Hi everyone, I just checked my country’s ebay an noticed that I could sell my i5-6600k and MoBo and with that money buy a brand new r7 1700 and a b350 MoBo (or a 1600 with a x370 MoBo) on Amazon without spending a single extra dollar (which I do not have anyway). I’m seriously considering it
Whay do you guys think?
ps: I don’t care that much about gaming
If you can get a good price on it go for it, free upgrade to triple your core count.
ASUS Prime Plus is the B350 board to shoot for, though the ASrock stuff is fine as well.
What is it, that you care about then?
In general terms I personally don’t think 1600 is worth the hassle. You will get some improvements in some uses, but not in others…
1700 now that is an upgrade. From 4c4t to 8c16t is a huge jump.
If you overclock it might be fun trying overclocking on a new platform
Allot depends on what your into
Depends entirely on your workload. If you do stuff that benefits from more cores then yeah a Ryzen 6 core will walk all over the i5.
If not then no point
I mean, I do game but I’m a computer science student, I’m not sure what I want to focus on yet but I want to get into machine learning. also use virtual machines, obviously programming, that sort of workload
I just changed the tread name and description, I just noticed I could afford a 1700 with a b350 or a 1600 with a x370
There you go…
To me it sounds like either CPU is fine for your needs… but if I were building a new system it would the 1700 over the i5 and time. It’s most definately the better processor for the kind of work loads you describe - you could assign 4 cores to a VM and let that work on a R learning problem, leaving the other 4 cores free to run a game. All this without any impact to either process. If it cost neutral to make the change my advice is to do it.
I would say squeeze in the 1600x to get a little better overclocking ability or just leave it stock and single thread hangs with the best of ryzen. Then get yourself an Asrock Taichi.
The best part of this combo is you get a great CPU and motherboard now but you can play the long game with and just swap the CPU when the next Ryzen cpus comes out. I feel the next cpu AMD comes out with will be the 8 core 16 thread Sandy bridge of AMDs time. You will have a great foundation to build upon (Asrock Taichi)
As a computer science student, if you have the means, it may be worth it for you to learn a new platform/architecture. For gaming, the gains will most likely be slim to none. With workloads such as Handbrake, the gains have the potential to be huge.
EDIT:spelling
I guess the question I would have is; is it worth it to you? Like in terms of what you’re doing, how does this change make sense for you/your workload? Keep in mind that you’re going to have a few hours of work here- Motherboard swap + all the cables and what not, plus a system reload. For me, despite the fact that I love building computers and setting them up, I try to avoid this type of work on my own system, outside of a small upgrade, say a GPU.
Just something to consider.
I agree with this.
I don’t think that makes sense. I got my 1600 to 3.9 GHz. So another 100mhz if at all won’t have any significant impact on performance to justify the price.
For gaming there isnt really that much reason to upgrade.
But if you want to go into virtual machines and some more core dementing workloads, like video rendering, content creation or that sort of stuff.
Then a 1700 would be a nice step up.
However i would highlly recommend to spend a few bucks more and buy a decent X370 board in combination with a 1700.
Because all B350 boards have a pretty poor vrm design.
They are not really great for overclocking an R7 cpu on.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
I wouldn’t say they have poor vrm designs. The Asus prime has a decent 4+2 design. This site overclocked an 8 core to 3.9 on it. https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/mainboards/43312-asus-prime-b350-plus-im-test.html?start=3
And ASRock has an efficient 3+2 design, I think.
You just have to make sure they have a proper heatsink on them.
I have looked at the vrm designs of pretty much any B350 board currentlly out there.
And all i can say is that they are all really poor.
The Asus B350 prime uses a 4+2 phase design powered by a single On semi 4C09B hi-side and dual 4C06B lo-side fet per phase for vcore, if i´m right out of my head.
Which isnt too bad, since those particular mosfets are a littlebit better then the 4C10N´s.
A design like that could basiclly handle an 8 core if there is a decent heatsink on it.
But its still not really that great.
For an 8 core overclocking i just highly recommend to just spend a littlebit more and buy a decent X370 board really.
That is just way better in terms of efficiency, and way more reliable for 24/7 overclocked operation.
Because on a decent board like the say the Asrock X370 Taichi, or Asus Crosshair 6 Hero, or Aorus X370 gaming 5 and K7.
Those boards all have a very decent vrm design, and wont have any troubles with running any Ryzen 7 cpu at max speeds all day long.
Because those boards just have a proper vrm design with proper components.
If those boards are too expensive, then the Asus X370-F strix, Asus X370 prime pro, Asrock X370 gaming k4 and Asrock X370 killer sli,
are also decent midrange choices.
The best B350 boards in terms of max current capabilities are the Msi B350 gaming pro carbon and the Msi B350 krait.
Those particular boards are using a 4+2 phase design with doubled up components on each vcore phase.
But again Msi is using very cheap and crappy Nikos mosfets on all their am4 boards.
But in terms of Msi´s logic, if you put enough crappy mosfets on a phase,
then combined they dont suck as bad.
But those are really not efficient.
The only B350 board that uses proper mosfets is the Asrock B350 Fatality gaming itx.
They are using some very decent Fairchild powerpaks, which are great efficiency wise, and current capability wise.
The only downside of that particular board is the actual voltage regulation cirquit, which is a 3+2 phase design with doubled up components on each phase again.
Which is a bit dissapointing to see really.
I still dont understand why Asrock didnt just spend a few more pennies and using a IR35201 in 6+2 phase mode instead of the ISL95712 4+3 phase pwm, that would have been amazing.
But yeah…
i dont want to go offtopic too much. 
Thanks for your insight, the cheapest x370 I’ve found is the MSI x370 SLI plus,
this article has power circuit analysis however this kind of information goes over my head, it says
The VRM is in an 8+2 phase configuration for the core and SOC power rails. The PWM controller is a 4+2 phase one from Richtek, the RT8894A. It offers three integrated drivers on the four phase channel, but none on the SOC channel. A Richtek RT9624F complements the three integrated one from the PWM, and two more RT9624F drivers are found driving the SOC rail. To get eight phases from the four the PWM outputs, MSI just doubled the number of power stages components on each driver. Nikos PK616BA and PK632BA PowerPAK MOSFETs are used as the high-side and low-side MOSFETs. The capacitors are rated for 5K hours at 105C.
Would you care to help me understand if this mobo is ok or if it’s really bad?
Well that particular review is done by Steven, who is very knowledgable about his stuff.
However basiclly this particular board basiclly is a 4+2 phase design with doubled up components on each vcore phase, like double the amount of mosfets and inductors per phase for higher current capabilities per phase.
This way the vrm does look like an 8+2 phase design.
However its technically not, because you cannot properly double the phases from that particular Richtek RT8894A pwm, as far as i´m aware.
Now about the board itself, its basiclly not a bad board for its price point.
However like i mentioned above those Nikos PK616BA and PK632BA mosfets arent the most efficient ones out there.
Those are kinda cheaper mosfets especially the PK616BA´s, the PK632BA’s arent all too bad.
However the vrm on this particular board is basiclly very similar to what you find on the Msi B350 gaming pro carbon.
It is sufficient, but not really the greatest vrm out there.