- Joined
- Aug 15, 2017
- Location
- Yucca Valley, CA
So, I haven't upgraded in a long time. I only use AMD CPU's for my personal rigs. I'm still rocking a Phenom II 965 BE @3.8GHz. It's been an awesome CPU over the years, but it's time to upgrade. New games are becoming way too CPU intensive for the 965 to keep up. I wasn't compelled by the FX series and waited.... Well, that wait was WAY longer than I thought it was going to be.
I'm looking to upgrade to a Ryzen 1600, 1600x, or 1700 on a B350 motherboard. My budget is pretty tight and I do not have an AM4 cooler either, which is a concern. I've looked into parts for my CM D92 and they would take 1 to 4 weeks to ship from the UK, same goes with Silverstone to ship an AM4 bracket for my TD02 slim liquid cooler. Silverstone also is not giving them away for free anymore and wants 10 bucks. Not a huge thing, but I really don't want to wait 1 to 4 weeks for the parts. So, I'm gonna have to either wait, or pony up some extra cash for another cooler, since I plan to hit Micro Center this week to by the CPU and motherboard.
I already have a DDR4 kit. 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2400MHz. It's at least a starter kit, until I can upgrade to 3200 to maximize Ryzen performance, but that's a minor thing at the moment and having the kit already is going to save me a good chunk of change.
So, given the information that I've talked about already, the main thing is what B350 board is really solid right now as far as VRM, OC, BIOS updates, etc? I've seen a lot of talk about the ASUS B350 Prime, MSI B350 Tomahawk, and the Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 motherboards. I've been looking at the specs on them, but that doesn't really tell me much about the quality of components used on the boards. I have been liking the Gigabyte boards lately. They look nice and pack a lot of features for the price.
I definitely want to be able to OC whatever CPU I end up getting. I was leaning pretty heavy toward the 1600x, simply because it has the highest clocks out of the box and probably can hit highest OC compared to the non-x 1600 and 1700, unless I get lucky with a nice non-x chip. The other reason I am looking at the non-x versions is because they come with a cooler and that would work until I can get the bracket for my TD02 slim water cooler. But then I wonder if I might get a crummy chip that won't OC much and be stuck with a dud.
I would go for an X370 motherboard, but about the only thing they offer is more VRM phases, because I really don't need the extra SATA ports, nor do I need SLI/Xfire capabilities either. I know they offer more stuff than that, but I really don't need it, so it's a waste of money to me.
Anyhow, I would really appreciate any advice on what to look at before I head down to Micro Center in the next couple of days. Thanks in advance.
I'm looking to upgrade to a Ryzen 1600, 1600x, or 1700 on a B350 motherboard. My budget is pretty tight and I do not have an AM4 cooler either, which is a concern. I've looked into parts for my CM D92 and they would take 1 to 4 weeks to ship from the UK, same goes with Silverstone to ship an AM4 bracket for my TD02 slim liquid cooler. Silverstone also is not giving them away for free anymore and wants 10 bucks. Not a huge thing, but I really don't want to wait 1 to 4 weeks for the parts. So, I'm gonna have to either wait, or pony up some extra cash for another cooler, since I plan to hit Micro Center this week to by the CPU and motherboard.
I already have a DDR4 kit. 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2400MHz. It's at least a starter kit, until I can upgrade to 3200 to maximize Ryzen performance, but that's a minor thing at the moment and having the kit already is going to save me a good chunk of change.
So, given the information that I've talked about already, the main thing is what B350 board is really solid right now as far as VRM, OC, BIOS updates, etc? I've seen a lot of talk about the ASUS B350 Prime, MSI B350 Tomahawk, and the Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 motherboards. I've been looking at the specs on them, but that doesn't really tell me much about the quality of components used on the boards. I have been liking the Gigabyte boards lately. They look nice and pack a lot of features for the price.
I definitely want to be able to OC whatever CPU I end up getting. I was leaning pretty heavy toward the 1600x, simply because it has the highest clocks out of the box and probably can hit highest OC compared to the non-x 1600 and 1700, unless I get lucky with a nice non-x chip. The other reason I am looking at the non-x versions is because they come with a cooler and that would work until I can get the bracket for my TD02 slim water cooler. But then I wonder if I might get a crummy chip that won't OC much and be stuck with a dud.
I would go for an X370 motherboard, but about the only thing they offer is more VRM phases, because I really don't need the extra SATA ports, nor do I need SLI/Xfire capabilities either. I know they offer more stuff than that, but I really don't need it, so it's a waste of money to me.
Anyhow, I would really appreciate any advice on what to look at before I head down to Micro Center in the next couple of days. Thanks in advance.