PSA: If you currently have anything slower than a G4560 or Ryzen 3 1200, UPGRADE!

[bigboxes]

You are like me. It's nice to know there are other people who recycle old PC parts. I have a desk drawer full of old memory DIMMS and CPU's. On my current R3 1200 build I recycled a AMD 7950, a 240GB SSD and a Samsung F1 1TB HDD. I still have a couple of Samsung F3's that still put up very impressive read writes for a 7 year old spinner drive. Those are 500GB platters on a 1TB drive.

The G4400 will be a nice upgrade over that old crappy AMD APU. It will be nice to see the Ryzen based APU's. My first build in 2003 was an AMD build. Since the Core2Duo I have not built any AMD systems until Ryzen.

My first build was in 2000, a 1200 Thunderbird. Was all AMD until they crapped the bed with the intro of the Core processors. The wife has an A10-7850K rig that I built to replace an old X2 platform that bit the dust. But for me, it's been i7 920 and now i7 4790K. Threadripper does have my attention. However, my next build will be the home server and I'm going with a Xeon Silver 4114 (x 2). Not sure what I'll do for my next main rig. That should be a few years away, unless I just get the itch. Haha.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just found a G3258 combo with a Gigabyte H81M-DS2V 1.0 mobo, and 2x4GB GSkill Sniper DDR3-1600 RAM, sitting on top of one of my shelving units.

Since I just happened to have case + PSU prepped, I said, "Hey, let's set this one up!".

Just for variety, and to save money, I put in a 160GB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM 3.5" HDD, zero POH "refurb". Seems new to me.

Surprisingly speedy, for a 160GB. (I believe that cbn discovered that these particular drives use a short-stroked 500GB platter size, so they're fairly modern.)

It does have it's lags, though, with the HDD, especially in terms of boot times, and Windows Updates. Which is one really good reason to go SSD, to save time at those tasks.

I installed Windows 10 64-bit Home first, at stock speeds.

Oh, when I built it, I was using an ATI DVI-to-HDMI adapter and an HDMI cable to my 4K UHD TV.

When I booted the PC, all I got was a black screen, with a blinking underline cursor in the upper-left, no signon screen, no hotkey list, nothing. No message about a missing boot drive, either.

But if I hit the power button, it powered off immediately.

It had the F5 BIOS installed. I figured it was some sort of incompatibility between the iGPU and my 4K screen. So I installed an R9 250X 2GB DDR3 dGPU I had around here.

Well, that worked. Got my sign-on screen, booted / POSTed, etc.

So I installed Win10 64-bit at stock.

Got all the updates, got my browsers installed, CPU-Z, OCCT, etc.

Then I updated the BIOS with a USB stick, and then booted Win10, ran OCCT for a temp baseline at load.

Then I rebooted, and cranked it up to 4.0Ghz and 1.280V, a good voltage I've learned for that speed.

No problems, booted Windows 10, ran CPU-Z's benchmark (I had run it at stock too), to compare results, to see if the overclock "took". (Some of the microcode updates disable overclocking inside Win10.)

So I ran some OCCT, seemed stable, so I reboot and tried 4.2Ghz and 1.325V. Running OCCT now, and it's been stable for 17 minutes, while I'm browsing and listening to internet radio.

So I'm going to call it stable. SUCCESS!

Edit: Core #0 max temp 90C, so I'm not going to push this any higher.

 

[bigboxes]

Just found a G3258 combo with a Gigabyte H81M-DS2V 1.0 mobo, and 2x4GB GSkill Sniper DDR3-1600 RAM, sitting on top of one of my shelving units.

Since I just happened to have case + PSU prepped, I said, "Hey, let's set this one up!".

Just for variety, and to save money, I put in a 160GB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM 3.5" HDD, zero POH "refurb". Seems new to me.

Surprisingly speedy, for a 160GB. (I believe that cbn discovered that these particular drives use a short-stroked 500GB platter size, so they're fairly modern.)

