What should I buy right now?

[motherboard1]

This is for a friend looking to upgrade from his FX 6350 with " Covid money " He told me he wants to upgrade his PC and asked me what he should do.

I haven't been paying attention to whats going on in the CPU market since a long time so I don't have a clue. But it's for gaming.

I was thinking a Micro ATX build, or maybe even a mini it doesn't really matter I guess. Is there "sweet spot" hardware for gaming right now? ( not looking at GPU's right yet)

 

[Zerileous]

Whats the budget? What monitor is he using or does he need one? Is that included in the budget? What games does he want to play? Why are you not looking at GPU yet? Ideally that will be the most expensive single component in a gaming build.

Right now the best deal for CPU is probably a Ryzen 5 3600 at less than $200, although 8c/16t consoles are around the corner, so some games may struggle on 6c/12t in the future, but that's speculation.

 

[bmwbaxter]

We need more information before we can give you decent advice.

 

[motherboard1]

lol, you have as much information as I have.

Ok so answer on the " Why no GPU yet " Is because he is currently using one of my hand me downs and that scenario will likely play out again. He uses a TV, and though it's 4k, I'm sure 4k gaming is not in his range so 1080p is fine. Just need a strong CPU/MOBO/RAM that can promise strong gaming performance for the next 5 years and I'd personally like to keep it Micro or Mini. Probably Micro for more ports.

He brought it up while we were driving and the conversation was pretty loose, then he sent me a message ""Look for a Motherboard and CPU for me""

I haven't spoken to him today but I'm thinking he would be willing to spend around $500CAD/$350USD based on his last build. I could probably talk him into stretching a little further if there was a good argument.

 

[Zerileous]

Does he have a PSU? Will he overclock? Does he have a micro atx case, or need one? Or do you have one that you want to give him?
It's just really hard to know where we're going with this thread so I don't want to put much more effort in.

I think you/he needs to have a bit of a budget/expectation re-think. My opinion based on the hardware being put into consoles is that strong gaming performance in the next 5 years will be 8c/16t. For CPU alone that's nearly $300 USD. Enough for gaming now, can easily do a 4c/8t or 6c/12t setup for $350 (CPU, board, memory), but I don't know how well that will hang in 5 years.

Here is the build for the budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/m67ksk. Strong likelihood that this board will support an 8c+ CPU from the Ryzen 4000 series but that's still unknown as it has been hinted, then denied, and then promised. It will definitely support an 8c CPU from the Ryzen 3000 series which honestly will probably be enough for gaming in 5 years. So <$350 gets him enough for gaming now and an easy enough upgrade path if/when more cores becomes necessary. Micro ATX is hard to find in B450 though, and B550 might alleviate that.

 

[motherboard1]

Does he have a PSU? Will he overclock? Does he have a micro atx case, or need one? Or do you have one that you want to give him?
It's just really hard to know where we're going with this thread so I don't want to put much more effort in.

I think you/he needs to have a bit of a budget/expectation re-think. My opinion based on the hardware being put into consoles is that strong gaming performance in the next 5 years will be 8c/16t. For CPU alone that's nearly $300 USD. Enough for gaming now, can easily do a 4c/8t or 6c/12t setup for $350 (CPU, board, memory), but I don't know how well that will hang in 5 years.

Here is the build for the budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/m67ksk. Strong likelihood that this board will support an 8c+ CPU from the Ryzen 4000 series but that's still unknown as it has been hinted, then denied, and then promised. It will definitely support an 8c CPU from the Ryzen 3000 series which honestly will probably be enough for gaming in 5 years. So <$350 gets him enough for gaming now and an easy enough upgrade path if/when more cores becomes necessary. Micro ATX is hard to find in B450 though, and B550 might alleviate that.

He has a 500w evga PSU, it won't last forever, and he has a case but might want a new case. But I'm literally just looking at CPU/MOBO/RAM right now. Because it's like this. I know that if you don't put enough money into the CPU, you may as well not even bother. So he can use his current SSD, PSU, Case, and my GPU for now. Given his FX 6350, he'll get the most performance out of a modern CPU upgrade.

I probably don't want to deal with overclocking it and he certainly won't. I'll have to mull over this core count issue. I'm still under the impression that core speed is king and probably always will be.

