Black Friday upgrade

[Sonikku]

After a lot of thought I've decided to move on from the old 1155 socket. I'm looking to replace my motherboard, CPU and ram while salvaging the rest. Price range is $500, though there's some wiggle room, especially for forward thinking features and longevity. I live in the US and will be ordering primarily from Newegg as they're the last online vendor for PC parts available to me in NYS that doesn't charge sales tax. The system is primarily for 1080p gaming, though I do just about everything on this system. I prefer AMD as a brand and regard Intel as evil, though will strongly consider them for their high single threaded IPC because of games like WoW. Patch 8.1 for WoW does appear to increase performance by 15% by utilizing four cores, but as it won't be deployed until after Black Friday pricing, I'm in the position of making an educated guess. Here is my current system.

i5 2500 non k
evo 212 cooler
H77m motherboard
8gb g skill 1077 ram
Crucial 256gb ssd
Seagate 500gb 7200rpm hdd.
EVGA 600B1 PSU
Fractal R4 case

Most of the upgrades I'm eyeing are from the Newegg BF ad, though I'll be getting this elsewhere to serve as my boot drive for faster loading and performance regardless as for whether I go AMD or Intel, the 500GB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD.
https://slickdeals.net/f/12249049-s...00bw-black-99-tax-free-shipping?src=frontpage

Newegg flyer is here; https://www.newegg.com/promotions/nepro/18-3230/index.html?Tpk=black friday 2018 ad#p=1

Intel system:
9600k $249.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...eflyer-_-111918-112418-_-19-117-959-_-pg1pos6
ASRock Z390 PHANTOM GAMING motherboard $119
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...eflyer-_-111918-112418-_-13-157-852-_-pg1pos9
G.SKILL TridentZ 16gb DDR 4 $135
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...flyer-_-111918-112418-_-20-232-476-_-pg1pos12

AMD System
Ryzen 2600X $180
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...eflyer-_-111918-112418-_-19-113-497-_-pg5pos4
ASRock X470 Master SLI/AC AM4 AMD Promontory X470 $99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...eflyer-_-111918-112418-_-13-157-833-_-pg6pos6
AMD RAM TBD but has to be 3200 speed. Latency not a big deal, provided they don't dramatically affect performance when running at 3200 speed.

Thoughts?

 

[UsandThem]

The only concern I would personally have buying either of the motherboards you chose is the onboard audio. ALC892 is pretty old by this point, and the newer audio implementations are much better (ALC1220).

While the audio codec used is only part of the overall sound quality (the component selection being the other portion), generally any new motherboard that uses the older codec is not implementing the best audio components.

My personal belief and based on what I have used, is the ALC1150 that was first offered on higher-end Z170 motherboards in 2015, combined with higher end audio components, it gave discrete audio cards a real challenge on overall quality. That gap is even closer with the newer higher-end motherboards that have the the ALC1220 codec.

Now I will admit audio is very subjective, and people's hearing and satisfaction will differ. You might be perfectly A-OK with the audio on the boards you selected, or you might not. At least you have a little time to research this further if you want before you buy the components.

 

[ehume]

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

Make sure whatever RAM you get is as low profile as possible. Even at 3200, you don't need tall heatsinks on your RAM. DDR4 is only 1.35v, after all. I'm using Corsair 3200 LPX myself. On my DDR3 rigs I used even lower profile RAM.

 

[Sonikku]

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

Make sure whatever RAM you get is as low profile as possible. Even at 3200, you don't need tall heatsinks on your RAM. DDR4 is only 1.35v, after all. I'm using Corsair 3200 LPX myself. On my DDR3 rigs I used even lower profile RAM.

No. And it kills me that there isn't. I live out in rural farm country in New York state.

 

[Sonikku]

The only concern I would personally have buying either of the motherboards you chose is the onboard audio. ALC892 is pretty old by this point, and the newer audio implementations are much better (ALC1220).

While the audio codec used is only part of the overall sound quality (the component selection being the other portion), generally any new motherboard that uses the older codec is not implementing the best audio components.

My personal belief and based on what I have used, is the ALC1150 that was first offered on higher-end Z170 motherboards in 2015, combined with higher end audio components, it gave discrete audio cards a real challenge on overall quality. That gap is even closer with the newer higher-end motherboards that have the the ALC1220 codec.

