Potential New PC Build, Thoughts?

[Some newbie driver]

As the good ol' Jack would had said: let's go by for parts.

I guess I should try to better clarify my goal, or what my thinking is for this build.

The main question is if you need to use it professionally or not. I had that doubt before, I had it less now because it seems that you mean the media works you do with it (video editing and all that stuff) is for personal use. And I think you give too many importance to the upgradability vs some things you sacrifice. At the end any computer could be upgraded except if too many time has passed (like yours of 12 years)

I'm not comfortable enough to buy used hardware lol. I'd rather spend a little more for the peace of mind and warranty, not that new hardware is always a guarantee. And my current monitor has a max resolution of 1600x900, which is pointless for a 1080p rig lol.

You have to sacrifice something. If you wanna change it everything now, you don't have enough budget, you will not be satisfied at any part of your current computer and you would not want to upgrade it in 5 years but to change it entirely. So, you have to decide now what gets out of the budget now to buy it later (when you had saved some extra money and the prices would be better). And your 3 best options are those:

- You endure with your actual monitor. It doesn't matter you are aiming at Full HD with the build, you can live a few months more with that monitor and that will free one 20% of your budget now for your immediate needs (of a working computer)
- You purchase a cheap second hand motherboard of previous generations (like a GTX9xx or similar); save around 10% of your budget on that part now and change it in a year unless you are unlucky and it breaks before. Yes, it's a risk but you are going to spend like 50 bucks on that. Not such high cost for the risk if you chose well.
- You reduce the tier on the motherboard selection. It can be done safely but the savings are also minor (between 5 and 10% of your budget)

Now, let's see what we have clear now:

- The DRAM SSD will be something for the future. It's a shame but as I said, the difference between what you have now and any SSD even the worse ones would be so high that you wouldn't immediately miss it.
- The processor it's something settled too, you have already chosen the best in value for your budget limit. Less and you want to change it to soon; more and you are out of budget.
- The wi-fi is out because it was a "just in case" that isn't really necessary and you need to optimize your budget.
- You can't save the money of the secondary HDD because you can't re-use the actual ones (they are already full and you expect to fill more data in the new one).
- 16GB sticks of RAM to be able to upgrade up to 64GB without having to discard any purchased DIMM
- Case and power sources choices are good enough for the price and your needs.

So, the points where you should to decide:

I looked more into it and the X570's are the only ones that offer the PCIe 4.0. Something I don't need now, and might never need, but just in case. The MB is the one part I don't want to have to replace in 5 years, so the one I get now has to work well with the future rig I plan to have. On the other hand the B450's support the Ryzen 9's so I'll dig a little deeper.

You have not payed enough attention to the chipset part on my second message. Forget the B450, aim for the B550. It's the same tier chip but the native one for Ryzen Gen3 for Desktop. They are so new than I forget to mention them on my first message. B550 will have the PCIe4Gen and full support to any current Ryzen and most probably next gen ones (the Zen 3 to be released at the end of the year). What you lose choosing a B550 motherboard instead of an X570 one: Over the paper, only a few USB and PCIe lanes (look at the specification tab here: https://www.amd.com/en/products/chipsets-am4). Out of the paper, you will lose also A BIT of quality components of the motherboard, because the X570 ones are the motherboards thought to overclock the bigger Ryzens. Even if you change later to a R9-3900XT later in the future, unless you overclock it, you should have no problem at all on a B550 motherboard. What you gain? The Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite cost 200€ and the B550 Aorus Elite cost 150€ (approx prices). Not bad if you don't want to push hard your hardware.

I'll give it a look, but AMD will have to blow NVidia out of the water to make me consider changing.

Again, you DON'T have to see who's owning who in graphic terms (is NVidia at this moment). Because that's a high tier competition (on cards over 500€). You are out of that league, forget it, stick to your budget. You can search the best card inside your budget or the cheapest card that will offer you a similar performance than the original you aimed for (and save money for anything else). Those are the two options you have (if you ditch the second-hand third option). In the future, when you had saved money enough and if you want to aim for a high tier card; then aim for that whatever it would be the good one on that moment and you could pay. But that will be the future. And nothing prevents you to keep changing from team green to team red back and forth as many times as it would be necessary. Worst thing it can be done is to stick to a brand without objective reasons. If NVidia ends being the best option for you now, go for it without any doubt. But if it's not; don't stick to it just because it's NVidia or just because NVidia has the better high tier cards. Those things won't give you extra value to your spent money.

I'm guessing I'm not going to find a 1TB stick of M.2 SSD using SLC? Maybe a SATA SSD will have it? I'd still rather have an M.2.