 

[Zerileous]

Is his current case ATX or micro ATX? As I mentioned it can be challenging to find solid micro ATX boards on AM4. Of course the linked motherboard is a bit more expensive than necessary, but without knowing what features he will want, I'm hesitant to just blanket recommend a stripped board, although it will certainly run any 4c or 6c CPU and likely an 8c.

The I5-10400 is a possibility, although placing it in a z490 board is somewhat silly. It is pretty even with 3200MHz memory, slightly better than a 3600, however with 2666 memory it takes a pretty big hit (which a B series board may be limited to), so I'm not sure I'd suggest it as a $200 CPU that can be beat by a $120 CPU. Of course the 10600K is going to beat out the 3700x in core speed at the $300 price point, but at the cost of 2 cores, given that that becomes a substantial factor which is a gamble.

Honestly I would just set him up with what is comfortable now, budget wise, like the 3300x. If he needs to upgrade he'll have a drop in in the future at a reduced price. Of course the 9600k is also an option, but with no HT and 200MHz slower than the 10600k it would have to take a price drop. This is what a 9600k build looks like, just under $500 USD https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rn69YH

 

[bmwbaxter]

Here is the build for the budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/m67ksk. Strong likelihood that this board will support an 8c+ CPU from the Ryzen 4000 series but that's still unknown as it has been hinted, then denied, and then promised. It will definitely support an 8c CPU from the Ryzen 3000 series which honestly will probably be enough for gaming in 5 years. So <$350 gets him enough for gaming now and an easy enough upgrade path if/when more cores becomes necessary. Micro ATX is hard to find in B450 though, and B550 might alleviate that.

His list is pretty good. Have to wait and see how b550 changes the market.

3300X is as good as you can get for $$$ efficiency.

 

[motherboard1]

Is his current case ATX or micro ATX? As I mentioned it can be challenging to find solid micro ATX boards on AM4. Of course the linked motherboard is a bit more expensive than necessary, but without knowing what features he will want, I'm hesitant to just blanket recommend a stripped board, although it will certainly run any 4c or 6c CPU and likely an 8c.

The I5-10400 is a possibility, although placing it in a z490 board is somewhat silly. It is pretty even with 3200MHz memory, slightly better than a 3600, however with 2666 memory it takes a pretty big hit (which a B series board may be limited to), so I'm not sure I'd suggest it as a $200 CPU that can be beat by a $120 CPU. Of course the 10600K is going to beat out the 3700x in core speed at the $300 price point, but at the cost of 2 cores, given that that becomes a substantial factor which is a gamble.

Honestly I would just set him up with what is comfortable now, budget wise, like the 3300x. If he needs to upgrade he'll have a drop in in the future at a reduced price. Of course the 9600k is also an option, but with no HT and 200MHz slower than the 10600k it would have to take a price drop. This is what a 9600k build looks like, just under $500 USD https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rn69YH

I watched the gamers nexus video.
Your 9600k list says this below. Should I be concerned?

Warning!Some Intel Z370 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Coffee Lake Refresh CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.

And is there any obvious argument for waiting?

 

[Zerileous]

For AMD the argument for waiting is B550. This will guarantee compatibility with the 4000 series Ryzens, and may offer better selection and availability at this point. That said MSI has made some pretty strong statements about AM4 support and AMD has now said that they will offer 4000 series BIOS on 4000 series boards, but that implementation will be on the board partners. I think an MSI MAX board from B450 will probably have support.

Yeah you'll want to make sure the board supports the 9th Gen. If you click the link then it states it on the page selling the board, but PC Part Picker flags this for all 3 series chipsets and you need to check the board compatibility before purchasing. Also price on that board has nearly doubled overnight, odd things happening with covid and 3rd party sellers right now.

For waiting on Intel sure you could get a b series board to go with a 10400, it does give you HT vs the 9400 and a couple hundred MHz, although it's not a good deal compared to an AMD 3600 based system. The 10600k is right now arguably the best CPU for gaming right now (sure the 10900k has 200Mhz more and excess cores, but for a price), and it is priced competitively somewhat competitively. Since you don't want to overclock the 10600 is competitive as well and it does make more clock speed than AMD (4.8MHz) but it could be held back by memory speed somewhat.

Edit: also do note that the Gamers Nexus reviews work really hard to create a differentiation in CPU performance. For more real world testing you can take a look at the reviews on the 10900K and 10600K on this site, where there is minimal difference between parts in most gaming applications. For 1080p and 60Hz with a weaker GPU, I think any of the CPU's discussed will do fine.