Hello all, well it's been a very long time since i've built a new system and my machine has remained capable considering its age..... but now im in the market for something new... Budget: £900 (although happy to spend less if its high bang per buck) Main uses of intended build: Gaming, video editing Parts required: CPU, mobo, ram, cooling, case, M2 drive Parts already owned PSU: Corsair RM750x GPU: Aorus RTX3060 Parts settled on (~£350) Case: Corsair 4000D - £65 Cooling: NZXT Kraken X63 - £110 Ram: Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600 16GB - £75 M.2 SSD: 1TB - Advice needed....! Too many brands and options! Under £100 would be good. System Options 1 (£440) CPU: i5 11600K - £240 Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming Z490-Plus (WIFI) - £200 System Option 2 (£550) CPU: i7 11700K - £320 Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus (WIFI) - £230 System Option 3 (£390) CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X - £240 Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming B550-Plus (WIFI) - £150 System Option 4 (£520) CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X - £340 Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WIFI) - £180 TLR; I'm an intel fan boy after jumping ship over 10 years ago, and i'd like to know which mobo/cpu route to go down. I'm lost and confused with chipsets and processors.
Pretty much all boards can handle supported CPU these days. If B550 is okay for your needs in terms of PCIe lanes and IO, you don't need to step up to x570 when upgrading the CPU. I voted 5800x, but with a B550 if it's enough for you. Works out (£490)best bang for bucks IMHO.
Unless you're handling lots of data / doing lots of processing the 5600X will be more than enough power for your needs. It also runs significantly cooler than the 5800X too.
This, plus I'd say go for the 5600X and then change up to 32GB of RAM. As 16GB is fairly low these days for intensive applications!
This Crucial P5 SSD is well reviewed and at less than £80 at the moment, would be my choice. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/1tb-crucial-p5-nvme-m2-pcie-3d-ssdsolid-state-drive-34003000mbs-readwrite-ps7848-delivered-at-ebuyerebay-3798449?utm_source=mappshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=3798449&utm_campaign=2021-09-25 Agree with Pete, with that budget, 32GB will give more breathing space. 16GB is bare minimum these days. I personally would like to have a 5800x. Just because I had a i7 2700k and never felt left behind until last few years. Don’t have a crystal ball, innovation in CPU due to competition means it’s completely different now. But I feel 5800x should last longer than 5600x without needing an upgrade. Whether it’s worth £100 extra will depend on your personal use-cases.
Thanks for all the responses so far. It seems to be pretty unanimous to fly with Ryzen this time around! Probably go with the cheaper CPU as it gives me options to upgrade later and pass on the used CPU to my nephew. Case: Corsair 4000D - £65 Cooling: NZXT Kraken X63 - £90 Ram: Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3200 32GB - £110 M.2 SSD: 1TB - Crucial P5 - £90 CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X - £240 Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WIFI) - £180 Total ~£775.75 (£875 if I go for the beefier CPU) Is it worth going for the DDR4-3600 at £40 extra?
Is it a 2 DIMM or 4 DIMM kit? I couldn't get me 3600x to work a 3600MHz with 4 DIMMs, its a failing in the memory controller (that could have been fixed in the 5 series).
My experience would suggest 5xxx is quite happy, I am running my 4x 8Gb 3600 Single rank ram at 3933 which is quite nice.
It's a 2 DIMM kit, 3200MHz is about £110 and 3600MHz is £150. Just wondering if i'll actually notice a real world difference. I'm now thinking about keeping my current case, and i suppose I could put that cash into the faster RAM.
No real difference to be honest not to warrant the £40 bump but looking a crucial its an extra £7 which it not that much of a bump https://uk.crucial.com/memory/ddr4/bl2k16g36c16u4bl
That's super cheap! Do you know if it's single rank or dual rank? I've got a dual rank kit, would rather switch to single rank for future upgrade-ability. edit: dual rank. source: https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/fwqqwp/crucial_ballistix_32gb_ddr43600_oc_report/
This rank stuff is news to me! Just did a bit of reading. Doesnt seem easy to work out if a kit is single or dual until you have the sticks in hand to read the part numbers.
