Need help with building a new PC

[Viikkis]

get 32gb of cheap ram

Zero reason to go for 32GB in gaming right now. Ryzen wants fast memory so better get faster ram not more ram.

[Temp name]

Yeah I looked on eBay, and some of them are even cheaper then I thought, there was a 2080ti sealed for 550, maybe ill Invest in something like this. There were even used ones for around 500. I look into the 2070 when I have work break, if there are good deals, i might buying one of those those.

What do you think should I aim for? I dont have a clue if the 5700xt is really worth it, I dont know much about it. I really would like to have a GPU that works with Blizzards new rtx System.

If you want to use Blizzard's ray tracing, I think (Seriously, don't quote me on this) that you need an Nvidia GPU. But my 2 minutes of google-fu didn't come up with an answer, so I'm not entirely sure.

[Thunderball]

Why would you pick a similarly priced B450 board instead of a B550? B550 gives you more Pci-e lanes, faster pci-e lanes, better BIOS support and access to the new Smart Access Memory feature.

VRM is a downgrade. Smart Access Memory only works with Ryzen 5000 anyway. Amount of PCIe lanes is the same, bandwidth is irrelevant for a lowend gaming system.

- - - Updated - - -

If you want to use Blizzard's ray tracing, I think (Seriously, don't quote me on this) that you need an Nvidia GPU. But my 2 minutes of google-fu didn't come up with an answer, so I'm not entirely sure.

There's no AMD Ray-tracing so far. Theoretically both rely on DXR software support but since Nvidia has been the only company pushing it there's not a single game in existence at the moment that would support ray-tracing on AMD. And tbh we probably wont see any until PS5/XboxX ports start to pop up.

[Shakadam]

Mostly because I don't like the -A pro, and don't see a reason to use B550 at all

More PCIe lanes? Nah, it's the same amount. They're Gen 4 though. Between CPU and the top slot, and CPU and chipset. Not going to be noticeable.
Better bios support? With how MSI cornered themselves with the MAX lineup, they're going to keep them alive for as long as they can.. Which means this generation. Just as with the B550
And Smart Access Memory only works on 5000 series CPUs and with a 6000 series GPU though, doesn't it? So it's not really worthwhile discussing.

VRM is a downgrade. Smart Access Memory only works with Ryzen 5000 anyway. Amount of PCIe lanes is the same, bandwidth is irrelevant for a lowend gaming system.

Ok let's clear some things up here...

B550-A Pro is basically the same board as the B450 Tomahawk with few exceptions. It has better VRM (where the heck did you look if you think it's a downgrade?). B550 and B450 does NOT have the same amount of PCI-e lanes. B450 has 6 general purpose PCI-e 2.0 lanes, B550 has 10 general purpose PCI-e 3.0 lanes. That is a significant difference in favor of the B550 whenever you need to, for example, connect more than 1 NVME device.

Smart Access Memory only works with Ryzen 5000, 500-series motherboards, and 6000 series GPU's yes. Free extra performance if OP ever wants to upgrade to that.

BIOS support for the B550 series is already better than B450. It's taking a looong time for AGESA updates to trickle out to B450 boards these days, support for the Ryzen 5000 CPU's on B450 will already be a few months after B550 gets support, and I think we can be pretty certain that's the last update B450 is ever going to get. Any further AGESA optimizations will almost certainly be 500-series only, or possibly arrive in some form several months later on 400-series.

If you don't want to spend more than ~80€ on a motherboard, B450 is still a good buy, but at anything above ~100€ there's literally not one single reason to get a B450.

[Temp name]

B550 and B450 does NOT have the same amount of PCI-e lanes. B450 has 6 general purpose PCI-e 2.0 lanes, B550 has 10 general purpose PCI-e 3.0 lanes. That is a significant difference in favor of the B550 whenever you need to, for example, connect more than 1 NVME device.

Yeah, I misread the chart I was looking at when I said that, my mistake.

But those are still from the chipset, not from the CPU directly, meaning that if you're running more than 1 NVMe SSD, say, you're copying data from an external harddrive, that's probably also going through the chipset, so you'll still be looking at a bottleneck since the data needs to pass through the CPU, which is only connected to the chipset with a PCIe gen3 x4 connection even on B550 (according to this anyway)

[Shakadam]

Yeah, I misread the chart I was looking at when I said that, my mistake.

But those are still from the chipset, not from the CPU directly, meaning that if you're running more than 1 NVMe SSD, say, you're copying data from an external harddrive, that's probably also going through the chipset, so you'll still be looking at a bottleneck since the data needs to pass through the CPU, which is only connected to the chipset with a PCIe gen3 x4 connection even on B550 (according to this anyway)

Yes technically you can saturate the link speed between CPU <-> chipset but practically it's not so easy to make that happen. Generally that involves moving large files between 2-3 or more NVME drives or otherwise really hammering multiple drives connected to the chipset with heavy reads/writes.

