Black Friday upgrade

[UsandThem]

The Cryorig H7 or H7 Plus were the couple of lower cost coolers I was thinking of.

Yeah, that cooler does look pretty good. The cooling looks good, I mean. Not the fan. That's ugly as sin.

Nah, they're like a puppy that is so ugly they're cute.

I never see them, so the color doesn't bother me. However, Noctua offers different colors now if you don't mind ordering the fan separately and paying more.

 

[Ranulf]

Just my $00.02 as someone who always tries to stay with 1 MB in hopes of just upgrading the CPU down the line. It never pans out as you usually are able to do 2 GPU upgrades while on the same CPU and by the time you get the itch to swap CPUs some other tech associated with the MB changes that you’ll lust for and you’ll end up doing a full upgrade.

Yeah, given my experiences the last 7-8 years I'm not a fan of upgrading cpus. After 2-3 years, it gets dicey. On Intel systems I wouldn't generally even try given past history with 775, 1155 or 1150 sockets (or hell the old P4s). Its gotten better with 1151 and backwards compatibility at least but Intel mobos just don't last in terms of availability and you're left with the ebay/used market. Although I just picked up a used 3770k for my 2500k system to mess around with. A bit pricey but it came with a mobo and ram in case my asrock p67 doesn't like the chip.

My AMD upgrade from a phenom2 to an fx8350 was okay but has had enough little issues that if going that route again, I would likely just go with a new mobo and ram (if needed). The 970 chipset can handle the 8350 but the older ones I think are riding the line compared to the boards put out in say 2014/15. I picked up an asus mobo with rgb and m.2 there towards the end. I've also had that same gigabyte 970 mobo give me all sorts of problems with newer video cards from AMD, power issues/stability/bios splash screen corruption. Welcome to manufacturers not updating bioses or newer cards not running in spec etc..

TLDR: In my view, price/perf right now just favors AMD with the upgrade option in case you need/want it. $70 difference means you can go buy a noctua u12 or u14, a non beige noctua fan that will let you game in relative silence.

 

[SimplyComplex]

Is there a Micro Center near you? Although I buy a lot of things from newegg, I get my CPU/MB combos from MC.

While this is great for a higher end Intel chip, how good of an idea is this if he goes for the Ryzen 2 option(which is what I would suggest)? Because I'd be concerned those old B350/X370 boards sitting around MicroCenter may be old enough to require an AMD boot kit, which is a huge pain.

 

[Sonikku]

Will the intel 9 series chips work on z370 out of the box? Or does it require a firmware update? I think I'm going with this board from Asrock.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157789

But I would have no dummy cpu to update the board with if Z370's 9 series support was conditional upon having a bios update. Chicken and the egg.

 

[UsandThem]

It comes down to if you get a board that has a newer BIOS version that supports the new CPUs. If you are unlucky, or if the retailer doesn't rotate their stock properly, you could get one that has an older BIOS version on it.

To be sure it will work out of the box, you would need to buy a Z390 board, or confirm with the retailer what BIOS version the older board has on it (which most of the larger retailers in my experience won't do).

 

[Sonikku]

I had hoped that all z370s worked regardless of bios revision, owing to the fact that z390 is basically the same thing with hardly any changes, just like the 8600k and 9600k. But if I definitely do need one with a certain bios for it to work, and it is a total crapshoot as for whether or not I get new stock with the newer bios, then this just got a lot more complicated. I wish Intel was less evil and more like the more benevolent AMD that will actually send you a dummy cpu to update a 350 board for ryzen 2 chips if necessary.

 

[UsandThem]

You can always look at the BIOS update history, and see the date that they added support for the newer CPUs. Even though AMD offered the loaner CPUs for updating the BIOS, from what I saw, they were initially pretty backed up getting them out for people. So people instead could buy their newer boards and skip that whole process as well.

But there's not much price difference between the Z370 and Z390 boards, so I'd personally just get the newer board to eliminate that concern.

 

[Sonikku]

If the z390 version wasn't $50 more I would in a heartbeat. The budget is stretched to its limits already.

 

[Sonikku]

As luck would have it the z390 version is now on sale. It's down to the wire now guys, I would like input into these two boards.

ASRock Z390 Extreme4
$130 after rebate. With a 9600k it will be $380 total.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...ntelMotherboards-_-13157848-S6A4C&ignorebbr=1

MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC
Is $150 AR now, but Will be $370 total in a BF Combo deal tomorrow that includes the board, the 9600k cpu and a Call of Duty Black Ops 3 key code that I may or may not be able to flip? How does that work?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...SI_Z390_gaming_EDGE_AC-_-13-144-213-_-Product

I like Asrock as a brand a little better and like the LEDs. Asrock in general is usually a good product for the dollar. On the other hand, the MSI combo is $10 cheaper and comes with a game I might be able to flip for $40-50 that I could put towards something else. It also has built in wifi bands which I like. Without the combo deal, it is a more expensive motherboard on its own than the Asrock, but I could not say why. What I'm really wondering about is how well they overclock in relation to the other.

 

[UsandThem]

I like Asrock boards personally, but MSI seems to have gotten it's act together as well.

I'd say if you want the wifi, go with the MSI. All of these mid-range boards pretty all overclock mostly the same, so unless you can find a review where one is a miraculous overclocker compared to the other, you pretty much could flip a coin to decide.

 

[Sonikku]

My decision: I went with this combo.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3876948

9600k with MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC motherboard and a Call of Duty Black Ops 4 digital code for $369.99 AR.

And 16gb of ram for $134.99.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232476&ignorebbr=1

I had actually looked up the manual for the motherboard to do deeper research before deciding and saw that MSI has a deal where you get a free pc game code for the new Asassin's Creed for registering the board and submitting your invoice! That's two new full priced games for free! I'm going to flip em' for $40-50 once the Black Friday/cyber monday etc. sales die down and bring the upgrade cost down to $400 ish.

 

[Flayed]

Thats a really good deal.