Upgrade or 'replace'

T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I'll preface this with the comment that this is a 'want' rather than a 'need'...but I have the cash, but am not sure whether I use it on a 'small' upgrade keeping all other components identical, or use it on a 'large' upgrade keeping only essential components.

Whilst I wait for an 'upgrade' price on a 5800x3D (purely for the nice extra FPS/smoothness in some recent games), I started playing with the AM5 configurator to see how much a 'bare bones' rig would cost...for a huge boost in games.

This would include a new case (the 200T is a bit tight for the 4090, and I really don't like the limited space for cable management it offers) a 7800x3D and suitable X670E motherboard (Strix probably as I want to put more m.2s on the MB than I currently can).

The rest would simply to make the build 'complete' in the eyes of the configurator:
  • RM1200x PSU
  • 128GB PCS SSD (will swap my current 980 Pro boot drive over)
  • 8GB PCS RAM (will buy faster RAM with better timings myself - as PCS don't state what their Corsair stuff is) - and possibly white if I go down that route
  • Corsair QX Link fan kit
  • Corsair Link H150i AIO (overkill for current cooling needs, but fills the gaps nicely and will let upgrade to a 9950x3D in 5 year's time)
So, initial thoughts are...

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE - more room (was limited on desk-space originally) for all the components, and better cabling / might do white, but white versions of all components are not available through PCS
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX X670E-A GAMING WIFI (WIFI 6E, DDR5, PCIe 5.0) - has more on-board M.2 slots, plus supports the full capacity of the Asus Hyper-X M.2 add-in card
Memory (RAM)
8GB PCS PRO DDR5 4800MHz (1 x 8GB) - will replace with 2x16gb 6000MHz+ CL30
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD - RTX4090FE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
128GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (1100 MB/R, 600 MB/W) - 1TB 980 Pro from old machine to go in here
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W RMx SHIFT SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET - more headroom for the RTX4090
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK H150i RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER - for now and future
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
3 x Corsair ICUE LINK QX120 RGB PWM Fan + Controller Kit - to fill in some of the gaps (might want 2 kits for that)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED - will use current Windows licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £1,382.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/PCjbXCHBPJ/

Current build is this...

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 220T RGB AIRFLOW MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Promotional Item
Get FarCry 6 with select AMD Ryzen CPUs
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP, LHR 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX4090 FE
Promotional Item
Get CoD:Cold War & 1YR GeForce Now w/ select RTX Graphics Cards
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
Promotional Item
Get Assassin's Creed: Valhalla with select SAMSUNG SSDs!
Other M.2 SSD Drives
4 x 2TB m.2 SSDs in Asus Hyper-X card and USB3 enclosures (which I'd like to move onboard, or be able to fully populate the Asus Hyper-X)
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE (back-up & slow storage)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR H100i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
NONE
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 now
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
GOAT Built-In Microsoft Security
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Keyboard & Mouse
Corsair K70 RGB v2
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech MX Master 2S
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Logo Branding
PCSpecialist Logo
Price:
£2200 including VAT and Delivery
 
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S

Steveyg

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I'd just go with a 5800X3D it's still a stupidly impressive chip and I wouldn't worry about AM5 at all to be honest

Even the 5800X has a very very long time before it'll cause any issues, you really don't need to upgrade anything to be honest
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Well, it's £300 gamble vs a £1300 gamble - but means I get to remove all the external M2s to onboard slots and have a chance of tidying up the rat's nest of cables stuffed behind the 220T side panel - and the 5800x3D is a bit hotter than the 5800X, but there's no room for a larger AIO in my current case :unsure:
 
S

Steveyg

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
TonyCarter said:
Well, it's £300 gamble vs a £1300 gamble - but means I get to remove all the external M2s to onboard slots and have a chance of tidying up the rat's nest of cables stuffed behind the 220T side panel - and the 5800x3D is a bit hotter than the 5800X, but there's no room for a larger AIO in my current case :unsure:
Click to expand...
I don't understand why you need to gamble on anything though mate, I don't see anything to upgrade? that motherboard supports x2 M.2's so you can just add another boot drive or a much larger one for storage

Wanting to change the case I get so if it's one of those when I'm changing the case I might as well make the adjustments I need then fair enough. I wouldn't even consider a CPU upgrade tbh the 5800X is great still in gaming and will be great for many years, although this is a forum of enthusiasts so "new shiney" is a tempting mistress.

