My old 8350 is running a bit slow and hot and now looks like a good time to upgrade to Ryzen. Looking for hardware recommendations from people more in the know.
Existing System
I have a case, psu (Corsair rm850x), and gpu (Asus Strix 970) which I will continue to use. For storage Im currently using a Sandisk Ultra II 240gb ssd, WD Blue 1TB, and a HGST 5tb. But Im thinking of replacing the HDD’s with a 3tb Barracuda and putting the 5tb in a nas but thats a bit off topic.
The Upgrade https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tDhx29
I have chosen the 2700x because I dont plan to overclock and want to get as much longevity per dollar as possible. Please convince me that the 2600 is a better choice.
Again I chose x470 because of longevity and also because 2nd gen is usually better. Specific board recommendations welcome, see use case below. Price wise I dont have a budget but since Im not overclocking I think 150-200 is reasonable.
I have no clue about ram, recommendations very welcome.
Use Case
Mostly gaming (1440p 75hz), not streaming, my most played game at the moment is Vermintide 2. Other than that I have an Oculus and play VR games and am very interested in Linux and VFIO. I dont have a 2nd gpu other than an old nvidia 450 (I think?) which I kinda doubt will even work, but my new motherboard needs to support easy passthrough. And for VR the board should have lots of USB 3.0 bandwidth on either Intel or ASMedia controller.
I have no intention of overclocking. I plan to run with whatever out of the box OC is there and the stock cooler. But depending on the noise and heat I may even turn it down a little.
Questions
Is the 2700x too overkill for a 4-6 year 1440p gaming system?
Ideal midrange x470 board for VFIO? No need of bells and whistles, but reliability is number 1
having an x470 chipset doesn’t necessarily mean better longevity. pretty much all the mobo companies think they can get away with lying about the power design and cap quality of their boards, so there are actually b450 options that might last longer and have better longevity than heavily marketed x470 boards with worse components
For ram, go with B die or AFR, best CL between 2666 and 3200 you can find that isn’t absolutely extortionate price-wise. Even then, you motherboard bios could come with garbage sub-timing straps and not run the ram to spec, but that’s just the nature of the market right now.
the 2600 on average will get up about as high as the 2700x single-core boost wise if using PBO multipliers, if not better because of the reduced heat. unless you need 8 cores for rendering or productivity, it’s probably a better value.
fermi doesn’t have UEFI GOP, you need a newer host card, like the GT 710
It’s not. Sorry.
Looking at overall system cost for the performance upgrade the 2700X is a steal.
Well, to find out what board is the most reliable would probably take a couple years. My ASRock Taichi Ultimate is rock solid so far and I have a feeling that 10Gb network is gonna become standard over the next two or three years. So, that might be a feature that actually keeps the board relevant.
RAM: Samsung B-Die 3200 CL14. I like G.Skill Trident-Z, there are cheaper options though.
Oh yeah, his videos are great. I’ve been following him since the blogspot days.
This isn’t exactly a new trend on AMD boards though. FX chipset mobos would fry traces under load and some VRMs on popular Phenom chipset boards would literally catch fire.
CPU’s weren’t drawing as much power on average if you look at sandy bridge onwards, but that value is creeping back up as core counts and time between new nodes increases, and the motherboard manufacturers want to keep the same margins as they had back when everything was an ivy bridge/haswell quad core or less
Im not very familiar with power design on motherboards. I read through the post on the forum here but Im not sure what to look for. Are more phases good or does the reputation of individual components used matter more? If im not overclocking and not drawing tons of power does having more phases make any difference?
Like mentioned above Ive heard that you dont want to exceed 3200, is that true? If I got a kit with a higher frequency would I run it slower and tighten the timings?
the Hours@temp rating and total capacitance of the smoothing capacitors
the ESR and switching time of the MOSFETs
The problem is, it’s a long standing tradition for motherboard manufacturers to lie about their power design specs, and also a long standing tradition for reviewers to not double check with tools as simple as google and a multimeter to make sure they aren’t being lied to.
What most reviewers do is count the number of chokes (inductors) and call it a day. This is a problem because above a certain threshold chokes are the least important part of a VRM design, and also because you can just stick more chokes than you need on the vrm frontend and fool the average reviewer.
More phases can mean more current capability, but it also increases voltage stability and the ability to handle power spikes. that said, an 8 phase using bottom shelf components may still perform worse than a 4 phase using high quality, over spec parts.
I’d recommend watching AHOC/buildzoid for more information on the subject, as he has one of the best quality levels among tech journalists when it comes to his honesty and understanding of the subject matter, despite not even being a journalist.
here’s a quick rundown, check out the rest of his stuff for more in-depth explanations of the EE behind VRM design.
The reason people say this is because high frequency ram is usually just random highly binned chips. Might be B-die, Might be hynix MFR, etc. but the timings and command rate will be worse almost guaranteed, so you’ll get worse performance instead of just diminishing returns.
This problem is made worse because motherboard manufacturers seem not to be too bothered about adhering to AMP specs, and put seemingly random subtiming straps in their UEFI. I’d go farther than saying look for Bdie specced at 3200 or less and say stick to the listed compatible dimms for your motherboard for this reason.
If you want a decent X470 board then i can recommend the folling boards in order.
Asus Crosshair VII Hero. <-- Pretty much the best X470 board overall.
With the best vrm implementation, and best bios.
Asrock X470 Taichi Ultimate. <-- Also a very decent board with great vrm design.
Asrock X470 Taichi Non Ultimate. <-- Same board as the Ultimate but lacking the 10gbe ethernet controller.
But offers strong value for money.
Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 <-- Also a really decent board in terms of vrm design.
But the Gigabyte bios can be a littlebit wonky at times.
Midrange boards:
Asus X470-F Strix. A really nice midrange board with a decent vrm design.
The main thing with this particular board is that it lacks a few feautures like postcode readout, onboard buttons and a b-clock gen.
But other then that a pretty nice board with some basic rog features.
Asus X470 Prime Pro Also a nice midrange board with all the base features that you would need.
I don’t like that LED trash… Also 18, 22, 22, 22, 42 seems not great. I have a kit with better timings rated for 4000MHz. So, not sure if this is the good stuff.
good list. I’d say if you don’t plan on overclocking the regular taichi is probably the best buy for you.
Friend of mine has the Aorus one, though, IDK if GB cheaped out on the copper weight or what, but it will refuse to boot or boot and randomly hang if you max out the IO lanes or fill up the pcie slots with active devices. we tested several combinations (and no, it’s not the psu hitting OCP, we tested that too)
Well that might also be an issue related to that wonky bios i mentioned.
I´m personally never really have been a big fan of Gigabyte boards in general.
And the main reason for that is their bios.
They might have improved on it allot nowdays.
But i still read about bios glitches a bugs so now and than.
You are probably correct about everything except that meaningless LED trash remark, but this is the only source I can find pointing that its not that Samsung B die