Forget those things, as we have agreed, you have to stay on a DRAM-less SSD. That's the low tier products and they will be almost all QLC or at best TLC (that's why they are cheap on the price per GB). And forget about the durability problem, really. That will be your concern in YEARS, not now. SLC are sold only on professional grade disks that will cost one of them as much as your whole budget. And forget 2,5" SSD; you don't want to waste the performance of an SSD, even DRAM-less ones, on the SATA bottleneck. It has to be an M.2 NVMe (Both things! Remember that there are M.2 SATA that you must avoid!).

I'm trying to minimize waste, which is why I thought a single stick of 16GB over 2x8GB, even if it means sacrificing the dual channel performance. From what I read, dual channel only gives you a few percentage points in performance over single so it didn't seem as important.

Dual channel impact will vary depending on the workload. For office work, gaming or boot time and general OS responsiveness is a minor improvement (that's why most laptops have a single DIMM; they save space and money and people barely notice it). For media editing, rendering, engineering or 3D design and similar data-intensive workloads dual channel IS important.

Point here is that it's a bad idea to put a single DIMM now, purchase one later and expect both of them work nice on dual channel. Even if they seems to you the same model (even if they are indeed the same part number) they will be different and that could cause problems. What problems? From just a bit of latency penalty to big instability issues; all depending on how hard you push the RAM clock, timings and workload. So, if you stick with cheap low performance RAM modules, that's not even a problem. You purchase 16GB now, 16GB more in 6 months and upgrade to 64 total in 2 years. But I suggested you to aim for 3600MHz RAM sticks. Those require asignificant overclock (it's XMP automatic, but it's overclock anyway) and that's NOT a good idea when dealing with unpaired sticks.

"I will stay with cheaper sticks" you could say.... then I tell you to forget to "reduce waste", because if you ever upgrade to a Ryzen 9 in the future, cheap 3200 or worse sticks of unpaired RAM would be a joke; you would had to change them all because they will anchor your new CPU and it will not provide the expected performance, making you waste money on it. Also, you should consider that info too: First gen Ryzen stock memory speed (AKA, reachable without memory controller overclock) was 2.666 MHz. Second gen one was 2.933MHz. This actual third generation is 3200MHz. What about if 4th Gen default speed is 3.600? You could upgrade your motherboard with one of those CPUs but you will have to deal with poor-perfomance memory. So, either you will have to deal with sub-optimal memory on the future, or you will have to "waste" it and pay more on the CPU upgrade or you will have to pay more now for those 2x16GB at 3.600 DIMMs.

And now that you mention 3600 being the sweet spot for Ryzen, that will only cost about $10 more than the 3200 for 32GB (2x16). I'm always seeing 3200 RAM paired with the Ryzen 5 though, so that's why I went with that speed. Do the B450's support 3600?

First think first, as I said earlier, forget B450, aim B550/X570 (both support 3600 and way better RAM speeds). Second, I greatly doubt the price difference between 3200 and 3600 will be of just 10$. The 3600 ones you have seen should have poor timings (CL17 or worse). I wouldn't consider 3.600 memories if they weren't almost CL16 and better CL14; but you will find the price difference then will hurt you more your budget.

And I did read somewhere about how RAM needs to be set in the BIOS to take full advantage of it's rated speed (technically overclocking), so it'll be something I do even though I'm not big on overclocking. I'm definitely not going to OC the CPU or GPU.

I already told you so. ANY decent stick of DDR4 memory is rated at default speed of 2.400MHz; that's the maximum official speed that the industrial standard for DDR4 specifies (the JEDEC specification). Anything over that speed has to be enforced in BIOS and it's an overclock, even it's done through automated profiles configured in the RAM chips (XMP profiles), that the motherboards recognize and auto-adjust themselves once activated. Reliable brands and range of products either for the motherboard and the RAM DIMMs ensure that automatic adjustment to be safer. Gigabyte Aorus and G.Skill Ripjaws are safe bets for that subject.

So, if you want to run your Ryzen CPU at it's stock max RAM speed, you will have to overclock the RAM; even if it's an operation considered safer for the actual standards for that kind of stuff. And if you want to run the RAM at 3600 you will have to overclock it still more and also your CPU memory controller (to work over the 3200 base max speed). And to gain the best performance, you will have to overclock too the infinity fabric internal CPU bus to 1.800 too. The CPU and motherboard you choose is pretty capable of that without problem and what you purchase when buying RAM DIMMS over 2400 are modules that the manufacturer "grants" you they can work stable at that XMP overclocked profile. So technically it's an overclock but it's complexity is a joke and the safety level is very high.

There's also another option when purchasing 3.600 RAMs now for your Ryzen: downclock them. Make them run only at 3.200 BUT tight the timings (CL and other) to lower values to reduce the overall latency of the module. That will give you a nice boost in performance too, as good as even running higher clocks. But it's a bit more trickier to accomplish if you had never done it before. There's a software called DRAM Calculator for Ryzen (https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ry ... alculator/) that helps a lot with all that kind of configurations.