dualrank performs better than single rank at same clock speed, single rank sticks can typically overclock higher due to less load on controller but you need a big clockspeed increase to make up the return you get from dual rank at lower speeds. So if you were going to have 32 gb the 2x16 dr is a great setup at 3200. With 4 stick of single rank on ryzen 5k you get the effect of dual rank and good clock speed if you are lucky enough to have a good memory controller. AMD Ryzen RAM scaling - performance effect in games - Games performance – overview part 1 (guru3d.com) Margins are tiny so wouldn't obsess over it (says man who's spent many days tuning his RAM for a couple of fps ) and the main one really is getting lower latency, so if you get into memory tuning get this number down. My experience of ballistix 3200CL16 in my daughters machine is that it will easily run cl14, I would imagine it can run quite high clocks too, we topped out at 3400 but she only has a Zen core which aren't known to be good for memory generally, I'd imagine going by the long ballistix thread on overclockers it would be good for at least 3600, in a zen2/zen3
This is the RAM I've just upgraded to following a hardware failure - very pleased with the speed - Crucial Ballistix 32Gb
First things first, keep in mind that it might be worth waiting out until the 1st week of November when Alder Lake is rumoured to be launching. DDR5 looks pretty much a given, maybe PCI-E 5.0 support as well. That and the extra low power cores of the K CPUs may well make Intel the better choice (the rumours for the 12600K are 6cores/12 threads, but with an extra 4 non-hyperthreaded low power cores as well). Right now, if the option is there to wait another month I'd hold fire. If you can't wait, it's not a clear choice here. Assuming you're upgrading from the X5660 in your signature then the 11600K or 5600X are also 6 core/12 thread CPUs - though 10+ years newer and far less than the $1222 list price according to Intel Ark that your X5660 was at MSRP. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer either way between Ryzen 5000/Intel 11th Gen other than what's cheapest, so I'd take a look at any deals that might be available. I got my 10700K for $273 including sales tax here in the US but at the time UK prices were still at £350 and not remotely in the same ballpark. The 10700K is still £309 in the UK - for a CPU that I got in March for £201 based on the current exchange rate. At £250+ it's not a great buy but it may well be worth having a look around for any deals. As you have a 3060 the iGPU of the Intel options isn't relevant, unless you want a backup video out in case anything happens to your GPU. Otherwise I'd go with the cheapest option. If you do go Intel though I'd go with the motherboard from option 2 - it's not relevant now but PCI-E 4.0 support may well be a factor toward the end of the builds lifespan, especially if you're keeping this system for a decade (or around the same amount of time as your current build). I'm also stuck on SSD choices as I love the SK Hynix P31 drive I have... except they're not available in the UK. I'm therefore a bit limited on recommendations but I don't see the extra cost of PCI-E 4.0 drives being of any practical benefit unless you regularly edit 4K video. For 1TB I wouldn't spend more than £130. As for RAM, target 3,200MHz sticks for DDR4 and at least 16GB. 8GB is workable but it's pointless skimping at this point and likely would need upgrading in the next year or 2.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I'm keen to get it all up and running before the new battlefield comes out so i've pulled the trigger on the parts. Fingers crossed I wont be waiting 10 years for another upgrade! This is what i've gone with: Cooling: NZXT Kraken X63 Ram: Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600 32GB (recommended by @Bloody_Pete and @oasked ) M.2 SSD: 1TB - Crucial P5 (recommended by @wyx087 ) CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X Mobo: Asus TUF Gaming X570-Pro (WIFI) (maxed out on the chipset for the longevity!) Last question - what's the recommended benchmarking software these days to boil down a system into one big number and compare it against everyone elses? I'll run it on the current machine before dismantling.
Cinebench for the CPU, then something like 3dmark for the GPU. Good choice on the board. I have one, it's been superb.
Up and running people! Mostly smooth, although ran into two minor issues: 1. M2 drive heatsink - I wasnt sure which way round it went so I looked at the adhesive and put it with maximum contact to the drive (makes sense in my mind) but i didnt notice one end had a raised washer. Anyway tightened it up and realised I had it the wrong way around as it was flexing.... Anyway I loosened it off and left it. 2. USB3 front connector - never had this connected before so got it hooked up, decided I wanted to re-rotue the cable, tried to remove......... and the mobo seat came off with it. Pins fine, nothing damaged. Required a screw driver to remove the plastic from the connector! WTF! Currently hooked up without it. There doesnt appear to be any adhesivre or broken bits, how was it meant to stay in place? Confirmed my suspicions that my old system was bottlenecking my GPU with the help of passmark performance test!
