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New Build

Discussion in 'PC Discussion' started by Ched, May 5, 2017.

  1. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

    Joined:
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    It will be a few weeks before I go in for a build, so... yeah, I think this is a little early to start a thread. Usually it's best to be READY to build before planning things out, but this is more of a question/suggestions thread for me.

    I've been using my current rig since Feb 2011. In that time I've only replaced the GPU once (to a GTX 580) and the hard drives (to a 250 gb SSD and a 4 tb storage drive). Still running a AMD x4 965 BE.

    The rig above still does everything it needs to do. It will still be nice to upgrade, however. The plan will be to once again use this rig for around 6 years, upgrading the GPU at around the halfway mark (after 3 years).

    I wanted to get thoughts on a few things:

    Ryzen (AMD) versus Kaby Lake (Intel)
    I lean heavily towards Ryzen here when comparing similar prices (Ryzen 1700 versus Intel 7700k). Gaming is not a priority for me - again, see above how my current POS machine is good enough for the games I play.

    But in the future I want to try and edge my way into doing more with photoshop, possibly screwing with video rendering, etc. But if both perform well enough for games it's been my impression that Ryzen will edge out Intel in most other areas (leaving Intel as the king for games).

    What other sorts of shit might I be doing that would benefit from either of those? Granted at the level I use a computer either will be fine, but still.

    I have no intention to overclock.

    RAM
    Planning to get 16gb, but would I notice a genuinely better experience from 32gb? I'll pick up the fastest I can get that will work well with the motherboard, and is a reasonable cost (3200 seems popular).

    Typical computer set up for me is...
    • 6-8 Word Documents
    • 1-2 Excel Sheets
    • 5-6 GIMP windows
    • 1-2 active games (sometimes I play Catan and Vermintide together, etc)
    • ~30 tabs of Chrome, Firefox, or both
    • yWriter
    • MusicBee / iTunes
    • VideoLAN
    • Other things (MalwareBytes, SpiderOak, Mumble, etc)
    So I do a lot of multitasking, essentially. I never play games in fullscreen mode b/c I am never /just/ playing a game, I am playing a game in windowed mode while I do other things.

    Graphics
    Pretty sure I'll pick up a 1070. I'll likely run 2-3 monitors, all with different resolutions (1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1600x900). I don't see a need/reason for a 1080 instead, given that it's twice as much in terms of cost.

    Motherboard
    Probably go with a B350 as opposed to the higher end X370 chipset. I need to look at these in a lot more detail because I haven't checked out the various options from any of them yet.

    I don't think I need more than 1 PCI slot (for the gpu) but fuck if I know what else I might want one for. I will probably get one with 4 slots for RAM. Probably 4x SATA or w/e for various hard drives. Probably UEFI or w/e for fan management.

    Dunno what else people are looking for in MoBos these days. Got to read up on this.

    Hard Drives
    I want to re-use my hard drives, though I may pick up a second SSD.

    How does this even work? I assume I can't just install a new version of Windows on a fresh drive then plug the other ones in and expect everything to work just great, right? Do I have to wipe them? How the hell does repurposing drives even work, esp when I would rather keep the information on them?

    Other Crap
    Modular PSU, some extra fans. Corsair Obsidian case, probably the 450D but maybe the 750D. I am really tempted to go with a 350D tbh, which is a mATX case, but I doubt I will.

    I don't really need a suggested build yet - I'll work that out myself in a bit and post it, then ask if anyone thinks there's a good way to tweak it - but I did want to make sure I'm starting with the right ideas.

    Thanks!


    P.S. I wrote this halfway to combat boredom while giving an exam, so sorry if it feels like a waste of your time, hah!
     
  2. dhulli

    dhulli The Reborn

    Joined:
    Nov 10, 2013
    Messages:
    260
    For this, you can use a free utility like Maricum Reflect that will do all this for you. See the relevant portion in this guide:
    http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/upgrade-dell-xps-13-ssd

    I upgraded my xps ssd and it worked like a charm. You don't even need to install windows again!

    Edit: If you want to keep your old drives, you can straight plug in any new drive. Open Partition utility in windows and just partition the new drive ready to use. (Not even a reboot required)
     
  3. unorfind

    unorfind Third Year

    Joined:
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    Male
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    Poland
    Yeah go for Ryzen 1700 but it's really worth to OC it to ~ 3.9 GHz (people do it even on stock cooling ) also check if your chosen B350 board supports 3200 RAM (last I checked only some X370 boards were able to get RAM over 3000 but that was like 1.5 month ago)
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2017
  4. Kurufinwe

    Kurufinwe Groundskeeper

    Joined:
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    Messages:
    387
    Location:
    Cracow, Poland
    If you use Windows 10 you don't have to do anything with your drives just plug them in and boot in your current windows installation - windows 10 in the beginning will manage all components difference so it can take few minutes but you are ready to go with keeping your current programs/games, files and everything.

    From what you are planing on doing I think Ryzen will be better - if you decide on i7 7700k you must buy z270 motherboard - you can think about o.c. even in few years but you are ready.