In your scenario with an external drive, even maxing out the USB speed (10Gbps = 1.25GB/s) would only use ~1/3 of the link speed (which is 3.94GB/s). So maybe if you were copying huge files from 4 USB drives at the same time you should notice slightly slower speeds.
Intel's DMI 3.0 link between CPU <-> chipset is also btw running at 3.94GB/s max, and Intel doesn't have any pci-e lanes for storage devices connected to the CPU like AMD has, so they run ALL storage from the chipset and via that cpu - chipset link, but even in that scenario it's not really an issue.

It's just very rare to use ALL of the bandwidth available for a PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVME device, and even more rare to use all the bandwidth for several such devices at the same time.

[Thunderball]

Ok let's clear some things up here...

B550-A Pro is basically the same board as the B450 Tomahawk with few exceptions. It has better VRM (where the heck did you look if you think it's a downgrade?).

It has more phases (which you dont need for a 6 core) with worse components in them. Plus a worse heatsink.

B550 and B450 does NOT have the same amount of PCI-e lanes. B450 has 6 general purpose PCI-e 2.0 lanes, B550 has 10 general purpose PCI-e 3.0 lanes. That is a significant difference in favor of the B550 whenever you need to, for example, connect more than 1 NVME device.

No gaming PC will ever use more than one NVMe drive anytime soon, especially in these budgets.

Smart Access Memory only works with Ryzen 5000, 500-series motherboards, and 6000 series GPU's yes. Free extra performance if OP ever wants to upgrade to that.

Everyone buying a PC right now will be upgrading to the next gen socket, outside of GPU upgrades.

BIOS support for the B550 series is already better than B450. It's taking a looong time for AGESA updates to trickle out to B450 boards these days, support for the Ryzen 5000 CPU's on B450 will already be a few months after B550 gets support, and I think we can be pretty certain that's the last update B450 is ever going to get. Any further AGESA optimizations will almost certainly be 500-series only, or possibly arrive in some form several months later on 400-series.

That's a fair point if OP was buying a 5000 series CPU. But he's not.

If you don't want to spend more than ~80€ on a motherboard, B450 is still a good buy, but at anything above ~100€ there's literally not one single reason to get a B450.

Ofc there is. B550 is more expensive to make, so if the boards cost the same there's always going to be a cost saving somewhere.

[Synical123]

You do not need a 3070 for 1080p gaming, at all. Get a 2060s or wait until the 3060/3050 launch and get that.
A 3700x is also overkill for gaming, drop down to a 3600, or a 3300x or something. Or, if you're set on spending 200 dollars, get a 5600x instead

You also don't need an m.2 NVMe drive. They're faster than SATA SSDs, but only in theory. In real world applications you will not notice the difference. At least not right now. There's a chance that with the new direct storage API that Microsoft is making that it'll matter, but if you already have an SSD, then you can just hold off on getting a new faster one.

Also I'm really curious what power supply and cooler he's suggesting. "700w" and "bequiet" doesn't really say a whole lot, that's just capacity and manufacturer respectively

I would get the 3070 even if it is just 1080p for future insurance as well as a nice price

[Shakadam]

It has more phases (which you dont need for a 6 core) with worse components in them. Plus a worse heatsink.

They both use exactly the same MOSFET's, ONSemi 4C029N and 4C024N, but the B550A-Pro has more of them (20 vs 16). The A-Pro also has a better phase PWM controller and uses phase doubling instead of simply packing 2x components per phase, phase doubling is a better solution for spreading out the heat from the MOSFET's.
In every test I've seen the B550A-Pro has noticeably lower VRM temps than the B450 Tomahawk.

No gaming PC will ever use more than one NVMe drive anytime soon, especially in these budgets.



Everyone buying a PC right now will be upgrading to the next gen socket, outside of GPU upgrades.



That's a fair point if OP was buying a 5000 series CPU. But he's not.



Ofc there is. B550 is more expensive to make, so if the boards cost the same there's always going to be a cost saving somewhere.

So at the same price you'd buy a B450 board rather than a B550 board even though the B450 board offers nothing that's better than the B550 board, and the B550 board offers additional features that can be useful now and in the future?

I genuinely don't know what to say to that.


BTW: B450 Tomahawk Max is priced at MSRP, B550A-Pro is below MSRP. That's why they cost the same right now.

[Kagthul]

Yeah, I misread the chart I was looking at when I said that, my mistake.

But those are still from the chipset, not from the CPU directly, meaning that if you're running more than 1 NVMe SSD, say, you're copying data from an external harddrive, that's probably also going through the chipset, so you'll still be looking at a bottleneck since the data needs to pass through the CPU, which is only connected to the chipset with a PCIe gen3 x4 connection even on B550 (according to this anyway)

To support what you're saying here... for the people shopping/building in this budget range, is just not something to care about.

They wont even notice the difference.

B550 is a bad value proposition unless you're SURE you're going to be dropping a 5000 series chip and want to get the most out of it...

And even then.. you'd be better off going with X570.

[Chisu]

It's me again
I wanted to order everything now, do I really need to buy the cpu cooler or can I first try it out without it ? I've read about some problems with cooler on AM4 boards, I'm not sure if I should order it now, espacially because I dont want to overclock or anything and alot of people said the original one works just fine.

