Question Need to build new HTPC....

[bob4432]

CPU Advice Please:

Currently running a i5-2500K on a ASRock z68 MB. MB is starting to have some hardware issues and with it being this time of year, figure this would be the best time to upgrade price wise. I have been eyeing the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G cpu and also the Ryzen 3 3200G as this machine will be mostly for HTPC along with web browsing and maybe some gaming, but not planning on any of the gaming portion. If it turns out I do do some gaming, if the internal GPUis not enough, I have a Sapphire NItro+ AMD RX5808GB Card (the blue card) for that and figure that would be g2g on a 1080p display (if it would be much of an upgrade over the Vega 8 or 11 in either?). I have a couple ADATA 2x8GB DDR4-3000 packs of RAM, along w/ a new case, Seasonic 80+ Gold PSU and am planning my first venture into the NVMe SSD, thinking of the one of the Samsung 970 500GB units, mixed in w/ a pair of X TB HDDs in a RAID1 for storage and then probably a USB3 or USB3.1 external for a 'real' backup in addition to the RAID1 HDDs.

For the time being, I will be using a 50" 1080p display, using HDMI into my Denon Audio Receiver and letting it handle the audio and also video connections.

My question is, is the cost difference between the Ryzen 5 3400G worth it over the Ryzen 3 3200G for my uses? I understand that these are Zen+ CPUs and not Zen2, but since I am having hardware issues w/ my current MB, I do not see any reason to try to resurrect that i5-2500K machine as everytime I look @ the task manager, it is maxed speed wise along w/ running @ 100%.

Please advise as this will be my first build since the i5-2500K build, which I actually built and used around the time of the release of BF4, so it has been quite a while and has served me well. I would like to stay with a GPU/CPU combo chip to cut down on heat and power, but if I do start gaming I have 2 80+ Seasonic Gold PSUs sitting NIB, one 550W and another 750W unit, and I am feeling the 550W would be more than adequate for this setup - no liquid cooling, no RGB lighting, just something that blends into the HTPC area is what I am looking for.

Thanks in advance for your time,
Bob

 

[bob4432]

@DrMrLordX
Do you feel the fan would last on any of the m/b's 5yrs+?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Do you feel the fan would last on any of the m/b's 5yrs+?

It might. Especially if it's not spinning, or spinning at a low speed. If you aren't planning on running any PCIe4 devices then you don't really need it anyway. Chipset temps of ~70C aren't a huge problem.

 

[Makaveli]

Now that i've finally updated to x570 I haven't heard the chipset fan once.
'
And i'm running a Corsair MP600 1TB Pcie 4 drive as my OS drive.

I think all the concerns are inflated motherboards and chipset fans are of much higher quality now than in previous years.

 

[Muadib]

Now that i've finally updated to x570 I haven't heard the chipset fan once.
'
And i'm running a Corsair MP600 1TB Pcie 4 drive as my OS drive.

I think all the concerned are inflated motherboards and chipset fans are of much higher quality now than in previous years.

I agree with you. I had my fan at the fastest setting, and it was silent. I turned it down when I saw DrMrLordX say that 70C wasn't a problem. I'm not that high, but it's winter.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I have my x570 Aorus Master's fan running in the default "balanced" configuration. Chipset temp rarely goes above 45C. I only hear it during the POST sequence when it spins up to max RPMs briefly. There's no boot "beep" from a system speaker, so the fan spinup is the substitute (heh). If the fan failed, I estimate that temps would probably sit around 65-70C. Might turn it off one of these days to see what would happen. That's with two NVMe SSDs (970 Evo 1TB, MyDigitalSSD BPX 480GB).