maybe. also quiet.
??? i kinda doubt that. most of the games i play are cpu bound. besides, already have the 580.
yes. im already just about maxed out on 4gb among multiple drives. much of it games. but i’ve decided to reuse one of the 500gb ssds from my existing system instead
iirc, doesn’t the b450 require a bios update?
ill be getting a new case so i can just turn my current system into an ESXI server, with a NAS, etc.
price difference is like $15
Another perk of a larger PSU, especially in the case of PSUs like the Focus Gold, is that new power supplies have multi-mode fans. So with the Focus Gold the fan on the PSU won’t actually turn on until a certain threshold, with a higher wattage PSU that threshold should be higher, making for the fan to be stationary and silent for longer. At least in theory that is.
Probably a pretty moot point though.
let me pout it this way, im on an 8350 atm
Ok, then I have a clearer picture. Most of it makes sense. 
Regarding bottlenecking, I found this little utility website that lets you check out your build and see if it will bottleneck. Unfortunately they need to update to latest Ryzen generation, but the 2700X is roughly 90% as strong a CPU as the 3700X. See:
https://pc-builds.com/calculator/Ryzen_7_2700X/Radeon_RX_580/0Qe0Yg28/8/
Since they recommend an RTX 1080 as a replacement card, and your CPU is a little stronger still… I’d downgrade to a slower CPU or upgrade to a better GPU. It’s not a massive problem however.
As for B450 and Bios, yes, but the Tomahawk allows you to flash without a CPU and supports up to 3466 MHz speeds, so I’d say it is the better purchase at the moment.
The problem with that and most other benchmarks is, that they don’t take into account that your PC does other things besides Gaming.
When you play a game on one Monitor, have a Browser open with a few Tabs, Discord running, an editor, all those peripheral driver utility software you need, UPlay, Steam, Epic etc, your CPU has LOTS to do besides running a game.
On a fresh system without much installed, most Benchmarks hold true, but on a system you actually use daily, those things might shift a bit. That’s also why i find it hard to decide between a 2700X and a 3600. On paper and in Benchmarks, the 3600 creams the 2700X. In the real world, the 4 additional threads could help with all the other stuff that’s going on and leave more threads open for the game.
Sadly though, no one tests those CPU’s on a fully used install with all the stuff we generally have going on (for obvious reasons).
Actually, on paper (and according to userbenchmarks), the 3600 is about 8% better than the 2700X for about $50 more - I wouldn’t call that “creaming” the 2700X since it’s a 25% price hike for 8% of the extra performance. Of course, lower thermals is a good thing and all that, too, but the 2700X is the better bang for the buck.
But point taken. This should not be taken as absolute truth, and if you want to multitask then the CPU will be great either way.
@Commissar still not entirely convinced a 4TB mechanical drive is the best buy, I’d invest in a smaller 1TB SSD and then use that as a game buffer, then install all games on the NAS and move over the games I currently play to the local drive.
I wonder though if it’s possible these days to set a drive up to be a NAS cache - that is, you install it on the NAS, but if you then access the files they are put on a local drive and then as you move on to other games they disappear. Slightly longer loading times first time you boot up a game in like, 2 months, but otherwise best of both worlds.
Oh, and if you are going completely gung ho with a new case, why not SFF? You can get an Asrock Fatal1ty B450 board for $125, and while this does not have flashback, AMD is helpful enough to provide an upgrade kit, or if you do not want to go with the hassle that entails, an AM4-compatible CPU starts at $40 so that’s $165 vs the X570 that costs you $219. The B450+cheap CPU upgrade costs you $54 less than the X570, the upgrade kit costs you $94 less.
As for a good SFF form factor case, I made a guide a couple of weeks back if you’re interested.
You don’t get a NAS for free. If the OP nees 4TB of storage, an internal drive is the most economical solution.
A decent NAS would start at 200 or 300 Bucks without drives. Plus you add Network latency into loading your games files.
If, as he suggested, he’ll keep the old PC around, he could turn that into a NAS. In that case, it could make sense. But he’d need the HDD either way.
Yeah, since he will keep the old PC around, that is why I suggested the NAS.
I still suspect the mechanical drive will be a bottleneck, either your hueg 150GB games will be stored on it and thus you will notice in-game latency on texture loading and stuttering, or you will have some different workflow that requires high throughput with big data, such as editing movies.
If you do not need that throughput, then a NAS is the better option and there mechanical drives makes a lot of sense - but perhaps it would be better to invest in a proper ZFS-supported FreeNAS with four 4TB mech drives and an m.2 system drive.
