PC upgrade for around 500-1000$

Hi
This is not my first rodeo, I have built and configured many PCs before but I still like the input from someone else.

But some facts to the build first.

I have 2 “Gaming PCs”

Main one is
CPU AMD Ryzen 2700
MB ATX ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WI-FI)
RAM 32GB Corsair DDR 4-3200
GPU RTX 2080 & GTX 1050
PSU 850W

VR Build
CPU Intel Xeon 1240
MB some ASUS ITX board
RAM 12 GB DDR 3
GPU GTX 980
PSU 550W

Now my plan is to replace the VR pc and use the components from the main build in the ITX case to I was thinking on the line of replacing the ATX board with a new ITX board in the ITX case and then getting a new AM4 processor for the main build to switch into the TUF board. Reusing the RTX 2080 in the main build. as the VR stays with the 980 or the 1050 whichever is better.
So the new setup would be

Main PC
CPU some AM4 CPU
MB ASUS TUF Gaming X570 -Plus
GPU RTX 2080
I’ll split the RAM so 16 GB RAM
PSU 850W

VR Build
CPU AMD Ryzen 2700
MB (New one)
GPU GTX1050 or GTX980
RAM 16 GB
PSU 550W

Is this a solid plan or am I missing something?

Now the question is what Motherboard and CPU to get

Both have to be AM4

I need WI-FI on both PCs so that’s that. (ac is fine)
And I need USB C or better Thunderbolt in the ITX build as the whole USB connection is handled threw a USB C cable in the wall.

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I don’t have any advice for the upgrade path, but good luck with the physical install. I think you have the right idea, but swapping all those parts will feel like you are building 5 computers.

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iTX x570 boards will [VERY] likely have WiFi / USBC, embedded on IO
Haven’t seen much availability issue on the CPUs… Just get the right price tag

Figure the mainboard coming in ~250
Then the CPU having bigg range, all pending how dense a chip you go for

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I would sell your 980 and 1050 and get something a bit beefier
That 1240 probably isn’t the sole thing holding back your VR experience

TLDR; Keep your main rig until AM5/Ryzen 7000 comes out, Sell your GTX980 and 1050, use that to get a 6600 XT which is almost as strong as the 2080, and buy a new B550+5800X+32GB DDR4 VR rig for roughly $650.

The long version:

Sell the 1050 and 980 on E-bay, we are at the tail end of a shortage but you could probably get $400 for both if you act quickly. This increase your budget within a considerable margin.

What you want (dream PC):

Main - 5800X, 32G RAM, TUF X570, RTX 2080
VR - 5800X, 32G RAM, B550 ITX, RX 6600 XT (or better)

What would this cost according to PC Part Picker?

Part Model Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5800X $350
RAM Team T-Force Dark 2x16 DDR 3600 MHz $110
Motherboard Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX $190
Subtotal $650
GPU Asrock Radeon RX 6600 XT $600
Total $1250

Assuming you sell your two GPUs for $400 that is $150 below max budget to fully replace the VR system.

If you are willing to run with the 2700X for 6 more months, your VR rig will pack quite a bit of punch and the 6600 XT is as powerful as the 2070 Super, which is just a couple of percentages lower than the 2080.

As for relative performance, the 2080 is roughly 120% better than the 980, which is roughly 125% better than the 1050. This makes the 2080 around 380 percent better than either, and the 6600 XT around 90-95% better than the 980. 6600 is not close enough to warrant the upgrade over the 980, unless you can sell the 980 for $500 or more - at which point the step up to a 6600 XT isn’t much.

Regarding X570 vs B550 ITX, we are talking about almost $100 difference and I would rather spend that on RAM than an extra CPU. The 2700X → 5800X is more of a sidegrade than anything else, sure you get a ~20% boost but it has the same number of cores. Just be patient and wait for AM5 prices and DDR5 to be reasonable, then move to a whole new build then.

For your VR build I’d suggest using something more recent than the 2700X.

For what its worth I have both 3300x and 2700x and the 3300 outperforms the 2700x on a lot of 3d stuff given equal GPU. On the cheapest, shittiest B550 motherboard I could get (the 3300x build was intended to be a bargain basement test to see how bad cheap shit hardware was).

If you can get hold of say, a 3600x (likely easier to source and still a step up from 2700x) or 5600x - use that for your VR box and use the 2700x for the other box.

You can actually get 5700Gs cheaper than 5800Xs
Yah there’s talk of am5 and 3D Vcache coming out soon

But let’s take a look at all the tech tubers telling you to wait for 20 series cards to go down in price because they were a bad value at MSRP at launch

Linus said it best, the best PC is the one you have, meaning if you can get it, get it

Yeah, it’s cheaper, but the 5800X gives you a full 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 which could be important if you want to update the GPU at least once during the next five years. The 5700G only provides PCIe 3.0. That said, if ~5% performance drop is worth $50 to you, go for it. :slight_smile:

Yeah, but it’s also a question of money - Used to be you could get a midrange GPU for $250-$300 ish. Now you can barely even get bottom scrape of the barrel for that, and the priceworthy GPUs start at $450.

$650 is a good starter deal for an upper mid range ITX PC. Either upgrade the main PC for another $300-$350, or buy a GPU, depending on your tastes.

On that note, you could also get a $950 DDR5 based “egg” too, the 12700F is an amazing CPU and it should still be a decent gaming CPU in 2027. However, it is a $300 premium for the ITX tax…

Intel Core i7 12700F Premium ITX Upgrade package

Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i7-12700F 2.1 GHz 12-Core Processor $315.97 @ B&H
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-L12S 55.44 CFM CPU Cooler $54.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard Gigabyte Z690I AORUS ULTRA Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard $299.00 @ Amazon
Memory Team Elite 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-4800 CL40 Memory $279.99 @ Amazon
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total $949.91
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-02-17 17:48 EST-0500

As things stand, it looks like only the R7 tier, is getting this V3D [swan song] treatment

OP, if you really want Thunderbolt on your VR rig, the only AM4 ITX board I’m aware that has it is the Asrock X570i.

I would advice to just stick with what you have at this point in time.
And wait for the next gen Ryzen to come out.
AM4 is really starting to show it’s age it’s EOL, there ¨likely¨ will be one last cpu launch,
for the platform with 3D stacked cache but yeah…
That and rumours are already flowing that AM5 might not be that far away maybe next year or so.
Your current setup still has plenty of life left to get going for at least that period.
So in my honest opinion it doesn’t really make allot of sense to upgrade right now,
at least not in regards to Ryzen offerings really.

Intel on the other hand could be an option eventually with DDR5 and pcie-5 and all that.
At least in regards with an eye on the future that is.
Because i don’t really think that investing in AM4 currently is still smart at this point in time.

You could of course upgrade the cpu since you have a x570 board.
And get a slight performance uplift from that in certain games.
And swap the 2700X into the VR build with a cheap x570 board.
However if that is really worth it is kinda questionable at this point in time really.
I personally don’t think so.

I understand that you want to swap your main pc part into the VR build.
And upgrade your main system.
And that is basically a great idea however if you are still satisfied,
with the current performance of both.
Then i would just wait till next year or so.

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