It does have it's lags, though, with the HDD, especially in terms of boot times, and Windows Updates. Which is one really good reason to go SSD, to save time at those tasks.

I installed Windows 10 64-bit Home first, at stock speeds.

Oh, when I built it, I was using an ATI DVI-to-HDMI adapter and an HDMI cable to my 4K UHD TV.

When I booted the PC, all I got was a black screen, with a blinking underline cursor in the upper-left, no signon screen, no hotkey list, nothing. No message about a missing boot drive, either.

But if I hit the power button, it powered off immediately.

It had the F5 BIOS installed. I figured it was some sort of incompatibility between the iGPU and my 4K screen. So I installed an R9 250X 2GB DDR3 dGPU I had around here.

Well, that worked. Got my sign-on screen, booted / POSTed, etc.

So I installed Win10 64-bit at stock.

Got all the updates, got my browsers installed, CPU-Z, OCCT, etc.

Then I updated the BIOS with a USB stick, and then booted Win10, ran OCCT for a temp baseline at load.

Then I rebooted, and cranked it up to 4.0Ghz and 1.280V, a good voltage I've learned for that speed.

No problems, booted Windows 10, ran CPU-Z's benchmark (I had run it at stock too), to compare results, to see if the overclock "took". (Some of the microcode updates disable overclocking inside Win10.)

So I ran some OCCT, seemed stable, so I reboot and tried 4.2Ghz and 1.325V. Running OCCT now, and it's been stable for 17 minutes, while I'm browsing and listening to internet radio.

So I'm going to call it stable. SUCCESS!

Edit: Core #0 max temp 90C, so I'm not going to push this any higher.

Very cool. Well, the H110 board I got only takes DDR4 memory. I have lots of spare DDR3, but the only DDR4 ram I have is the ECC stuff for the future build. As predicted, it would not post with that installed. So, I had to bite the bullet and ordered an 8GB stick of Crucial from the egg. Amazon wanted over $10 more. Oh well. I guess I'll have a more complete set of parts for the box.

 

[UglyDuckling]

Running an E5640 X58 machine and it's plenty fast enough for what i do paired with an R9 Fury.

Clocked at 4.4ghz this is tasting Ryzen stock single core, and past Sandy and Ivy stock.

 

[SpaceBeer]

I've been using A10-7850K as a home PC for more than a 3 years now, for home/office tasks and (light) 3D CAD. Deceided to go for Ryzen 3 1200 since sometimes I need to render 3D models. And I expect to have more demanding tasks in (near) future, so I'll have good upgrade path with R5 x600(X).

 

[Hans Gruber]

I've been using A10-7850K as a home PC for more than a 3 years now, for home/office tasks and (light) 3D CAD. Deceided to go for Ryzen 3 1200 since sometimes I need to render 3D models. And I expect to have more demanding tasks in (near) future, so I'll have good upgrade path with R5 x600(X).

Here is my last benchmark for the R3 1200. It hits a wall @4ghz. I think I will settle for 3.85ghz because it doesn't take too much voltage. This bench was 3.95ghz. I will probably crank up the voltage to take the top spot. I have this 1200 water cooled with a 240mm cooler. I did it because it's in a Phanteks P400 case that is not good for air cooling so I went with water. I plan to get a R5 1600 or something similar down the road.

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/5269299

 

[VirtualLarry]

Added i3-8100 as a candidate for a "minimum upgrade" standard. Seems cheap enough, ~$120, a true quad-core like Ryzen 3 1200 is, but at 3.6Ghz with Intel Sky/Kaby/Coffee Lake IPC, and a healthy 6MB of L3 cache. No overclocking though. But should be quite a bit better than a G4560, for slightly more money (CPU-wise). (Board-wise, well, Z370 boards are going to have a price premium associated with them for a while, probably.) Oh yeah, CPU shortages, too. Ryzen 3 1200 should be a lot more available, and with cheaper boards, and is overclockable.

I can't wait to test an i3-8100 @ 3.6Ghz (stock) against a Ryzen 3 1200 (OCed to 3.8Ghz).