So, since the “slight upgrade” is pretty much not an upgrade but an entirely new system, I still don’t think the 4TB mech makes much sense for the system. Better then to perhaps invest in dual Intel 660 2TB m.2 drives, blazingly fast and you can get two of them for $181.99 each, bringing your total storage capacity to 4TB for only ~$60 more than the sloooooooow 4TB drive + fast samsung Evo 500GB.
So, mechs are pretty much stupid for a non-NAS build these days, but sure, if you know their limitations they can work.
I looked at those too for my new build to replace some of the aging 128G SSD’s i currently have in my PC. Reviews said that longevity might be a questionmark?
Do you have any experience with those drives? And is the speed difference to a 970 Evo noticable at all?
Speed difference is pretty much negligible in day to day use. A couple of megabyte back or forth, see this video:
Longevity-wise? The bigger the SSD the longer it will live. The Intel drive comes with (at least) a 5 year warranty, which means a torture test kills it theoretically in about 2.5 years time. For regular use, it’ll take perhaps 20-40 years to wear it out. I can guarantee the mech will die before then.
http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html
It is time to throw the mechs to the storage servers, where they still serve a decent enough purpose. For all other intents, mechs are pretty much stupid for new systems.
[edit]Also, when I say slow, how slow do I mean? Well, according to the first article google recommended:
Mech: 100 MB/s (for 7200 RPM)
SSD: 300-550 MB/s
NVMe: 1000-3500 MB/s
So, yeah, mechs simply not worth it for desktops anymore.
[/edit]
Depends. I have a 3TB Drive in mine and it’s well worth it. It’s still bigger that affordable SSDs get, costs a third and holds a bunch of Data that just doesn’t need throughput (1 TB worth of audio recording projects, Music Library, Some movies, General Documents etc.).
I also have a NAS with 8TB worth of storage. But if i had to build 1 PC and needed the Data only for 1 PC, i’d still go for a high capacity spinning drive and a SSD.
because upgradability. im planning on going custom loop cooling in the future. same reason im getting the 3700x, i can upgrade the gpu alot easier than the cpu.
Yeah, I hear you. I still do not agree it belongs anywhere inside a case. An external USB 3.0 drive would be just as good, cost less and probably show better performance regardless - if a NAS is not an option.
With a Gigabit NAS at the local network, the difference in retrieving data is pretty much gone since the mech will have a difficult time going above 100 MBps in any case. Of course, there is always RAID0 or RAID1, but if you are going to take it that far just to get better read speeds…
Again, for NAS use, mechs are still king. But you just loose too much performance for everything else.
I understand. You might still want to check out the Dan-SF4 or Louqe Ghost though, decent cases for SFF that fits full-length GPUs and water cooling in them.
The Fractal Design Node 202 is also an option if water cooling is not a priority.
Sugo SG13 and Sugo SG05-Lite could also fit a cooler, but they will not support full-length GPU cards (266 / 254 mm)
hard drive cages. it’s hard to find a decent mid tower with more than 4 3.5" slots.
How that? SATA is not limiting any HDD. At BEST USB3 would perform the same. And generally, for me, it has been a bit slower.
Do you really need that many harddrive cages though? Right now you have 4.5TB of used storage - but how much of that do you actually touch? Just open up each drive and have a look - when did you last access your drive according to the dates?
Consider:
So that means four to six storage slots available in most SFF cases, which is plenty for current storage needs. Today only heavy content creators need much HDD, most others are just fine with what they’ve got. Heck, I have a single laptop with a 120GB drive and I am nowhere near filling that up.
As always, you do you, but I don’t see how you will ever need that many drives again, especially not if you have a NAS available as well.
yes. i do. i have my steam librarys split.might go m.2 tho. that’s not a bad idea. im a data whore. i legit have to clean out my c drive all the time
and yeah, i need that much space. ESO alone is 100gb.
but i think ill go with a 2tb m.2 to start, i can add more later
A microatx card with 2 PCIe 16 slots would give you some extra room for this:
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card.html
That will give you 6 available m.2 drives at the cost of running dual GPU cards. So no, you will not ever need a 3,5 inch Bay ever again.
Of course you could also look to the icydock which converts a 5.25 inch Bay to a six 2.5" sata holders as well.
Your motherboard will probably not be able to cope with ridiculous amount of sata cables however… 
mobo im planning on has 8 sata 6gb ports, 2 x16 pcie, and 2 available m.2, along with 3 pcie x1.
im not a small size nut, i don’t really care. ive got a big system right now, and i plan to keep it that way. it’s nice having extra room.
lol, and 5.25 bays for for reservoirs
Sounds awesome 
me, I love the idea of a computer that takes up next to no desk space but still can be upgraded like a beast, but to each their own.
Have fun with your big case and 3.5 inchers, but do know that the future is spelled NVMe for no better reason than the fact you can fit 4 NVMe in a 2.5 inch slot…