Oh and just for the sake of asking, I have this Power Supply already, could I use my old one ? Sorry haven't thought of asking in the first place. https://www.amazon.com/quiet-Pure-Po...language=en_US

[Temp name]

It's me again
I wanted to order everything now, do I really need to buy the cpu cooler or can I first try it out without it ? I've read about some problems with cooler on AM4 boards, I'm not sure if I should order it now, espacially because I dont want to overclock or anything and alot of people said the original one works just fine.

Oh and just for the sake of asking, I have this Power Supply already, could I use my old one ? Sorry haven't thought of asking in the first place. https://www.amazon.com/quiet-Pure-Po...language=en_US

All Ryzen CPUs come with an acceptable stock heat sink, so you can try with that first if you want.

As for the psu: 630w should be fine(for a 2060/70 super at least), and it's apparently a decently reviewed unit. How old is it?

[Chisu]

I guess like 5 / 6 yrs old

[Temp name]

I guess like 5 / 6 yrs old

It's probably fine then. Caps and stuff wear out so it's getting a bit up there in age, but it should be good for another couple years if you don't stress it too hard

[Thunderball]

It's probably fine then. Caps and stuff wear out so it's getting a bit up there in age, but it should be good for another couple years if you don't stress it too hard

That PSU is not good at all. The only decent thing in it is the fan. 5-6 years is the usual time all PSUs that are not being regularly cleaned (which 95% of people dont do) and dont have japanese caps start dying.

[Temp name]

That PSU is not good at all. The only decent thing in it is the fan. 5-6 years is the usual time all PSUs that are not being regularly cleaned (which 95% of people dont do) and dont have japanese caps start dying.

The few reviews I found of it on google said it was decent.

I was kinda skimming them though, so it's possible they said decent for the price.

[Thunderball]

The few reviews I found of it on google said it was decent.

I was kinda skimming them though, so it's possible they said decent for the price.

Well, yeah it's decent if your definition of decent is something that will actually hold it's nominal maximum output - sure.

[SigmaShift]

wait for the 3060

[Chisu]

Okay, a little update :

I bought pretty much all the things, that were posted in the Build earlier :
https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/Mbtgbh

I replaced the GPU with my current one, because I bought one from ebay, but it seems that I got tricked and now my money is gone, so right now I need to use my old one. I guess I may wait the next few weeks for the 3060 release and maybe I can snipe one this time.

But I got a question now regarding the build.
It was really hard getting it to run tbh, the bios doesnt wanted to boot at first, I was able to start Windows with my old SSD which still had it on. After many trys of switching monitors and psus, I finally managed to flash a new Bios update, right now everything works, new Windows on the new SSD and everthing.
But my problem now is, that when I'm running 2 WoW's, in this regard Retail and Beta, the CPU is capping at 100%, I also feel the system gets a little like "laggy". The Task Manager shows, that WoW is clearly the main problem of this issue, but I didnt had this probem with my old Rig before, it was an e3-1230, which is pretty old at this point, so I cant imagine, that the hardware has a limiting factor, I believe, I forgot something, but I dont know what.
I already set the RAM to 3600 in the bios and also activated xamp profile 2.

Could there be anything that I forgot ?

[Shakadam]

Okay, a little update :

I bought pretty much all the things, that were posted in the Build earlier :
https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/Mbtgbh

I replaced the GPU with my current one, because I bought one from ebay, but it seems that I got tricked and now my money is gone, so right now I need to use my old one. I guess I may wait the next few weeks for the 3060 release and maybe I can snipe one this time.

But I got a question now regarding the build.
It was really hard getting it to run tbh, the bios doesnt wanted to boot at first, I was able to start Windows with my old SSD which still had it on. After many trys of switching monitors and psus, I finally managed to flash a new Bios update, right now everything works, new Windows on the new SSD and everthing.
But my problem now is, that when I'm running 2 WoW's, in this regard Retail and Beta, the CPU is capping at 100%, I also feel the system gets a little like "laggy". The Task Manager shows, that WoW is clearly the main problem of this issue, but I didnt had this probem with my old Rig before, it was an e3-1230, which is pretty old at this point, so I cant imagine, that the hardware has a limiting factor, I believe, I forgot something, but I dont know what.
I already set the RAM to 3600 in the bios and also activated xamp profile 2.

Could there be anything that I forgot ?

Could be several things but let's start somewhere:

Did you install the AMD chipset drivers?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/chips...ocket-am4/b550
Then use the "AMD Ryzen Balanced" Power plan in Windows.

It also doesn't hurt to make sure these settings are enabled in the BIOS:

Global C-state Control = Enabled
Power Supply Idle Control = Low Current Idle
CPPC = Enabled
CPPC Preferred Cores = Enabled
AMD Cool'n'Quiet = Enabled
PPC Adjustment = PState 0

Usually found under something like "CPU features" or "AMD CBS" in the Bios. The last 2 options can be hard to find or can be named something different but they are less important anyways so just skip those if you can't find them.