What intel socket should I choose? Thinking of building a new system

[MIL8]

Current build is going on 9 years old, getting pretty slow and just not cutting it any more.

I'm running a i5 -2550K CPU, 16GB ram, GTX1060 6GB graphics card (this was added later), 120GB C: drive with 2 other SSDs for extra storage, all drives are connected via SATA.

I don't have a ton of funds for this, compared to what I have pretty much anything new is going to be an upgrade. Was thinking of maybe the LGA 1151? I just don't want to limit myself down the road if I want to upgrade the CPU.

Also I'm currently running Windows 10 pro, which I did the free upgrade from Windows 7 Pro when they offered that, I have no idea where that Windows 7 disk is anymore. Is there a way I can transfer this Windows license over to a new build?

Thanks!

 

[TedEH]

Your Windows license should be able to be tied to your MS account and carry over when you re-install and sign back in. Alternatively, Windows has gotten pretty tolerant to just dropping an already-installed copy on a drive into a new machine. I did this a few months ago and it was fine with it.

As for hardware.... if your goal is future-proofing, I don't know how you'd be able to do that without using whatever the latest platform is. 1151 would get you up to 9th gen I think? But there's nothing else coming out that will fit that socket, so it means your next upgrade is a whole new mobo again.

 

[SpaceDock]

I upgraded early in the year, the windows license didn’t let me transfer due to new mobo. I called windows support and they gave me new code after telling them I kept all my core components but the mobo had failed, really surprised by the excellent support.

Socket choice just needs to match the CPU of your choice, Intel changes sockets so much nowadays there is no point of building to upgrade CPU later IMO.

 

[MIL8]

Thanks.

One specific question to hard drives. In the past I've always put my OS on one drive and my programs on another drive which usually yielded better performance. I plan on using a PCI-e drive in this build because of the performance. Is there much if any gain any more when using a PCI-e drive separate from your OS with the kind of read/write speeds they can produce now?

Just trying to decide if I should go with 1 large drive or two smaller drives.

 

[SpaceDock]

I still keep OS on 1 and programs on a second. The modern reason is that SSDs have a limit to the cumulative amount of reads and writes.

 

[MIL8]

I still keep OS on 1 and programs on a second. The modern reason is that SSDs have a limit to the cumulative amount of reads and writes.

Kind of what I was thinking. Doesn't matter how fast it is it will still slow down when doing two or more things at once.

 

[MIL8]

OK, here is a list I've put together, any major problems or conflicts here?

Suggestions?

I'm trying to keep this to about $500. I already have a good gaming power supply and case. I know the CPU is a bit on the weak side but it is still a major upgrade compared to what I have and the CPU can easily be upgraded down the road. I also plan to just re-use my current video card, which again I know is on the weak side for gaming (which I do some) but a new video card blows my budget, and again I can easily upgrade that down the road.

Also I have a PC that I use as a file server for storage of all my important files such as videos, pictures, documents etc., and that PC does online backups so I don't really need a lot of storage on this build.

Motherboard,
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144216

CPU,
https://www.newegg.com/core-i5-9th-gen-intel-core-i5-9600k/p/N82E16819117959

Memory,
https://www.newegg.com/oloy-16gb/p/N82E16820821246

Hard drive for OS,
https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-sn550-nvme-500gb/p/N82E16820250134

Hard drive for Programs,
https://www.newegg.com/intel-665p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167469

This is the video card I currently have,
https://www.newegg.com/pny-geforce-...gpb-oc/p/N82E16814133638?Item=N82E16814133638

This puts me at $510. Kind of thinking about bumping up the memory to 32GB, although 16 is still more than enough for me, I never use more than 10-12GB in my normal usage.

 

[TedEH]

Looks like a significant upgrade to what you had previously. IMO, there's no point in splitting your drives anymore if it's all NVMe, unless you're doing some kind of work that's very disk intensive. Sure, SSDs supposedly have a limit to how long they can be used, but the likelihood of reaching that limit seems pretty low to me. And the idea that doing two things at once is going to slow you down significantly doesn't really make sense to me unless you're doing two disk-intensive tasks at the same time. The original point of splitting them before was cost -> it was too expensive to put everything on SSD, so you'd get one small drive for important things, and one massive slow cheap drive for storage.

Whether or not more ram will be useful is going to entirely depend on what you're using the computer for. Gaming? Probably not worth it. Recording? Also probably not worth it. Heavier workloads like video editing or something... maybe? Streaming or multitasking might make good use of it? I'm not sure about those. Point being, RAM is great when you need it, but if you don't make use of it you'll never notice it was or wasn't there.

It's occurred to me that nobody has asked what the PC is for yet.

 

[MIL8]

I do some gaming, a lot of photo processing, some video editing. Some recording and mixing and I'd like to get into that more.

Also for my work I need keep a LOT of web tabs open, sometimes 20 or so at a time, but even at that 16GB has always been enough.

 

[Xaios]

Any particular reason you're going Intel exclusive? AMD Ryzens are a helluva chip.

As far as buying now for the purpose of future-proofing, it's kind of a bad time to do that. Intel never goes more than 2 generations on any socket design. AMD is doing better, and they've been on the AM4 socket since Ryzen was released, but the recent 5000 series Ryzen processors are the last generation on the road map for this socket, and they'll (presumably) be changing to a new socket on their next generation. However, the 5000 series was just released, and so they probably won't be launching a new generation until at least early 2022.