Now I will admit audio is very subjective, and people's hearing and satisfaction will differ. You might be perfectly A-OK with the audio on the boards you selected, or you might not. At least you have a little time to research this further if you want before you buy the components.

How about this board then?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=11552995&PID=8092836&SID=

 

[UsandThem]

How about this board then?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=11552995&PID=8092836&SID=

That's a better choice, but IMO Gigabyte has had a rough go with BIOS updates since they released the Z170 motherboards. So they aren't my highest choice right now after primarily using them for many years. That said, it looks like that one has good user reviews, so maybe their BIOS team got their act together.

I've been eyeing some Ryzen boards contemplating moving over to a Ryzen build, and this one for the money is hard to beat in my opinion. It's a few bucks more than the other boards you linked to, but it also has onboard wifi/Bluetooth which is nice to have (if you have things like Bluetooth headphones).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144188&ignorebbr=1

Another one you can get for less ($114.99 after rebate) if you don't care about having wifi/Bluetooth, and it has better audio as well.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157836&ignorebbr=1

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's not a bad board, by any means. I personally tend more towards ASRock than Gigabyte, but I've had much better luck with Gigabyte boards and Raven Ridge than I have ASRock, as far as BIOS engineering goes.

Btw, YGPM, on one of my Ryzen gaming builds, maybe you might be interested.

 

[VirtualLarry]

As much as I love AMD, and would love to see you get a Ryzen system (I have *cough* several...), I think that you need to think about your requirements a little more too.

1) Will you be doing any video-editing? If so, nod to Ryzen

2) Will you be doing any video-game streaming (realtime upload), if so, originally this was a nod to Ryzen, but there was a more recent review / report out, that Intel can in fact out-perform in some cases, apparently because it is more efficient with the gaming side. So I'm not really sure that this is decisive in either direction, other than you want MORE CORES beyond just what the game requires, for the streaming / compression / uploading. (And on my Ryzen 5 1600 rigs, with RealTek GigE ports, it DOES take some CPU time. So much so, that my speedtests with Gigabit FIOS, register 300-500Mbit/sec when I'm mining on my CPU, whereas without mining running, I score 940Mbit/sec. up and down usually.)

3) Will you be gaming at 1080P, with a high-end video card? Or at a higher-than-60FPS frame-rate? If so, then this is a nod to Intel. Get an i5-8600K at the least, and overclock to 5Ghz if possible. Aftermarket cooling is a requirement, either high-end air, or AIO water or better. Consider de-lidding too.

4) If gaming at 1440P, 60Hz, or 4K UHD, 60Hz, then Ryzen is fine, for the near future. Supposedly, Intel has more "gas in the tank" for future 4K gaming compared to AMD, when not GPU-limited, which tends to equalize CPUs in the near-term.

Edit: Read this short (for now) thread to get a perspective on the Intel top-end options.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/i7-8700k-i7-9700k-or-i9-9900k.2556482/

 

[Sonikku]

I think Intel is the better option in the near term if costs are equal. The problem is they aren't equal. (Intel cpu and z390 motherboard cost way more than an AMD cpu and 470 motherboard, nevermind a cooler) But I may be able to choke down the higher upfront costs. What is really making me sweat is that Intel's platform is on its last legs. AMD's AM4 socket on the other hand has a very long life ahead of it.

One of the reasons why I've held onto i5 2500 for so long has been because to upgrade a cpu, you can't just upgrade the cpu. You have to upgrade the motherboard and often the ram along with it. That's a big cost to accept knowing how much Intel loves to shove newer sockets our way even when it isn't necessary.

With AMD however I would just be a firmware update away from upgrading a cpu for years to come. Four years down the road I could probably keep my ram and board and just swap out the cpu. That has a lot of appeal versus blowing the bank on Z390. I don't do any encoding or streaming, but AMD looks like a good option for the years to come. I also like them as a brand far more than Intel. Intel, the 800 pound gorilla with many times the budget, relegated to comissioning fake benchmarks to make their products appear better than they are.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I think Intel is the better option in the near term if costs are equal.

I think the reality is the difference between them is really minor in most real word use cases, with the exception of a few things like video editing that can make heavy use of lots of threads in which case AMD wins hands down do to them enabling SMT2 on the 2600 processors and Intel not enabling it on the 9600k. If you have been happy with a 2500 for this long you are going to be happy with either of your choices of CPU for a long time to come. If you prefer AMD go for that, in the end you will probably be happier with it.