It's not easy to find a 75Hz G-sync compatible monitor lol. And I'm thinking because it wouldn't be that important on a monitor that can only display up to 75FPS. I'm not a serious gamer and don't plan to be, so I might just go with a 75Hz monitor and not worry about any kind of sync, unless I find one on sale for under $200 in the near future.

You will not find 75Hz G-sync monitors because nobody would pay the extra premium price of G-Sync for such high max refresh. Bear in mind that G-Sync CANNOT work under 30Hz refresh and FreeSync under 45 (approx). So, G-Sync on a max 75Hz would have very little margin to work. Why then exist FreeSync 75Hz monitors if they have worse working margin? Because FreeSync works with the basic standard hardware that any monitor MUST have already to comply with modern HDMI and DP specifications. So, as the hardware is already there, it can always be used even if the benefit isn't so much.

Because now I'm leaning more toward the 2k side of things like you suggested. I'm shooting for 1440p down the road after all, so it would be nice not to have to buy a new monitor later.

As I linked before, there are monitors for a little extra cost that are 2K and good enough over the paper. But probably their image isn't so good as it sounds. I would prefer to don't change now the monitor, use some of the money to improve the rest of the PC now (like on the RAM); and wait a few month with the old monitor. When on black Fridays and such kind of sales at the end of the year, you will probably find some real good models (that could cost 350 to 400$ now) for around 280$ to 300$ and that would be a good purchase.

Last but not least, something I didn't mentioned because is not necessary now and you don't have budget: CPU cooling solution. The default Ryzen 7 cooler will be enough for a time (specially as you maintain well your computer). But for a long lasting system and if you ever purchase a better CPU, you must consider a better cooler. Want an advise? Noctua NH-U12A. PERIOD. Raise the middle finger to anything else out in the market: any prebuilt AIO or any fancy colors/RGB or any other useless garbage and even to most 15cm dual fan coolers will beat the dust before that one. I'm still perfectly cooling my actual R7 3700X with a bit lesser range Noctua that I purchased for my previous CPU... almost 12 years ago! (they sell cheap kits to upgrade to newer sockets, that's upgradability at the best). No noise, no vibrations, no bad performance, easy to maintain, easy to replace fans if ever you would had a problem (that you would not)... there's no discussion possible for anything that isn't a ultra-tier or hard-overclocked system.

Regards

[Reignman]

The main question is if you need to use it professionally or not. I had that doubt before, I had it less now because it seems that you mean the media works you do with it (video editing and all that stuff) is for personal use.

Mainly personal use.

And I think you give too many importance to the upgradability vs some things you sacrifice. At the end any computer could be upgraded except if too many time has passed (like yours of 12 years)

The goal is to always stay in that "mid tier" range, and for as long as possible. Right now that's the Ryzen 5 3600 with the GTX 1650 Super (more on the GPU later). 5 years from now the Ryzen 9 3900 with a RTX 2080 might be considered "mid tier". That's just speculation ofc, and only an example. So based on those 2 builds, I want the ideal motherboard for that future build. Those are the 3 parts I'm mainly focused on, CPU, GPU, and MB. What "top tier" PC can I build right now, that will be considered "mid tier" 5 years from now? That's the question I'm trying to answer.

You have to sacrifice something. If you wanna change it everything now, you don't have enough budget, you will not be satisfied at any part of your current computer and you would not want to upgrade it in 5 years but to change it entirely.

New parts won't be a sacrifice I make over used parts lol. The budget will be sacrificed before that. The budget isn't set in stone either, it's just more of a goal to stay around $900 (not including the monitor). The main focus is getting the best bang for my buck on a build that's considered "mid tier" from the starting point of a Ryzen 5 3600.

Now, let's see what we have clear now:

- The DRAM SSD will be something for the future. It's a shame but as I said, the difference between what you have now and any SSD even the worse ones would be so high that you wouldn't immediately miss it.
- The processor it's something settled too, you have already chosen the best in value for your budget limit. Less and you want to change it to soon; more and you are out of budget.
- The wi-fi is out because it was a "just in case" that isn't really necessary and you need to optimize your budget.
- You can't save the money of the secondary HDD because you can't re-use the actual ones (they are already full and you expect to fill more data in the new one).
- 16GB sticks of RAM to be able to upgrade up to 64GB without having to discard any purchased DIMM
- Case and power sources choices are good enough for the price and your needs.

That sounds about right.

So, the points where you should to decide:

You have not payed enough attention to the chipset part on my second message. Forget the B450, aim for the B550. It's the same tier chip but the native one for Ryzen Gen3 for Desktop. They are so new than I forget to mention them on my first message. B550 will have the PCIe4Gen and full support to any current Ryzen and most probably next gen ones (the Zen 3 to be released at the end of the year). Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite cost 200€ and the B550 Aorus Elite cost 150€ (approx prices).

