy only the cpu you want like 2800x when it's time.

I see you have a 7950 as what it did in limited testing with 2200g https://www.3dmark.com/fs/16492843

I wanted to see how Hawaii scaled on Ryzen at factory clocked as a 290x with 8000Mhz memory speed http://www.3dmark.com/fs/15566115 .. what would it do on a 9900k ?

and just clock Hawaii http://www.3dmark.com/fs/15566072
 
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Microcenter B450 mobo + amd ryzen 2600 cpu $227
Ram ddr4 16gb 3200 on ebay $120-$125.
 
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