Looking to upgrade my old system as its giving me occasional issues. I'm think of getting the 3600 cpu not the X as I don't think the little gain is worth the extra money. I'm used to a premium board as that's what I have always bought (have a P67 Sabretooth now) but I cant afford to go that route so I am looking at a mid range ATX board really and probably 3000mhz ram minimum.
I've been using a really cheap B450M pro4 board from Asrock in my daughters machine I have been really impressed with their BIOS support and updates, stability seems great, I'd certainly use the brand again, before the recent rises it only cost £55.
I used that one for my daughters flat mates build and he hasn't been on the phone since I built it a just under a year ago
I'd get a b550 board for longevityand you're not reliant on bios updates for future upgrades to 5000 CPU, pcie4 etc. If you're used to Asus boards and want to stick with them, would the Strix B550-A be out of your budget at £160?
That's the sort of board I would go for as I the last 3 boards ive owned have been in the £160 - £180 bracket (M2n 32SLI, GD70 790FX and my present P97 Sabretooth, still own all 3 too) but this time I think that it might be out of my present price range as I eventually want to upgrade my GTX 970 too. Asrock do a B550 at £95
I upgraded from i7 2700k to r5 3600. It's a great upgrade, although not noticeable during light use, it has made a big difference in VR and video encoding was miles quicker. For RAM, This Adata kit: https://www.cclonline.com/product/3...Channel-Desktop-Memory-DIMM-in-Black/RAM4466/ I got them for £104 and they are happily running at 3400 CL16 1.375v. Simply set XMP, up frequency and voltage. Note the Asrock motherboard is mATX.
I'm on a 2600K. Unfortunately that ram is sold out but that looked to be a great bargain, I'm in no rush so I'll keep my eyes open. Matx will be fine I think, I only have a soundcard and an M2 adapter that need slots but I will no longer need the adaptor once I get one of these boards. I'm also happy to look at 2nd hand cpu's and ram but would prefer a new motherboard.
Custom pc recommend the MSI B550 which seems mid range price wise. I already have a 1tb M2 add so hopefully that will be compatible.
I made the move to a 2600 and x470 a while back and have been super pleased. Team red really did knock it out the park with Ryzen. Given the sheer range of CPU support on am4, you could prob pick up a bargain 1 / 2 gen CPU for now and work on the base and then upgrade to 3000 / 5000 later
Retail 3600 for £145 at Currys with code. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ry...livered-using-code-at-currys-pc-world-3694577
OMG that's soo tempting, do I bite now........... Thanks for the heads up. I've been checking everyday but hadn't looked today.
Said sod it and bought it, i bet it goes down but I just want to get my pc updated now. Just got to think what motherboard i need now, do I go B550 for the pcie 4 which I'm not sure I need. What i do need its 2 M2 slots as I already have 1 m2 drive and would like to get a bigger 2tb drive and hopefully be able to do away with my separate drives and all the wiring that entails.
One of my LAN guys bought a B550M Steel Legend recently and is impressed with it. Both the ATX and mATX versions seem to have been well received. Just check the PCIe slot layout is OK for you.
I'll second the B550M steel legend, mine has been rock solid since the bios updates last December that sorted my memory issues. Earlier bios wouldn't run 3600mhz RAM at XMP. Only one of the M2 slots is PCIE4, the one that's under the heatsink "armour" that's a pain in the ass to get to. The second M2 that's easier to get at is PCIE3.
Whats wrong with B450 if your concerned about budget? https://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi...-way-crossfire-realtek-gbe-usb-32-gen2-aplusc PCIEx4 ... ? Fancy sounding features on a board most people wouldn't see any benefit from are not always needed.
How about this? https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/as...e-free-card-delivered-at-amazon-spain-3694993 I have the same Asus B550m gaming plus wifi board. It's okay. I wish I had gone for ATX version though. I like the rear IO layout, but the PCIe layout mean 3 slot GPU like my one blocks the single PCIe x4. The other M.2 slot also heats up by the GPU hot air, temperature were okay with 1070 Ti but current 2080 Ti kicks out too much heat onto the M.2 drive. TBH there's no where else to put second M.2 on these MATX boards. Its CPU power delivery is among the good ones, according to Hardware Unboxed group tests.
That's a really good price, I'm just wary of it coming from Spain and import charges/possibilities of having to return it for whatever reason.