You're right, I'm too hung up on the X570's while trying to avoid the B450's, and I've completely ignored the B550's. I briefly looked at them just before writing this post and they look promising. I'm going to go spend more time researching them after I'm done here. I did find a reasonably priced X570 earlier https://www.newegg.com/asus-tuf-gaming- ... 6813119198 but I'm going to look at those B550's next.

Again, you DON'T have to see who's owning who in graphic terms (is NVidia at this moment). Because that's a high tier competition (on cards over 500€). You are out of that league, forget it, stick to your budget. And nothing prevents you to keep changing from team green to team red back and forth as many times as it would be necessary. Worst thing it can be done is to stick to a brand without objective reasons.

Exactly! We're on the same page here too. My only point is, if there's no real performance difference between a Nvidia or AMD card, the tie-breaker will be Nvidia, but not because I'm team green lol, but because I'm more familiar with them. Believe me, I wish the AMD's in my current budget were slightly better so I could go for an all AMD build with this rig. Having said that, I've done some research today and I keep coming back to the GTX 1650 Super. It's under $200, and it's a decent "mid tier" card that should last me a few years. I read a ton of reviews, watched benchmarking videos, and everything points to the GTX 1650 Super over AMD's RX series. The RX 590's are better but too expensive atm. The RX 580's are a bit noisier under load, require more power, and produce more heat. Like you said, when it's time to upgrade in a few years, I'll switch to AMD if their next tier is better than Nvidia, but I don't have to worry about it now. The RX series has the 8GB of RAM, but it's only DDR5, whereas the 1650 Super only has 4GB, but it's DDR6. The latter combination gives slightly better performance, and uses less energy.

Now I just gotta figure out what EVGA means with "SC Ultra" lol. Is that just a fancy name for their 1650 Super, or does it mean it's slightly better than a 1650 Super? Because I see cheaper 1650 Supers.

you have to stay on a DRAM-less SSD. That's the low tier products and they will be almost all QLC or at best TLC (that's why they are cheap on the price per GB). It has to be an M.2 NVMe (Both things! Remember that there are M.2 SATA that you must avoid!).

We're on the same page here too. It's definitely gotta be M.2 NVMe, no SATA, and yeah I can't find any that are SLC or MLC. TLC is the best, and QLC are most affordable, so I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I found this one for a few dollars cheaper than the WD. Never heard of this brand before though. https://www.newegg.com/silicon-power-p3 ... 6820301428

Dual channel impact will vary depending on the workload. For office work, gaming or boot time and general OS responsiveness is a minor improvement (that's why most laptops have a single DIMM; they save space and money and people barely notice it). For media editing, rendering, engineering or 3D design and similar data-intensive workloads dual channel IS important.

Yeah I'm most likely going to stick with the dual channel kits, but it'll be 2x16 instead of 2x8 because it's something I'll have eventually anyway.

But I suggested you to aim for 3600MHz RAM sticks. Those require asignificant overclock (it's XMP automatic, but it's overclock anyway) and that's NOT a good idea when dealing with unpaired sticks.
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This actual third generation is 3200MHz. What about if 4th Gen default speed is 3.600? You could upgrade your motherboard with one of those CPUs but you will have to deal with poor-perfomance memory. So, either you will have to deal with sub-optimal memory on the future, or you will have to "waste" it
~
Second, I greatly doubt the price difference between 3200 and 3600 will be of just 10$.

You had me set on the 3600, but ooo boy, they're so much more expensive than 3200. So I'm still not sure about it. For now I'm looking at this https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb-288 ... 6820232091 but I'm not going to purchase anything anytime soon. I'll have to price watch the 3600's because they're almost $40 more for 32GB than the 3200. How much of a performance difference are we talking about lol? And yeah I won't consider anything above CL16.

you will have to overclock too the infinity fabric internal CPU bus to 1.800 too.

There's also another option when purchasing 3.600 RAMs now for your Ryzen: downclock them. Make them run only at 3.200 BUT tight the timings (CL and other) to lower values to reduce the overall latency of the module. That will give you a nice boost in performance too, as good as even running higher clocks. But it's a bit more trickier to accomplish if you had never done it before. There's a software called DRAM Calculator for Ryzen (https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ry ... alculator/) that helps a lot with all that kind of configurations.

Go to know, I'll keep all that in mind, if I ever get to the build phase lol.

You will not find 75Hz G-sync monitors because nobody would pay the extra premium price of G-Sync for such high max refresh.
~
I would prefer to don't change now the monitor, use some of the money to improve the rest of the PC now (like on the RAM); and wait a few month with the old monitor. When on black Fridays and such kind of sales at the end of the year, you will probably find some real good models

Well I went looking for a decent affordable 1440p 75Hz monitor, ignoring G-sync/FreeSync, and they're not cheap lol. I think the cheapest I found was $250 and it was 60Hz. They also don't seem to have a response time under 4ms. So this is something I might have to upgrade later like you suggest. Get a cheap 1080p monitor now and a 1440 later. Something I wanted to avoid, but I don't see a way around it right now. 60-75Hz 1080p monitors aren't very expensive. But it's something I'll keep an eye on in the next couple of weeks. Maybe I can catch a sale on a nice 1440p like you said.

