Need Advice on a New/Upgrade Build

[vulcan500rider]

Hi, everyone!

It's been a long time since I posted anything on HWC, and an awfully long time since I had the time or money to consider upgrading, so I feel pretty out of the loop. That said, with Cyberpunk 2077 coming out in November, I'm considering upgrading my system to better cope with it. The current specs are:

i5 2500K
Asus P67 Sabretooth MB
8GB RAM (GSKILL DDR3)
Radeon RX 480
Two SSDs (250GB and 1TB) and a HDD (4TB)
Seasonic 750W

I'm probably going to stick with the RX 480 for the time being, and the PSU is fine--they're also the newest pieces of hardware in the system. I'm thinking of upgrading to this:

Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max
16GB G.SKILL RIPJAWS PC4-25600
Western Digital Blue SN550 M.2 SSD (probably port the HDD and at least one of the SSDs over, too)

So, where I'm a bit lost is that I know virtually nothing about the new MBs/chipsets and basically pulled that MB out of a hat, based on price and bestseller listings on Memory Express. So, by all means, if you have a better suggestion I would welcome it.

Secondly, I'm not exactly unhappy with my SSDs, but it seems from some basic googling that the M.2 standard is significantly faster; is it worth the upgrade at this point?

Lastly, are there any red flags or things you think I may be missing?

Any advice is most appreciated. Thanks!

 

[moocow]

If you are picky about speed then I would go for WD Black SN750. You also got confused regarding M2, that's the format not the communication protocol. There are SATA in M2 format, if you want performance, you want NVME in M2 format. Don't bother with a B450 board, move up to a B550 so you can take on Zen 3. Yes, while B450 could take on Zen 3 (Ryzen 5xxx) it will not take on anything after. So if they release a Zen 3+, you're pretty much out of luck. I would wait for Oct 8 and see what AMD is going to announce for new GPU and CPU. Keep the 1TB SSD for Steam games or any other big application. If you need a scratch disk for Adobe, keep the 250GB SSD. Or get an external enclosure and you get a pretty big thumb drive.

 

[Sagath]

Check that that board is going to get capability for the new 5000 series AMD CPU's. With the new chips being announced/released next week that may interest you. B550 and X570 are better options, especially with PCIE4 likely to soon matter for RTX IO.

Alternatively, this also means its a good time to get a 450 board, and grab a used chip off someone upgrading...Which would make it cheap to get in to a really good setup!

 

[clshades]

I know lots of people like MSI. I personally can't stand them or their driver support. Asus or gigabyte for me. I second Sagaths post. If you're gonna get a new board, make sure it's got a decent upgrade path. Ryzen 5000 series is no joke. PCIE4 means the video card talks directly to the storage so it bypasses the cpu, if I understand it correctly.

 

[Lysrin]

I've been saying this for a while, but if you can squeeze 32GB of RAM into your budget, I don't think you'll be disappointed considering the way games are going.

 

[Bond007]

Of all the more budget friendly nvme, the sn550 you have picked is the one I recommend. If you have a few extra $ and want a bit higher performance, you can just to something like the sn750, sx8200 pro, etc.

While that will be a solid platform upgrade, the RX480 is going to be (by far) the bottleneck in game.

EDIT: Also, new AMD CPUs are being announced next week, so hold out. Probably a B550 board and Ryzen 5 5600 (sounds like they will skip 4000). Or get a great deal on a 3600 on sale (or used) after the new ones are released.

 

[vulcan500rider]

I do so love this community. Thanks, all! So, as a recap:

• NVME is the protocol (like SATA) that I want. The SN550 is decent, but the SN750 would be even better. (and the price diff is negligible)
• Wait at least until the new CPUs are being announced next week; it may make the parts cheaper
• I'm better off with a B550 or X570 MB, to keep my options open for future upgrades. I might want to rethink MSI (I'm traditionally an ASUS guy too, and have never tried MSI)
• 32GB RAM would be better (though I'm not sure this is in my budget).

And yes, I know the RX480 will be the new bottleneck, but it's held its own reasonably well at 1080p. I think I'm going to try to squeeze another year or so out of it and see what I can pick up on the used market at that point.

Again, thanks for all the thoughts. If anyone has any specific ideas on the mobo, in particular, I would certainly welcome them.

EDIT: I'm leaning toward this mobo: Asus TUF Gaming B550-PLUS

Cheers!

 

[Shadowmeph]

my old Main PC was very close to what you have but I had 16 Gb ram and a 8GB rx480 vid card then I bought used 4690k system from someone here thats my current gaming system still using my 480 8 gb vid card but yes if and more then likely when I upgrade I would do the same as what others have said.

 

[moocow]

The sticky part about MSI is that their motherboards get pretty good reviews. Yes, their marketing practices are a bit asshole-y but looking at both GB and Asus lower end stuff boards (read crap) then you can't really ignore MSI.

 

[clshades]

The sticky part about MSI is that their motherboards get pretty good reviews. Yes, their marketing practices are a bit asshole-y but looking at both GB and Asus lower end stuff boards (read crap) then you can't really ignore MSI.

Maybe I've just had bad luck with MSI. Every time I've had to get drivers off their site all I want to do is gouge my eyeballs out.

sx8200 pro is sound advice. Amazing m.2 drive for games. It performs as good or better than the Samsung top end 970's. 32gb ram for an AMD board is a big spend if you want the Ryzen ready stuff. Cost me 300 and change.

Not sure if a 1070 performs better than a 480 but I'll have one for sale as soon as I can get a 3080 sorted.