    16Gb ram is enough and it's the easiest component to upgrade - stick to something like 2x8gb - and buy some popular brand with popular model - like corsair - you could than find the same ram on ebay or amazon in few years when you want to upgrade.

    1070 is fine but wait for amd vega - price may drop or vega will be something huge who knows.
    PSU - 600W will be enough to run build like that and even it's future proof as components are less power consuming with each generation.
    Case - your choice really - I think you should pick something that you like. Also don't go for mATX if you do not plan to go to lanparties etc. ATX is the most popular for many years and will be for many years still.
     
  5. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

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    Huh, that's... neat. So even my SSD which currently has Win7 on it doesn't need to be formatted or anything? That seems almost too easy, and like it might not be as efficient as doing it manually. But damn good to know.

    Cheers - thanks for this info on how well Win10 manages things... I'll probably go with Win10 despite some of their questionable choices with that OS.
     
  6. Sacro

    Sacro Groundskeeper

    Joined:
    Dec 18, 2010
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    Location:
    Germany
    Since you're basically chaging all your hardware I'd personally go with the fresh install. Also, you don't really have a choice with your OS - new CPU's are no longer officially supported on any Windows other than 10.

    As others said, Ryzen is what you want if gaming isn't your main focus (1600 or 1700 if you want to do OC yourself, 1600x or 1700x if you don't). Do be aware that you should read some sort of RAM guide for Ryzen, since it needs some particular configurations to run well (or it did a couple weeks ago at least). I know you don't really want components recs yet, but I thought I should mention that the Asus Prime B350-Plus seems to currently be (one of) the best B350 motherboards. And yeah, you can just plug your old HDDs in and they should work. Installed programs on them however may not.
     
  7. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

    Joined:
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    @Sacro - Sweet, that's actually one of the two motherboards I was looking at going with. Glad to hear. It only goes up to 2666 on RAM I think, but it was that one or the MSI Tomahawk I think I was debating. Good to hear that the ASUS is considered a good choice in general.

    And yeah, I always intended to go with a fresh install. I am just pretty sure I need to format the drive that has Win7 on it rather than just plug it in and expect it to work perfectly on a computer running Windows 10. Even if it was possible it seems too 'messy' ya know?

    Not to mention that I'd assumed the games I have installed on my larger 4TB drive might not work if I just plugged that into another machine. I figured there'd be some dll files or something on the drive that has the OS on it, which is why I feel like I just need to reformat and reinstall rather than trying to 'fix' things afterwards. But I've never had to go through that process.

    Thanks!
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2017
  8. Beonid

    Beonid Seventh Year DLP Supporter

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Melbourne
    Echoing what others have said about RAM, I'd suggest reading up on how RAM affects Ryzen if you haven’t already done so, but in short:

    -Maximum RAM frequency drops significantly with more than 2 DIMMs (The memory QVL list for the Asus Prime B350-Plus reflects this), so if you're looking for the best possible speeds, you should get enough RAM for your future needs now, rather than planning to upgrade to 4 DIMMs in future.
    - RAM speed drops even further if you go for dual rank DIMMs over single rank.

    In general, RAM compatibility is still spotty, so you may find that while you might not get the rated speed of the RAM you purchase now, UEFI updates should improve the situation, but I wouldn't make a purchase based on that assumption.

    Can recommend getting a 1070 - it's great at 1440p (60fps+ in most games), so I'd expect it to do even better at the resolutions you'd be gaming at. You might want to check prices for 1080s when you decide to buy, though, as they've dropped considerably since the 1080 Ti launched.


    X370 motherboards tend to have more overclocking features than B350, and some can run PCIEx16 slots in x8/x8 for dual GPU solutions rather than x16/x4 (which will bottleneck the second GPU). I'd only suggest going for X370 if there's a good chance you'll need a second GPU in the future.

    If you do end up going with B350, consider getting a mATX board - you lose a couple of expansion slots, but with the PCI-E lane limitations on AM4, you aren't losing much, and you open up more case choices.

    If your games are mainly from Steam, you should just be able to copy your old Steamapps/Common folder (or folders) to the Steam directory in your fresh install of Windows. When you go to install a game you've already downloaded, Steam will detect that you have the files already.

    It's a similar process with Origin games, but a little more finicky as you have to make sure you've quit Origin before copying the files to the new directory.

    On a related but separate note, it's still possible to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, either by entering your Windows 7 key when you install Windows 10, or by upgrading using the assistive technologies upgrade path (assuming you use assistive technologies).
     
  9. Kurufinwe

    Kurufinwe Groundskeeper

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    I think you misunderstood me - I assumed you have win 10 already - if not I recommend upgrading it(you can still get free upgrade if you say you are disable person - google it how) - if you upgrade for win 10 all your programs from win7 will work normally . What I mean if you have windows 10 and you plug this disk with windows 10 already instaled and all your data etc. into a new computer - you will normally boot into windows without any problem - win 10 will manage all drivers conflicts and upgrades etc. Example my friend recently changed his platform (motherboard + processor + ram) but keep the rest of his components the same he just - unplugged everything from his motherboard - took the old motherboard out - put new one in with new processor and ram and put cooler back on - plugged everything in again and win 10 started normally and managed everything fine.
     
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