Last but not least, something I didn't mentioned because is not necessary now and you don't have budget: CPU cooling solution. The default Ryzen 7 cooler will be enough for a time (specially as you maintain well your computer). But for a long lasting system and if you ever purchase a better CPU, you must consider a better cooler. Want an advise? Noctua NH-U12A. PERIOD.

That's something that's been in the back of my head, but haven't completely worried about yet. I figured I would look more into that once I figured out what my actual build will be lol. The case comes with an extra 4 spots for 120-140mm fans, and comes with 2 120mm fans for the front and rear panels. I saw a pack of 4 120mm fans for under $20 that I'm going to grab too. The Ryzen 5 comes with Wraith Spire cooler, while the 7 comes with the beefier Wraith Prism, but according to the reviews, it's a good enough cooler if you don't plan to do any overclocking, which I don't.

I'm still perfectly cooling my actual R7 3700X with a bit lesser range Noctua that I purchased for my previous CPU... almost 12 years ago! (they sell cheap kits to upgrade to newer sockets, that's upgradability at the best).

Oooo an R7 3700x eh? Is that what you got? What kind of GPU did you pair with that badboy? And what did you have 12 years ago? Was it better than my core 2 quad Q9450 with GT9800 (which I'm still using) lol? I think Intel came out with it's i series the following year, so I missed out on those.

[Some newbie driver]

New parts won't be a sacrifice I make over used parts lol. The budget will be sacrificed before that.

When somebody says that he has a budged I stick to it as the main red line. After all, it's dangerous to play carelessly with the budget because "a bit more in here, a bit more in there" and you could easily end in a 1.400$ computer instead on a 900$ one. But at the end, it will be your money and you will know your specific situation.

I did find a reasonably priced X570 earlier https://www.newegg.com/asus-tuf-gaming- ... 6813119198 but I'm going to look at those B550's next.

ASUS TUF series are good ones. They don't focus on the fancynes, the "gaming gimmicks" and on high OC capabilities but on the long term durability. My previous mobo was a TUF and I've no regrets about it. Also I see that the prices on your local market (I'm assuming, North America if I'm right) seems more cheap than the reference place I look at here in Spain (it's also not the cheapest place at all, but I check it because I know they work very well).

Now I just gotta figure out what EVGA means with "SC Ultra" lol. Is that just a fancy name for their 1650 Super, or does it mean it's slightly better than a 1650 Super? Because I see cheaper 1650 Supers.

Branding garbage to catch customers' eyes. Let me explain one thing: Time ago when you purchased your previous computer, NVidia and AMD/ATI were only graphic chips manufacturers. They build prototype "default" cards that are just test examples for the card manufacturers. Those cards were as to say "this is what works, now it's up to you to decide what do you change". That doesn't happen anymore with NVidia (I really don't know if also with AMD). NVidia now manufactures and sells directly their cards, so everybody knows that they keep for themselves the best chips they produce. The only way other manufacturers could compete is designing better coolers, better PCBs, using better secondary components (like memory chips) and also by adding more glossy to their products; either in the looks of the card and in the marketing they do. That's why all their cards have those "ultra", "maximum", "killer" and other flashy adjectives. You will not fine any "Normal" in any name, they need you to believe you don't have a "normal" GTX whatever but an "Ultra" one; if you know what I mean.

Never heard of this brand before though. https://www.newegg.com/silicon-power-p3 ... 6820301428

Never hear about them either. There are tons of companies in the market on this days; regular SSD complexity is a joke compared with the mechanical precision HDD required so almost anybody can create their own SSD brand. At the end, all the NAND chips came from the same few manufacturers. It's more the juice everybody wants to put on their controller what makes the difference and it's hard to judge without a proper benchmark. When choosing an M.2 disk remember too that the size (length) is important. In the case of the TUF mobo, when it says "Type 2242/2260/2280/22110" regarding the M.2 connections, it's telling you it accepts M.2 modules of 42, 60, 80 and 110mm long (the one you listed is 80). Not all motherboards accept all lenghts in all their sockets; so beware.

You had me set on the 3600, but ooo boy, they're so much more expensive than 3200.

I told you those 10$ seemed me strange even considering your market cheapest prices.

How much of a performance difference are we talking about lol?

You better took a look at here and decide yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHJ16hD4ysk There they did a whole comparison of any kinds of RAMS for this gen of Ryzens and explain several of the things I've pointed to you too. But remember also what I told you: if you ever upgrade to Ryzen 4 gen in the future, 3.200 could probably be under-performing RAMS for those CPUs.

Go to know, I'll keep all that in mind, if I ever get to the build phase lol.