I wouldn't even be considering the 7800X3D in your shoes though, if you absolutely had to and felt the crippling need the 5800X3D is still absurdly good
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
The machine is only 3 years old, so it's no slouch by a long way...and has been super-reliable once I fixed some issues caused by tight cabling pulling on connectors.

THE WANT
The want is a combination of little things I suppose...with each on their own being small enough to be ignored, and a lot of this is me trying to make a case for an upgrade/replacement...as I'm used to a 4/5 year replacement cycle with Macs...as you can't upgrade them at all.

THE CPU
The argument for a 'better' CPU is just to get reliable high-FPS at high settings in the latest/future games...but that's something that could easily wait a year or two.

THE CPU/Motherboard
I have 6 (1-2TB) M.2 SSDs, and I'm reluctant to upgrade to fewer, larger ones...due to 'having all eggs in one basket' risks. I originally though the 2 M.2 slots in the X570-F would be enough, along with a 4-slot Hyper-X add-in card...but soon realised the motherboard doesn't have enough PCIe lanes to support 4 M.2s on that card, so I currently have 2xUSB3.2x2x2 (or whatever) enclosures with the extra 2 in.

If I'd gone down the Intel route, I'd just have a 6-bay Thunderbolt enclosure for the M.2s, but I didn't and only realised after I'd bought it that I could't add in a Thunderbolt card...hence the Asus Hyper-X card instead.

THE CASE
The case was selected to fit limited space I had at the time, but it has limited space for decent/clean cable management due to only having about 2CM gap between the motherboard tray and the side panel...and some of the cables are really crushed in there...I even removed the HDD & cage to make more room to hide them (HDD is now in an external enclosure)...and to reduce the noise from the bottom-front fan blowing directly onto it. I've now reorganised the office space, so I can fit a 'proper' case on the desk behind/beside the monitor allowing plenty of airflow.

The RTX4090FE is the shortest version I could find, and JUST fits in the case without hitting the front fans (1-2CM clearance at best)...but as this is a triple-slot card it is also very close to the Asus Hyper-X card, and then there's an okay gap to the bottom PCIe slot with wifi card and the PSU shroud...so I'd like to give everything a little more breathing room (move Hyper-X down a slot, remove wifi card completely as it'll be built-in, etc.).

THE GAMBLE
The gamble is purely around whether I'd see significant difference in just a 5800x3D swap...as the original intention was to use the PC for more than games and knew the x3D part was about 10ºc hotter for no significant performance boost in Adobe Creative Suite usage, so stayed away from it. But an upgrade to the work's laptop (to a HP ZBook G9 i7-12800H) negates that need.

TLDR
Leave it alone for a few more years ;)
 
S

Steveyg

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
On the storage front mate you should look into a good NAS set up, I think you've gone far beyond internal storage with those kind of needs. Use the internal storage as a performance only thing and keep all your stuff on your NAS

I get the case thing as well though, I had a case I wasn't happy with as well and it annoyed me to no end until I just changed the thing. Only other thing I added was another M.2 though just because I wanted a bit more space 1TB doesn't go all that far anymore
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Wow, 6-bay QNAP/Synology NAS are not cheap 😬

Any other recommendations, that will support 4x PCIe 4.0 M.2 at decent speeds, and probably a couple of IrownWolf Pros for backups?

...and is a standard 1 Gbps network adapter on the motherboard and similar in the NAS (maybe a 2.5Gbps) enough to handle the full speeds of these M2s (4000MBps+)? Remember this will be just for the gaming computer, so it's 1 M.2 per game launcher (Steam, Epic, GoG, Ubisoft, Xbox Game Pass, etc.)