The only concern I would personally have buying either of the motherboards you chose is the onboard audio. ALC892 is pretty old by this point, and the newer audio implementations are much better (ALC1220).

I have a question of my own on this, purely for my own education (this has nothing to do with the OPs question). Does the onboard audio codec matter any at all if you are sending the audio out across the HDMI cable to a AV receiver? I think that in that case the audio is bitstreamed to the AV and never processed by the onboard audio codec right? I'm doing a nearly identical upgrade to the one in the OP for my HTPC and was wondering if I should consider the audio codec for the MB I buy.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, if you're sending audio over HDMI, the on-board audio codec (third-party) doesn't factor into it at all.

 

[paperfist]

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.

 

[Sonikku]

Yeah, if you're sending audio over HDMI, the on-board audio codec (third-party) doesn't factor into it at all.

I get my audio out of my video card through hdmi. So with that being the case, I don't need to bother with limiting my choice to motherboards with top end integrated audio codecs?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I get my audio out of my video card through hdmi. So with that being the case, I don't need to bother with limiting my choice to motherboards with top end integrated audio codecs?

Correct. I do too, so I barely care what audio codec a board comes with. Been thinking of those 50W amplified bookshelf speakers from Rosewill that are going to be $39.99 on BF, they seem decent, and actual wood (MDF?) cabinets, supposed to have decent bass punch too, for their size.

If I get some of those for my PCs, I might start caring what codec is onboard, but honestly, my P35 boards from ten years ago had '892 codecs, and they supported Blu-Ray audio and maybe beyond, they were just fine. It seems like the newer codecs are just icing on the cake.

 

[Sonikku]

How about wireless headphones that have a usb bluetooth dongle that plugs into the PC? Is that affected by the onboard codec?

 

[UsandThem]

How about wireless headphones that have a usb bluetooth dongle that plugs into the PC? Is that affected by the onboard codec?

No, that wouldn't be handled by the onboard audio either.

Basically if you don't plug anything into the audio plugs, it won't affect you. I wasn't aware you did your audio through your GPU when I recommended a better onboard audio solution.

 

[Sonikku]

Basically the hdmi goes from the video card to the receiver then from the receiver to the tv. I game on a low ms 65" 4k Vizo tv from the couch.

 

[UsandThem]

Basically the hdmi goes from the video card to the receiver then from the receiver to the tv. I game on a low ms 65" 4k Vizo tv from the couch.

Yeah, the GPU handles all of that. That's why if you ever look at your device manager, you will see additional audio devices other than your onboard audio. It really won't matter what onboard audio comes on whatever motherboard you go with.

 

[Sonikku]

Good good. Does that make the motherboards outlined in my original post viable builds again? Actually it occurs to me that the 9600k doesn't come with a cooler. Can I use my evo 212 with it to clock it to 5ghz?

 

[UsandThem]

Good good. Does that make the motherboards outlined in my original post viable builds again? Actually it occurs to me that the 9600k doesn't come with a cooler. Can I use my evo 212 with it to clock it to 5ghz?

The cooler and your original motherboard choices are fine at stock l, but if you aim to hit 5 Ghz, you'll need a beefier cooler as I doubt that cooler will get you there with good temps.

I tried to find posts around the web with anyone reporting on their temps with that cooler and CPU, but I didn't see any. It's so new (the CPU), and I think most of the early adopters are going with the 9900k and 9700k.

 

[Sonikku]

Wait, is the evo 212 even compatible with the 9 series socket intel? Do I need another bracket? And lastly, assuming the evo will fit without needing a new bracket, if it can't handle overlocking then can it handle turbo?

 

[UsandThem]

It should be fine at stock, and the same mounting bracket should work from your current build. Intel hasn't changed the mounting dimensions for a while now despite changing the sockets.

It fits on LGA 1150, 1151, and 1155 (among others).

 

[Sonikku]

Alright so it fits. (Whew!)
What kind of cooling would it take to make it quiet at turbo? (4.6ghz)
With an Overlock? (5ghz)

 

[UsandThem]

I'm a Noctua fanboy, so I'm going to recommend a cooler like the NH-U14S. Cool, quiet, and the easiest mounting system out there.

There are some lower cost options out there, but I would have to take a look to remember some of their model numbers.

 

[Sonikku]

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