And for the time you will be on the build phase, you will already thinking in the upgrade.

Well I went looking for a decent affordable 1440p 75Hz monitor, ignoring G-sync/FreeSync, and they're not cheap lol. I think the cheapest I found was $250 and it was 60Hz. They also don't seem to have a response time under 4ms. So this is something I might have to upgrade later like you suggest. Get a cheap 1080p monitor now and a 1440 later.

I would not go for anything under 350$; more expensive but for sure quality and long lasting way over the 200-250$ range. Of course, that hits hard a humble budget and that's why I still think you should live a few time with your actual monitor.Save all that money (instead of spend it on a cheap 1080p one), save a bit more in the months to come and give yourself a tribute with a good monitor on year's end sales.

The Ryzen 5 comes with Wraith Spire cooler, while the 7 comes with the beefier Wraith Prism, but according to the reviews, it's a good enough cooler if you don't plan to do any overclocking, which I don't.

The difference between the Wraith Spire and the Prism is that the later has RGB (hence the Prism name), nothing else. They are decent coolers as review say; but they are louder on normal operation. Ryzen 9 and any Ryzen XT processors doesn't come with cooler because stock ones would have no sense for their capabilities. That's why I said it's something you don't need now but you will have to thing about it in the future.

Oooo an R7 3700x eh? Is that what you got? What kind of GPU did you pair with that badboy? And what did you have 12 years ago?

Checking it back I don't know from where I took the 12 years milestone. Time flies and brain only goes worse. It was really almost 10 years back, I purchased the FX ones just launched (as the 3700 now). They ended not being good ones for gaming but I squeezed a lot of it on other tasks where many cores were useful. The actual graphic card, as I told you, still the old one HD 6950. I didn't wanna change it until I really need it or it dies. As I don't play fancy modern AAA games, it doesn't hurt me at all. Also, I didn't liked at all the graphic market when I made the change (and still don't like it); Nvidia is way overpriced due lack of real competition on high tier. So the cooler is really going for the 10 years mark (not 12) on its second rig and, as I said you, absolutely flawless operation (that I'm sure it will continue at 12). There's Noctua and then on another league the rest of cooler brands.

Regards

[mira666]

I would second EVGA cards, just replaced my old Zotac GTX 1050 3gb with an EVGA RTX 2060 6gb and the difference is amazing. Granted it was £300 but thats UK prices and our prices always seem to be higher than US ones

[Reignman]

Wow, the Ryzen 5 3600 keeps going up in price. It was $155 a couple weeks ago, then it was $175, and now it's $190. The heck is going on lol? Zen 3 is right around the corner so are they trying to squeeze every last dollar they can out of the Zen 2 chips? One place still has it for $160 but they don't ship, and the nearest store is a 2 hour drive. I guess Newegg still has it at $175, but it's up to $190 on Amazon, and $160 at Microcenter. And holy cow, $232 at TigerDirect?!?! How does that place stay in business lol? I can get a Rzyen 5 3600XT for cheaper than that at Microcenter $230, and a Ryzen 7 3700X for just $30 dollars more $269.

[Some newbie driver]

Easy answer: market laws at work. The reduction in offer has been greater than the reduction in demand; that makes the prices to raise.

Why could had been a reduction in demand? Because summer in north-hemisphere use to be a low activity in sales (specially considering the economic breakdown due pandemics). And because a LOT of people is awaiting the new hardware for the end of the year, as I explained earlier in this thread.

Then, how's that there's a even greater reduction in offer? Because AMD, Intel and NVidia silicon foundries are right now putting most of their efforts on the upcoming products to be released soon. So, there's has been a reduction in the production lines dedicated to products already in the market. A reduction in production that has added to the reduction that it was a few months ago due coronash** confinement that depleted the warehouses all over the globe.

Also there's the effect that you say: they will try to make as much money they can with those products NOW because any stock they keep after the new releases had to be sold at sales price. Ryzen prices will keep suffering increases in prices until the new release will be announced. Then will start to fall as the demand will decrease and the price will plummet once the release is done. That's the usual behavior of prices in that kind of components in that kind of scenarios.

Regards

[Reignman]

Alright, I'm thinking about making a few more sacrifices in an effort to get below $1000 (not including the monitor), not that I need to get below $1000. That particular budget is more of a goal. So here's my current thought process, with none of this is set in stone. I'm in no hurry.

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 ($175)
Unchanged. Sticking with the 3600. I did briefly consider the R5 2600 for $138, but I think I need to stick with it's successor.

MB: ASUS AM4 TUF GAMING X570-Plus ($165)
original: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI ($210)
I found an affordable X570 that's right in the price range of the B550's and has all the features I want. From everything I saw, everyone recommends an X570 over a B550 if they're the same price. Plus it's $45 cheaper than the original X570 I picked out.

