Question Been awhile, suggestions needed

[gilletter]

Been a long time since I've been here but here is my story... My computer of 5 years limped off to hardware heaven (not sure if the psu went or what, but it randomly shuts down) - being that old I figure instead of diagnosing and repairing, it's time for new parts. I haven't built anything in that long so I need suggestions on where to go for a budget of around $1,500.00 USD. I feel lost as I haven't kept up with the market in so long, I'm looking to use it as a home theater as well as gaming computer (Looking ahead to Diablo IV). I have it hooked up to a 1080p projector with the intentions of going with a 4k projector. I plan on reusing my HAF932 case, but I will need the rest of the components. Also, where are the best deals had at anymore - it doesn't look like newegg is as competitively priced as it once was.

 

[Steltek]

The best place to start would be to flesh out a proposed build at www.pcpartpicker.com - it will often have sources w/lowest prices. Since you are re-using your case, you may also want to look for a front panel port upgrade for a 5.25 bay to add USB 3.x/USB-C ports to your case. If you are running Windows and don't have a retail key on your existing OS that can be moved to the new system, don't forget to add in the cost of the OS.

AMD processors are the way to go at this point as they have completely overtaken Intel. You didn't mention if you plan to overclock; if so, a better CPU cooler would be a good idea than the AMD Wraith coolers.

I'd go minimum Ryzen5 3600 if you are doing mostly gaming, or a minimum Ryzen 7 3700X if you plan to do other things, an X570 motherboard (for PCIe 4.0), a PCIe 4.0 compatible NVMe drive like the Sabrent Rocket 4.0, a minimum 16GB of DDR4-3600 memory (with 32GB preferred). For video card, depends upon how much gaming you plan to do. The AMD 5700XT cards are good but suffer from significant driver and some vendor quality issues, while the Nvidia 2060 /2070/2080 Super cards are obviously more expensive but do have stable drivers. A good 650 or 750 watt gold power supply like the EVGA G1+ w/10 year warranty would be good as well.

 

[gilletter]

The best place to start would be to flesh out a proposed build at www.pcpartpicker.com - it will often have sources w/lowest prices. Since you are re-using your case, you may also want to look for a front panel port upgrade for a 5.25 bay to add USB 3.x/USB-C ports to your case. If you are running Windows and don't have a retail key on your existing OS that can be moved to the new system, don't forget to add in the cost of the OS.

AMD processors are the way to go at this point as they have completely overtaken Intel. You didn't mention if you plan to overclock; if so, a better CPU cooler would be a good idea than the AMD Wraith coolers.

I'd go minimum Ryzen5 3600 if you are doing mostly gaming, or a minimum Ryzen 7 3700X if you plan to do other things, an X570 motherboard (for PCIe 4.0), a PCIe 4.0 compatible NVMe drive like the Sabrent Rocket 4.0, a minimum 16GB of DDR4-3600 memory (with 32GB preferred). For video card, depends upon how much gaming you plan to do. The AMD 5700XT cards are good but suffer from significant driver and some vendor quality issues, while the Nvidia 2060 /2070/2080 Super cards are obviously more expensive but do have stable drivers. A good 650 or 750 watt gold power supply like the EVGA G1+ w/10 year warranty would be good as well.

Thanks for that site! That should help a lot, I'm not sure if I want to or even need to OC anymore. As far as memory goes, is there a "preferred brand" that stands out - I know the past I have used corsair vengeance and it seemed to work without an issue. I have a transferrable OS (win 8, now 10), Gaming like I said is mainly going to be Diablo 4, but I still enjoy skyrim and other open world RPGs, not a FPS fan (never was good at it). I'll check the pcpartpicker and post something in the near future and see if anyone can warn me of specific issues with the parts.

 

[gilletter]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RQDMTC Thoughts?

 

[Charlie98]

Some of the boards can be picky with RAM, particularly fast ram (3200.) Check for your particular board's approved memory (QVL List.)

Looking at your list... there are a few things. I just upgraded my old 2500K system to a 2700X AMD system, now that I have things ironed out it's pretty nice and quite capable. Gaming is pretty demanding... I would wait and see if anyone comments on whether or not going to 3rd Gen AMD would be better, or if it's a same-same deal given what you want to play.

Your board has an M.2 SSD slot, why not take advantage of it? DX that Sammy 860 for an appropriate M.2 or NVMe SSD.

That 850W PSU is probably overkill unless you intend to add another GPU later or something; 650w should do it, 750w would be cheap insurance.

 

[Steltek]

If you are going with the Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, there is no need to get a X570 board unless you are just future-proofing yourself for future upgrades as PCIe 4.0 requires a Ryzen 3 processor. Further, none of your chosen hardware would benefit from it either.

As a result, you probably would be better off with that proposed configuration to get a B450M based motherboard.

Also, if you are not planning to overclock the memory, you may even want to drop the memory back to a low latency DDR4-3200 due to the 2nd gen Ryzen processor. I'd go with either something on the motherboard QVL list or something that g.skill's memory configurator says is compatible.

 

[Markfw]

Yes, dump thad SSD and get a good NVME, way faster. and I would say get the 3700x over the 2700x

 

[Steltek]

Yes, dump thad SSD and get a good NVME, way faster. and I would say get the 3700x over the 2700x

Yes, that Samsung 860 QVO drive will suck.

If you have to have a 2TB drive as cheaply as possible, get this ADATA XPG SX8100 2TB NVMe drive currently on sale at Rakuten instead. It is a few bucks more ($210+tax w/Rakuten account and code ADA21), but it'll absolutely blow that Samsung SSD away. That Rakuten link is a direct from manufacturer purchase.

If the Ryzen 7 3700x is out of your price range, you might also consider the Ryzen 5 3600x. It is very competitive with the R7 2700x on most benchmarks, but does has two less cores and threads which hurts it on multi-threaded workloads.

BTW, when I recommended www.pcpartpicker to you, I neglected to tell you to not trust its recommendation that memory/motherboard are compatible. If you find memory there that you like, get the part number and make sure to check with the motherboard QVL list or the manufacturer's memory compatibility wizard (g.skill happens to have a good one) to be sure the memory chosen is actually compatible. Most of the other compatibility checks are good, but memory is NOT to be trusted.