But currently it only can run on z370 boards. We have to wait for a few months before H/B boards arrive.

Yeah, board cost is still an issue, even with the "budget" Coffee Lake quad. Hopefully there will be $50-60 boards soon enough? (By the end of the year?)

 

[ao_ika_red]

Added i3-8100 as a candidate for a "minimum upgrade" standard. Seems cheap enough, ~$120, a true quad-core like Ryzen 3 1200 is, but at 3.6Ghz with Intel Sky/Kaby/Coffee Lake IPC, and a healthy 6MB of L3 cache. No overclocking though. But should be quite a bit better than a G4560, for slightly more money (CPU-wise). (Board-wise, well, Z370 boards are going to have a price premium associated with them for a while, probably.) Oh yeah, CPU shortages, too. Ryzen 3 1200 should be a lot more available, and with cheaper boards, and is overclockable.

I can't wait to test an i3-8100 @ 3.6Ghz (stock) against a Ryzen 3 1200 (OCed to 3.8Ghz).

But currently it only can run on z370 boards. We have to wait for a few months before H/B boards arrive.

 

[Loser Gamer]

Yesterday I bought an i3-8100 which will be here today but I have no board yet! If it's true I would have to wait a month or more for cheaper boards then I'm going to buy a board today and be done with this. The only thing that bothers me is the 8100 only takes a max of ddr4 2400 memory right?

 

[LTC8K6]

Yesterday I bought an i3-8100 which will be here today but I have no board yet! If it's true I would have to wait a month or more for cheaper boards then I'm going to buy a board today and be done with this. The only thing that bothers me is the 8100 only takes a max of ddr4 2400 memory right?

Presumably if you have to buy a Z board, you can then overclock the ram?
Not sure though.

 

[LTC8K6]

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/i5-8400-bclk-overclocking.2521222/#post-39108061

i5-8400 with memory overclocked.

 

[rbk123]

But currently it only can run on z370 boards. We have to wait for a few months before H/B boards arrive.

Is it expected to be able to run on B150 chipset boards (with a BIOS update)?

 

[TeknoBug]

PC hardware is becoming more and more expensive. Ram prices have doubled and are further expected to increase by another 40%.
Graphics card prices have shot up as well.
Prices on all computer components have shot up and taxes have increased.
All while one can just buy a brand new PS4 for $250...

Time to turn back to console for gaming needs for the time being.

 

[ao_ika_red]

Is it expected to be able to run on B150 chipset boards (with a BIOS update)?

https://videocardz.com/73126/coffeelake-and-kabylake-lga1151-pins-are-different

I'm afraid not.

 

[rbk123]

That blows.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yesterday I bought an i3-8100 which will be here today but I have no board yet! If it's true I would have to wait a month or more for cheaper boards then I'm going to buy a board today and be done with this. The only thing that bothers me is the 8100 only takes a max of ddr4 2400 memory right?

I've got an ASRock Z370 ITX/ac board in an ITX chassis, with an i3-8100 installed, running with DDR4-2800 GSkill RAM designed for X99 platform. All I had to do was select "XMP Profile 1" in UEFI, and then DRAM CLOCK 2800.

 

[dark zero]

That's a MUCH better option... OK, maybe slightly better, since it opens up the options on AM4.

But no overclocking, which makes Larry a sad panda.

I was able to pick up an Asus B350M-E Prime a couple of weeks ago, for $60. I would easily spend the extra $10 for a B350 board, to enable overclocking. My A8-9600 auto-OC using OC Genie to 3.90Ghz. (I had it manually set to 4.0, but it wasn't fully stable.)

Even overclocked to 3.90Ghz, though, the A8-9600 wasn't as fast as the G4560 in the CPU dept., both ST and MT, I think. FailDozer derivatives, are still mostly fail. Although the A8-9600 is one of the "least fail" of the family.

Actually the A8 7600 is FAR better than the current gen... But who are going to Deadboxer or Deadhalem?