GPU: GTX 1660 Super ($240)
original: GTX 1650 Super ($190)
I made some sacrifices to get the budget lower, but I decided to put some of the savings back into a better GPU. I was starting to get the feeling the 1650 Super was holding this build back. Most of the build videos I looked at recommend spending 35-45% of your budget on the GPU, but that recommendation doesn't take into consideration the future upgrades I plan to do. The 1660 Super only takes up $25 of my budget now, but in 5 years when I upgrade, the GPU will be in that 35-45% range.

RAM: G.Skill - Ripjaws V 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3600 PC4-28800 CL16 ($75)
original: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 ($110)
Tough call here, and I'm still undecided. Do I get 32GB of 3200 speed, or 16GB of 3600 speed? The latter means I might have to throw away RAM if I ever want to go beyond 32GB. Or do I pony up the $140 to get the 2x16 3600 speed (which I'll have eventually anyway)? I could save a little more if I went with 18 latency.

SSD: Silicon Power 512GB NVMe M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x4 TLC ($55)
original: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME ($110)
I can probably get by with a 512GB SSD for now, and wait for prices to come down. I was unfamiliar with the Silicon Power brand, but from what I hear it's a good brand, and they have the cheapest NVMe drives with reasonable life expectancies.

HDD: Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM 256MB Cache ($55)
Unchanged. The 2TB should be sufficient for now, and you can't beat that price.

PSU: EVGA BQ 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ($75)
Unchanged. There seems to be a weird shortage of PSU's on the market. The 600 watts seem like overkill, but 5 years from now it might be in my wheelhouse, and it opens the door for the more power hungering AMD cards down the road should I need to go in that direction haha.

case: Corsair Carbide Series 200R ($70)
Unchanged. Still feeling good about this case, although I did see some good alternatives should this one go out of stock or something.

TOTAL: $910 (not including monitor)

monitor: 1080p 75Hz ($120)
original: Acer XF240H 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz ($200)
Still undecided about the monitor. I can live with my current 720p for awhile longer if I have to, but I'm leaning toward snagging a cheap 1080p monitor that I can use for the next 5 years, and then upgrade to a 1440p when they're hopefully more affordable xD. Maybe that whole G-sync/FreeSync thing will get sorted out by then too. The fact that FreeSync is more popular with monitors, and cheaper, has made me consider getting an AMD GPU after all. Still leaning toward Nvidia atm, but if I see a great deal on a 144Hz FreeSync monitor, and an RX 580/590 GPU in the near future, I might have to go in that direction.

I researched holiday deals last year, and oddly enough, there weren't a whole lot of "Black Friday" deals for PC parts. Nothing that jumped out at me and screamed I should wait 3-4 months lol. I'll probably have better luck watching for any sales that happen in the next couple of weeks. Like if that Ryzen 5 3600 ever comes back down to $160. I should have bought it when I saw it for $155. I just gotta hope some of these other parts don't start going up too lol. I'm still researching though, so I could still change my mind on stuff. I'll probably buy the parts here and there as I see good deals, rather than buy all the parts at once.

Oh, and I also looked into the potential price reduction of Zen 2 Ryzen, when Zen 3 hits the market later this year, and nobody is expecting to see more than a 10% drop unfortunately, so again it probably won't be worth the 3-4 month wait, but I'll keep digging. I'm in no hurry to get a new PC, but I don't think I have 3-4 months worth of patience in me lol. If I wait that long, I might as well consider the Ryzen 7 lol. I'm thinking Zen 2 won't come down in price for another year or so, or depending on what sales look like after Zen 3 hits the market.

[Some newbie driver]

There's no more margin to argue in here. The SSD and motherboard change allowed you a bit more of room. I expect the motherboard to be a good one and specially long lasting (as I explained before). And the disk, even if it's not long lasting, will be a great change for you regarding your actual computer and when it come the time for a change the available ones on the market will be way better for the same price and even good enough to retire any mechanical one you have.

About the RAM, any decision you had to make has it's cost. CL18 is a significant loss of performance regarding CL16; as it is 3.200 regarding 3.600 (when configured on the proper speeds). 2x8GB sticks as you say would make them obsolete if you find later that you need more than 34GB of RAM for your workload... I didn't think about it before but, have you ask in specialized forums the RAM consume expected for your workloads? I mean, hypothetical example, if you want to edit FUllHD video with Adobe Premiere, what's the amount of RAM it use to require as average. People that use to do those works end knowing well those values and I'm sure you could find that on Internet. That would give you the needed insight about the amount of RAM you could need on a near future and make you decide. Of course, if you don't pretend to crank the BIOS values to obtain the 3.600 clock memory and 1.800 for the infinity fabric and just want to rely on the "auto-tune" software that could come with the computer; better purchase the 3.200 ones because there's no guarantee that software will configure automatically the 3.600 for you and then you would waste that money.