I already have a 5-bay SATA HDD/HDD bay for my Mac, but that's Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C...and a lot of client stuff from that machine is pulled off onto small-ish individual portable SSDs for carrying around and handing over at the end of projects (usually full of 1-20GB original files...the PDFs sent to print are heavily optimised).
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
...and BTW, thanks for your input. It really does help having someone tell me to "stop being stupid and keep your money in your pocket" now & then 🤑

Maybe I'll finish supercharging the car first (y)
 
S

Steveyg

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
TonyCarter said:
Remember this will be just for the gaming computer, so it's 1 M.2 per game launcher (Steam, Epic, GoG, Ubisoft, Xbox Game Pass, etc.)
Click to expand...
You're a complete madman but I like it!

Let me have a think about this one, it's a very strange need to try and meet but I'm sure there is something out there. I know M.2 caddies exist just never looked into them personally to see how they perform
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Martinr36 said:
I've also got one of these installed

Click to expand...
...and I have one of these (Asus Hyper M2 x16 PCIe 4.0)...

...which doesn't work to it's full extent as the X570 motherboard doesn't have enough channels for the 4 slots :confused:

So have probably gone as far as I can with 'workarounds' without spending the £500+ for a NAS or some sort of USB-attached 6-bay caddy for both NVMe and SATA HDDs (and I've already got something like that for the Mac...but it's Thunderbolt).

Everything I've got works fine...I just don't think I've got the optimal solution. But I know if I resolve this issue, I'll just find another :ROFLMAO:
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
TonyCarter said:
The argument for a 'better' CPU is just to get reliable high-FPS at high settings in the latest/future games...but that's something that could easily wait a year or two.
Click to expand...
Are you seeing any non reliable FPS scenarios? That's more the question, if you are there's likely an issue with your setup that needs fixing, I'm not sure a CPU upgrade is going to particularly offer any improvement in that regard, certainly not over 1080p
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
SpyderTracks said:
Are you seeing any non reliable FPS scenarios? That's more the question, if you are there's likely an issue with your setup that needs fixing, I'm not sure a CPU upgrade is going to particularly offer any improvement in that regard, certainly not over 1080p
Click to expand...
No, not really...and certainly nothing creating critical FPS-lows/judders.

Just thought it would be nice to get some of those extra frames that the x3D models are showing in the latest benchmarks (particularly those from the recent 14th gen Intel videos where I could see my 5800x languishing quite low down the tables) ;)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
TonyCarter said:
No, not really...and certainly nothing creating critical FPS-lows/judders.

Just thought it would be nice to get some of those extra frames that the x3D models are showing in the latest benchmarks (particularly those from the recent 14th gen Intel videos where I could see my 5800x languishing quite low down the tables) ;)
Click to expand...
What monitor are you using?
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Thanks for all the help guys. It really does help to have a sanity check now & then!

Having had a better look at what the bottleneck is in the games I'm playing..and checking benchmarks at ultrawide 1440p, it looks like I'm going to stay with what I have for now as the CPU is not the bottleneck (not using more than 50% in any game, and it's mostly around 25%). The 5800x3D is probably no more than 5-10% better in most of the games I play...so probably not worth the £400 PCS want for it (although £300 elsewhere).

Once I remove that element, the only thing really 'needed' is based on whether I want all my storage inside the case...and as that's not really urgent, I can wait until it is before doing a platform change...and all that entails...will probably be a 8800x3D by then!
 
S

Steveyg

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
TonyCarter said:
Thanks for all the help guys. It really does help to have a sanity check now & then!

Having had a better look at what the bottleneck is in the games I'm playing..and checking benchmarks at ultrawide 1440p, it looks like I'm going to stay with what I have for now as the CPU is not the bottleneck (not using more than 50% in any game, and it's mostly around 25%). The 5800x3D is probably no more than 5-10% better in most of the games I play...so probably not worth the £400 PCS want for it (although £300 elsewhere).

Once I remove that element, the only thing really 'needed' is based on whether I want all my storage inside the case...and as that's not really urgent, I can wait until it is before doing a platform change...and all that entails...will probably be a 8800x3D by then!
Click to expand...
Unless something drastic happens in the next 4-5 years I wouldn't even be considering a CPU upgrade over the 5800X in your shoes mate, it's a fantastic CPU plus the higher you push the resolution the less reliant on the CPU you become. Again unless something drastic happens in the CPU market which I personally don't see happening I'd expect to push over 7 years on a 5800X without issues
 
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