Putting together a new system.

[don256us]

I'm thinking of using the AM4 package. A Ryzen 5 3600 is cheap and should play my games. (Total War: Shogun 2, Civ VI, Wildermyth) I mostly multi task a game, Youtube/Plex/Netflix, email, web browser.

I'm building a system around the following products that I already have.
32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4
3080Ti GPU
2 x NVME
1200w PSU

I would like to have a 2.5 GB card built in but could use a chipset with enough lanes for a PCIe x1 expansion card.

I'm thinking that a low end X570 chipset or a higher end B550 chipset? I see lots of the lower end B550 selling for less than $100 but they lack just about any feature of PCIe lanes that I might want.
Any board I get should allow for 2.5GB LAN (or expansion card for 2.5), PCIe ver 4 x16 for GPU, 4 RAM slots, PCIe lanes for 2 NVMe (Speed less important to me)

I'm thinking either a Ryzen 5 3600 or other CPU depending on feature sets like speed vs cost.

Compare to my current rig of a Threadripper 1900x. RAM, GPU, NVMe(s), etc would be reused. The threadripper will go to a dedicated F@H / VR gaming. So my results are compared to the TR1900x.

 

[EarthDog]

Most mid-range+ B550 boards have 2.5 GbE integrated. All boards have PCIe 4.0 x16 for primary graphics, 4x RAM slots and plenty of bandwidth for two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 sockets and x1 slot (just if the board has one). It's really a pick 'em if that's your needs.

I'd also look at 5 series for 1080p gaming... those should be cheap enough with the 7 series out.

 

[JLK03F150]

You might be able to get a good deal here in the classifieds, or at TPU, by posting an ad for [WTB]AM4 3000/5000 series CPU. I've seen many posts about people replacing current CPUs with the 5800X3D.

 

[JLK03F150]

I probably should have warned you about TPU. The For Sale section is good because it's very busy over there. But many of their threads devolve into a sh!tshow kinda quickly.
I mostly hang out in the retro hardware thread.

 

[EarthDog]

I stopped posting there years ago at this point (except to sell things, lol). It's a real shame too because w1z's reviews and the psu reviews are top notch. But the toxic environment that's allowed to survive there is a massive turnoff for adults/mature hoomanz. I know several users that bailed from there.

 

[don256us]

Good to know. Thank you.
I almost bought a 3700x but decided that I haven't looked at what I want enough. Pro's/Con's to this and that chip/chipset/platform/etc.

I can remember when I was into it and up to date that I cuoldn't understand the old-timers lack of knowledge. Now I am that old-timer who let my knowledge of parts lapse. Part of the fun I guess.

 

[WrkBoot]

^^^I'm with ya, what LITTLE I did know is somewhat gone. I am open to relearning

 

[JLK03F150]

I think getting back up to speed it fun, although a bit more confusing than it used to be. Well, it was always confusing but there were different things to be confused about. Now it seems to be all about the PCIe lanes - gen3, gen4, gen5. Need to do a lot more reading about what motherboards do with different configurations, such as multi-GPU for folding or multi-NVME for O/S, games, storage.

 

[don256us]

So I made a choice but not how I had initially envisioned.

I have 3 systems:
Main rig/gaming
UnRAID
Folding/VR

The Folding VR macine went down. I was going to replace my main rig and have the main rig be my Folding/VR rig. Not what I decieded to do.

I had placed some other threads around here and realized that I don't know what I want for the main rig. So instead:
I'm moving my UnRAID to be my Folding/VR machine. Both the UnRAID and F@H machines were the same. This will just be a hardware swap for Folding/VR. Everything will work as intended straight away.

I decieded to upgrade my UnRAID because it too will die before too long and could use the upgrade now and I will see the most use of that upgrade for low cost.
I purchased a Ryzen 7 3700x (Used) with the stock cooler (unused).
I also purchased a used X570 chipset MB that will give me better throughput and whatnot. This MB will also give me room to get a 500 series CPU at a later time.
Finally, I purchased a LSI 9207 -8i HBA card with PCIe Gen3 support.

I'm less than $400 into this and will be upgrading my media server from an X58 chipset to the X570. For fun, here is a comparison between my current Xeon W3690 and the newer 3700x.

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X vs Intel Xeon W3690 - AskGeek.io

Compare AMD Ryzen 7 3700X against Intel Xeon W3690 to quickly find out which one is better in terms of technical specs, benchmarks performance and games

askgeek.io

At some future point, my Threadripper will be my F@H machine with all of those juicy PCIe lanes. Only after I settle on a new main rig.

 

[TerranBrackiatt]

I just read a report that AMD slashed prices on Zen3 chips... ie: 5900x is now 350$us... check their website, as it may take awhile for 3rd part sites to reduce prices, too

Post magically merged: Nov 5, 2022

Here's the link: https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/us