Should I upgrade sticking with the 1151 socket motherboard in 2020?

[BatmansHardware]

To cut a long story short, I have a B150M Night Elf MB with an LGA 1151 socket.

Intel i5-6500.

Both since October 2016.

DDR4-2133 memory, ECC un-buffered memory supported.

It looks like the motherboard could take an Intel Core i7-7700K

However, maybe I would be better off getting a different motherboard for new generation of chips in 2020?

What would you suggest I do?

I got this motherboard with upgrading in mind but if it would be 'better' to get a new MB then I would like to know.

 

[trents]

What is your use scenario? Is your current system powerful enough to cover your needs or do you just have the upgrade itch?

Please give more details about your hardware. We don't know how much RAM you have for instance and one economical upgrade would be to increase the amount of RAM and the frequency of the RAM. 2133 is the bottom rung and the platform baseline but if you look at MSI's compatibility table for RAM it will work with much higher frequencies. RAM is dirt cheap right now. And unless you are using the system as a server, there is absolutely no need for ECC RAM. It's slower and more expensive.

What PSU make and wattage are you using? What video card? What are you cooling the CPU with?

Moving up to an i7 skylake or kabby lake would give your system a kick in the pants.

 

[BatmansHardware]

What is your use scenario? Is your current system powerful enough to cover your needs or do you just have the upgrade itch?

Please give more details about your hardware. We don't know how much RAM you have for instance and one economical upgrade would be to increase the amount of RAM and the frequency of the RAM. 2133 is the bottom rung and the platform baseline but if you look at MSI's compatibility table for RAM it will work with much higher frequencies. RAM is dirt cheap right now. And unless you are using the system as a server, there is absolutely no need for ECC RAM. It's slower and more expensive.

What PSU make and wattage are you using? What video card? What are you cooling the CPU with?

Moving up to an i7 skylake or kabby lake would give your system a kick in the pants.

I use it for 3D design work for graphics and also Corel Painter. I want to think about a system that will last and not need upgrading for another 3-4 years.


Intel Core i5-6500 3.20GHz. No CPU cooling

Corsair Vengeance LPX Red 16GB (4x8GB) DDR4 2133 = 32GB

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti GAMING 8G 8GB GDDR5

600W Zalman PSU

 

[trents]

No CPU cooling? None at all? How is that possible? Do you mean to say you are running the stock OEM Intel cooler that shipped with the CPU?

But you didn't answer my question about your motivation for considering an upgrade. Is it not performing as well as you need it to or is the reason the future proofing you mention?

And if you will be upgrading to newer technology, what is your budget?

 

[BatmansHardware]

No CPU cooling? None at all? How is that possible? Do you mean to say you are running the stock OEM Intel cooler that shipped with the CPU?

But you didn't answer my question about your motivation for considering an upgrade. Is it not performing as well as you need it to or is the reason the future proofing you mention?

And if you will be upgrading to newer technology, what is your budget?

Sorry just stock OEM.

My motivation is that I could maybe render my work faster and work with 3D packages and designs taking up 16GB+ of memory (I see this in the task manager).

My budget is basically to stay somewhere with medium to high costs range of gear. Nothing on the cheaper end and nothing that is bit pricey for what you get. Usually good for value stuff is what I go for. Best reviews for cost performance.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Sell it all and build a budget Ryzen system. You'll be way better off.
You can re-use the 1070 and PSU.

 

[BatmansHardware]

Sell it all and build a budget Ryzen system. You'll be way better off.
You can re-use the 1070 and PSU.

That sort of caught me by surprise. Someone I know seems to be raving Ryzen.

So which chip from Ryzen would you recommend?

 

[BatmansHardware]

Also, this is a micro ATX case. So I need a motherboard that is compatible with Ryzan 9 and will fit an MSI GeForce 1070 ti if I go with a Ryzan swap.

 

[trents]

The new generation of Ryzen would be a great direction but I would wait until there is a better selection of mATX and mini ITX motherboards available if your are determined to stay with a mATX case. Right now, there are a total of four mATX and mini ITX x570 motherboards available and they are not getting good reviews and they are expensive. That's it. Four. There is much more selection for mATX on the x4xx platform which theoretically is compatible with the Zen 2 CPUs but it is not clear how that is working out in actual practice. Kind of hit and miss, I imagine. We keep hoping to see some B550 and B550M boards for Zen 2 but nothing so far. Unless that changes or unless you move to a larger case, I would stick with Intel.

 

[BatmansHardware]

The new generation of Ryzen would be a great direction but I would wait until there is a better selection of mATX and mini ITX motherboards available if your are determined to stay with a mATX case. Right now, there are a total of four mATX and mini ITX x570 motherboards available and they are not getting good reviews and they are expensive. That's it. Four. There is much more selection for mATX on the x4xx platform which theoretically is compatible with the Zen 2 CPUs but it is not clear how that is working out in actual practice. Kind of hit and miss, I imagine. We keep hoping to see some B550 and B550M boards for Zen 2 but nothing so far. Unless that changes or unless you move to a larger case, I would stick with Intel.

Okay, thanks. I will probably wait to see if more MBs come out.

 

[Mr.Scott]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LQWWxG

Win

 

[BatmansHardware]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LQWWxG

Win

That's very nice.

There is one build with an msi geforce gtx 1070 ti there also. I have a gaming 8g version of that. It's a big card.

 

[caddi daddi]

for your 3d work, what software are you rendering in?

 

[BatmansHardware]

for your 3d work, what software are you rendering in?

Poser Queue.

 

[caddi daddi]

are you using otoy render engine, lux or unreal render engine?
otoy is very fast and I think it can use the gpu.
lux is cpu only.
unreal is pretty fast and I think it can use the gpu.

 

[BatmansHardware]

are you using otoy render engine, lux or unreal render engine?
otoy is very fast and I think it can use the gpu.
lux is cpu only.
unreal is pretty fast and I think it can use the gpu.

You can set the renderer to GPU or CPU in poser render settings. I use the Poser render queue because it's another program that allows me to render and work on poser at the same time.

 

[caddi daddi]

poser queue manager also allows network rendering.
If you are not going to render on A gpu, Ryzen, with all the cores you can afford is the way to go.

 

[BatmansHardware]

poser queue manager also allows network rendering.
If you are not going to render on A gpu, Ryzen, with all the cores you can afford is the way to go.

I am thinking about possibly getting a second PC just for this task and shove it under the desk out of the way.