Building a new computer

squamishdroc

I would like to update my one PC that is about 10 years old. I would like to re use a fair bit of the parts (video card, p/s, aux hard drives etc as they have all been upgraded in the last few years. So basically I guess i'm looking for a new motherboard/cpu/ram and a new drive for the OS. Not looking to build a crazy gaming rig - just something that will serve me well for the next 10 years hopefully like this one has. What have others had good luck with as far as motherboards/cpu's are concerned? My current board is an Asus with an AMD FX chip.

dcibel

How much are you looking to spend?

If I was building new today I'd be looking closely at either the ASUS TUF B550 boards or Gigabyte Aorus.
Ryzen 3600 or hold out until there is real supply of 5600 chips that you can actually buy.
32GB of 3200MHz RAM because closing apps is for suckers.
Take your pick of Nvme drive for the OS.

Don't forget to get a big monitor too, the best thing I bough for my PC was a 35" ultrawide 3440x1440 display.

GeoffMillar

We also have a 10 year old Windows 7 PC and have been thinking about upgrading. Our local PC shop says it could be done but it's probably better to buy a new Windows 10PC.

You might find that your video and sound cards don't have updated drivers available for Windows 10, ours certainly doesn't. And if you need to get a new video card, it might need a new power supply too. The hard drives without Windows should be OK.

Geoff

squamishdroc

@dcibel said:
How much are you looking to spend?

If I was building new today I'd be looking closely at either the ASUS TUF B550 boards or Gigabyte Aorus.
Ryzen 3600 or hold out until there is real supply of 5600 chips that you can actually buy.
32GB of 3200MHz RAM because closing apps is for suckers.
Take your pick of Nvme drive for the OS.

Don't forget to get a big monitor too, the best thing I bough for my PC was a 35" ultrawide 3440x1440 display.

Maybe $500 for mb/cpu/ram/ssd or nvme

squamishdroc

@GeoffMillar said:
We also have a 10 year old Windows 7 PC and have been thinking about upgrading. Our local PC shop says it could be done but it's probably better to buy a new Windows 10PC.

You might find that your video and sound cards don't have updated drivers available for Windows 10, ours certainly doesn't. And if you need to get a new video card, it might need a new power supply too. The hard drives without Windows should be OK.

Geoff

My current pc runs win 10 so should be ok with driver compatibility.

dcibel

@squamishdroc said:

@dcibel said:
How much are you looking to spend?

If I was building new today I'd be looking closely at either the ASUS TUF B550 boards or Gigabyte Aorus.
Ryzen 3600 or hold out until there is real supply of 5600 chips that you can actually buy.
32GB of 3200MHz RAM because closing apps is for suckers.
Take your pick of Nvme drive for the OS.

Don't forget to get a big monitor too, the best thing I bough for my PC was a 35" ultrawide 3440x1440 display.

Maybe $500 for mb/cpu/ram/ssd or nvme

500 loonies? An you want it to be good for 10 years?

Ryzen 3600 is $280
The nice motherboards I mentioned above are $200. Cutting costs here, the cheapest full ATX size B550 motherboard I see at Newegg is an ASRock Phantom at $150, cut costs a little more if you go with mATX size like Gigabyte DS3H for $130
16GB RAM will be $100
Figure another $100 for an NVME SSD.

Going with ASRock Phantom, the options above come to CAD$630+tax+shipping. I'd opt for the ASUS TUF motherboard even if you're not a gamer, you get 2.5G ethernet for "future ready" networking and better power stage and VRM cooling solution, so probably better reliability and life span in the long run.

rjj45

decibel is correct. I recently upgraded a 10 year old computer, and spent about $700-800.
I upgraded to 32 GB ram, and that was a great decision.
For the price range, something like this looks pretty good:
https://www.amazon.com/HP-EliteDesk-800-G1-Refurbished/dp/B07NGVQLD3/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&qid=1613393334&refinements=p_89:HP,p_n_operating_system_browse-bin:12035945011&rnid=17702486011&s=pc&sr=1-14

Tom_S

I thought those prices seemed high, but forgot you are in Canada. Hard to beat the Ryzen 3600 for the money. An Intel with the same benchmark would be another $100. It still seems insane that you can build a machine that can edit video, even 4K footage, based around a $200 (USD) CPU.

squamishdroc

Well - looks like I am going to have to spend more than $500 😁 I guess computer parts are more than they used to be. I watched a video where a guy built a budget Ryzen gaming build off Amazon for $385 - I am at $530 for the same parts and have not added the case or power supply yet😢

jr@mac

If this is not intended to be a gaming rig, you will likely be good for many, many years to come with a Ryzen 3 or even the A10, especially if you plan on reusing an existing GPU. They are generally a lower TDP design, and some overkill on the heatsink and fan will help ensure longevity. 16gb RAM should be adequate for quite some time, but upgrading that in the future is easy enough. The new Socket AM4 chipsets are pretty good, and the 450 will likely be enough for casual usage.

My current rig is a gaming laptop that I paid about $1000 for. I7 etc. Pretty nice, but my previous main rig was an Athlon FX-8350 and GTX680 that I never had any issues with on the interwebz, music editing software, photo editing, ripping video, converting video, or playing the very few games I play. The 16gb of DDR3 is still adequate. I am fairly certain the Ryzen3 or possibly the A-10 would outperform that FX, for what its worth.

There is a compelling argument to buy ultra high end at any given time, but as a general rule heat management becomes more important for longevity and some of the really high end CPU's and even mobo chipsets have a higher TDP so require more attention to cooling solutions. The better mobo's will have heatsinks on the VRM and embedded chipsets. Not particularly helpful, though, if it is sinking heat into a poorly designed case.

Take your time, ask yourself what your current rig is not able to do that you want it to do, and go from there.

Ron_E

I've rebuilt 3 computers and spec'd parts for a 4th over the last 2 years using MSI B450 based boards. At the time I spec'd it the Ryzen 5 3600 was among the fastest single thread CPU's out there. I have 16 gigs and run multiple apps without a hitch. Add an NVMe boot drive and with your old case, drives and PS you should be good for only a few $'s over budget.

https://newegg.com/msi-b450-a-pro-max/p/N82E16813144268?Item=N82E16813144268

https://newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600/p/N82E16819113569?Item=N82E16819113569

https://newegg.com/team-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820331360?Item=N82E16820331360

https://newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-250gb/p/N82E16820147741

All of these machine have been pretty solid hardware wise. I will note that I think the heatsink that comes with the Ryzen 5 are pretty marginal if you run the CPU hard. Just about any machine with the new NVMe drives will shock you. There's no comparison between the SATA SSD drives and the new NVMe drives.

This is the benchmark of the Ryzen 5 3600 machine. I have since upgraded the video card.

Edit: The picture's hard to read but the CPU and Disk benchmarks rank in the top 99% off all system benchmarks using Passmark's benchmark software.

Ron