Question Please review my proposed Sandy Bridge -> Zen 2 upgrade

[marlinman]

Haven't upgraded in 8 years, and am hoping someone less out-of-the-loop is able to confirm that I haven't made a stupid mistake. Am planning to swap the following for the corresponding parts in my sig:

Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
DDR4 3200MHz 2x8GB
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB SSD

The MSI's USB BIOS Flashback was a major deciding factor when it came to the m/b. Alas the new SSD will deal to 2 of the MSI's 6 SATA ports, so not all of the 6 SATA devices in my sig will survive the upgrade. Had resigned myself to getting an x570 m/b (after some more of them get reviewed) because of this SATA issue, but realised I can just whack the old CPU/MB/RAM/SSD along with the 3TB drives (mainly filled with Blu-Ray ISOs) in a spare powered case and access them over network.

Anyway - hoping everything in the resulting system will operate at its fullest potential and that I haven't screwed up somewhere...

 

[Flayed]

Looks pretty good. You might want to invest in an aftermarket heatsink/fan to unlock the fullest potential.

 

[marlinman]

Cheers - I shamefully never got around to OCing my current CPU, so might just get away with using the stock cooler.

The MSI has a ps/2 port so as a proud tinfoil wearer I'm gonna try installing win7 on the new hardware, but if I can't (or if I can't get critical components working) I'm eyeing up win10's Enterprise edition as 'sold' by urcdkey. Guessing I can't exploit the free win10 upgrade I applied and then immediately wound back in 2016, given the magnitude of my h/w upgrade...

 

[JimKiler]

While the MSI has the upgraded BIOS firmware you may want to wait for the MAX version which has 32MB of firmware storage. MSI had to take shortcuts to get Ryzen 3000 added to their BIOS'es due to only 16MB currently. Per Tom's

Therefore, MSI made a few compromises, such as removing the eye candy from the BIOS interface while eliminating support for RAID arrays and A-series and Athlon Bristol Ridge APUs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/msi-300-400-series-max-motherboards-amd-ryzen-3000,40015.html

Looks like MSI has the best AM4 RAM compatibility.

 

[Flayed]

Cheers - I shamefully never got around to OCing my current CPU, so might just get away with using the stock cooler.

The MSI has a ps/2 port so as a proud tinfoil wearer I'm gonna try installing win7 on the new hardware, but if I can't (or if I can't get critical components working) I'm eyeing up win10's Enterprise edition as 'sold' by urcdkey. Guessing I can't exploit the free win10 upgrade I applied and then immediately wound back in 2016, given the magnitude of my h/w upgrade...

You might be able to get WIn 7 to work but would likely require slipstreaming drivers and modifying .inf files etc. It's not going to be easy.
Easier just to switch to a Linux distro or win 10

 

[marlinman]

While the MSI has the upgraded BIOS firmware you may want to wait for the MAX version which has 32MB of firmware storage. MSI had to take shortcuts to get Ryzen 3000 added to their BIOS'es due to only 16MB currently.

Good to know - I'm in New Zealand so not sure how quickly the MAX boards will make it over here, but will keep an eye out. OTOH, the compromises made to the new BIOS don't seem too concerning; I guess greater compromises might however be required to support Zen 3 etc. My trigger finger is also very very itchy