About the sales for Black Fridays and similar ones, PC components don't use to have the most attentions but "whole products". Where you probably could find good sales is with the monitor and that's why I keep thinking the best option is not to purchase a 1080p now, save that money plus what you could on next months and hunt a good sale at the end of the year. At worst, you will end with the same 1080p monitor and the only nuisance would had been to bear the old one 3 months more. I think the wait worth a lot more than any urge you had now.

Last but not least, nobody could tell you how much prices will drop on old parts when new ones get released. It's useless to look at numbers of foreseers as if they where truth. The only facts is that they will drop for sure, pure market laws at work again. The other fact that you could check (even if a direct comparison can't be done) is what happened with prices of Ryzen gen2 when actual Gen 3 got released (and the drop was way higher than a 10%). Anyways, if you aren't going to delay more the purchase of the tower, there's no point into keep looking those things.

Regards

[Reignman]

Well there will be a slight delay in purchasing the tower because what I find more important than waiting for lower prices, is learning as much as I can about all these parts, which you've been instrumental in helping me achieve. Getting a PC that satisfies my peace of mind is the top priority lol. I'm still in the research phase and trying to achieve that piece of mind, but I'm getting closer.

I have a bit more time to work with because the R5 3600 keeps going up in price, so I want to wait for that to come back down, or go on sale. Micro Center still has the lowest price at $160, but they don't ship, and the nearest store is 2 hours away, so that's not an option, and now they're out of stock anyway. Newegg had it for $175, but now it's up to $185. So I might as well keep researching all these other parts until I feel as good about them as I do the CPU, while I wait for prices to come down.

I don't see myself waiting 3 more months though lol. 2 more weeks at the most hopefully because the itch hasn't gone away, and I'm losing my patience with my current PC's inability to do anything useful xD. I'm almost bored, because knowing a new PC is just around the corner makes anything I do on this inferior machine, feel like a waste of time. I've finally reached a point in life where I want to move onto other projects and games, which my current PC just can't handle.

You have a good idea about researching multimedia forums to find out what kind of resources are required for 1080 and 1440p video editing. I work with some pretty large spreadsheets too. So after reading up on it a bit, it looks like I could get by comfortably with 16GB of RAM, even for 4k video rendering. It all boils down to how many programs I want to run simultaneously while rendering, so I might never need more than 32GB with this rig, so the 2x8 might not be a waste after all. By the time I need more than 32GB of RAM, it might be 10 years later and time for a whole new PC anyway lol. AAA titles don't even require more than 16GB.

Plus like you mentioned earlier, if I plan to double the RAM later, I might have to replace the older sticks anyway because of matching/instability issues, even if it's the exact same RAM. I've seen several other people mention that now too. CL16 3600 speed RAM is $75 for 2x8 and $140 for 2x16, so I could save myself $65. I can't find anyone selling 3600 speed RAM with a latency lower than 16 however. Oh, and I will definitely adjust the BIOS to maximize performance too .

5 years from now when it's time to upgrade to the R9 and RTX (or whatever), I could always try to sell the R5, the 1660 Super, and any older sticks of RAM to recoup some of the cost. I recently looked into upgrading the RAM on my current PC (DDR2 800), and it's selling for almost $20 for 2x2GB. I even see my current core 2 quad CPU selling for $150 and higher lol. Seems kinda crazy to me, but I guess that's an encouraging sign if I plan to sell the older R5/1660 later.

The monitor might be something I can wait on, like for a black Friday sale ... maybe. I'll have to see how much my current 720p monitor holds back any new projects I want to get into. Worst case scenario I buy a cheap 1080p monitor for $100 while I wait for a 1440p 144Hz monitor to become affordable. Something I can wait 5+ years for. I can always sell the 1080p to get some money back too.

If prices do in fact drop dramatically in 3-4 months, I might hate myself for not waiting, but I have to factor in the time I'll be wasting if I do wait. Like I said, I can no longer do the things I want to do, so I either keep doing inferior things that I'll have to redo later, or pay the extra money so I can be productive the next 3-4 months xD. And dramatically lower prices might mean I can upgrade sooner haha. The RTX 30 series is coming out soon too, so what will that do to GPU prices, which are already high?

[Some newbie driver]

Believe me, I really know what's that uselessness sensation with the old rig when awaiting the new computer. It makes every day it passes harder.

About RAM, there are indeed 3.600 CL14 kits, you can easily find them on Newegg (for example, with the store filters)... Of course, that's if you wanna pay near three times the CL18 ones price. That's for really high end rigs, no need to to search for those. CL16 is the nice spot, CL18 if the budget wins against the desire and CL19 or worse for those who don't know exactly what they buy (because sometimes you find even cheaper CL18 ones and not bad ones at all).

And about the time to purchase, as I said in earlier posts, if you need it now because old rig really doesn't allow you to work and it's going to make you loose time, even if it's for personal use, buy now and done. There's no guarantee that the sales in 3 months would compensate the stress of those 3 months.