Personally, I'd go for an AMD build with a B450 motherboard and a Ryzen 3600. While the 9600K does hold a slight (and I mean slight, a matter of a few percentage points) advantage in gaming, the 3600 has multi-threading and as such is almost guaranteed to be better for your photo/video editing (although this is also partly contingent on your choice of software).

https://www.newegg.com/msi-b450-tomahawk-max/p/N82E16813144267?Item=N82E16813144267

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600/p/N82E16819113569

Compared to your current CPU and mobo choices, you're only spending an extra $15. For that, you're getting the ability to upgrade to a Ryzen 5000 series processor down the line (AMD will be releasing a BIOS update to enable Ryzen 5000 on B450 motherboards early next year), which are currently the best processors out there (although admittedly currently very hard to find for sale), beating anything Intel's got in everything (with the very specific exception of Red Dead Redemption 2). I'd definitely call that worth it, given that Z390 has already been sunset, and so your only future upgrade options are just higher-tier processors in the same lineup.

EDIT: there's also another hidden cost you may not have thought of. The Core i5 9600K doesn't come with a CPU cooler of any kind, whereas the Ryzen 3600 does. If your current cooler isn't compatible with your new motherboard, then you'll likely end up spending more money to stick with Intel.

 

[TedEH]

I personal stuck with Intel with the last build I did, mostly because it's what I've always been familiar with (and I'm mostly gaming anyway), but from what I understand, it's hard to beat the Ryzen argument right now.

 

[MIL8]

I've only had experience with one Amd cpu, didn't have any problems with it but it always ran hot and required a lot of cooling, PC sounded like a shop vac, I like my PC to be as quiet as possible. Also I seem to see more updates with software and drivers for problems with Amd processors, but that is just an outside opinion with no real experience.

I'm certainly not opposed to trying AMD, just every Intel build I have done has been rock solid with no problems.

Thanks for catching that the cpu I chose didn't have a cooler!

 

[Xaios]

For a long time, yes, AMD processors were known to run hot and be inefficient compared to Intel. However, the tables have been very much turned the past couple years. Intel has been using their 14nm process since Broadwell, which was their 5th generation of Core series processors. Their most recent release is the 10th generation, which makes the 6th generation on the same process. Now, to be fair, they've found ways to get as much performance out of these as possible, but they run hotter and hotter with each generation because ultimately getting that extra performance has taken more and more power. Since AMD moved to TSMC's 7nm process, they've gained a pretty decisive advantage in thermals and performance per watt.

Look, I'm biased. I run a Ryzen 3600X. However, I also upgraded to that from a Core i5 2500K, so I can tell you from personal experience that the performance jump is significant.

 

[TedEH]

I also upgraded to that from a Core i5 2500K, so I can tell you from personal experience that the performance jump is significant.

In fairness, going from a 2550 to anything more modern is going to be a pretty decent jump regardless of which way you go. I recently went from a 4670k to a 10600k and was happy with the difference.

Not an argument for picking Intel though, more just a general statement. If the world of tech youtubers is anything to go on, Ryzen seems to be the winner lately.

 

[MIL8]

Well I'm certainly not against giving it a shot, I just usually go with what I know works.

Are there any downsides to going with AMD I need to consider?

Or conflicts with my current video card?

 

[MIL8]

Any particular reason you're going Intel exclusive? AMD Ryzens are a helluva chip.

As far as buying now for the purpose of future-proofing, it's kind of a bad time to do that. Intel never goes more than 2 generations on any socket design. AMD is doing better, and they've been on the AM4 socket since Ryzen was released, but the recent 5000 series Ryzen processors are the last generation on the road map for this socket, and they'll (presumably) be changing to a new socket on their next generation. However, the 5000 series was just released, and so they probably won't be launching a new generation until at least early 2022.

Personally, I'd go for an AMD build with a B450 motherboard and a Ryzen 3600. While the 9600K does hold a slight (and I mean slight, a matter of a few percentage points) advantage in gaming, the 3600 has multi-threading and as such is almost guaranteed to be better for your photo/video editing (although this is also partly contingent on your choice of software).

https://www.newegg.com/msi-b450-tomahawk-max/p/N82E16813144267?Item=N82E16813144267

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600/p/N82E16819113569

Compared to your current CPU and mobo choices, you're only spending an extra $15. For that, you're getting the ability to upgrade to a Ryzen 5000 series processor down the line (AMD will be releasing a BIOS update to enable Ryzen 5000 on B450 motherboards early next year), which are currently the best processors out there (although admittedly currently very hard to find for sale), beating anything Intel's got in everything (with the very specific exception of Red Dead Redemption 2). I'd definitely call that worth it, given that Z390 has already been sunset, and so your only future upgrade options are just higher-tier processors in the same lineup.

EDIT: there's also another hidden cost you may not have thought of. The Core i5 9600K doesn't come with a CPU cooler of any kind, whereas the Ryzen 3600 does. If your current cooler isn't compatible with your new motherboard, then you'll likely end up spending more money to stick with Intel.

OK Question on the PCI-e slots. The original board I listed shows PCI-e 3.0 slots, which the hard drives I chose show have a PCI-e 3.0 interface, however the board you linked shows PCI-e 2.0 slots. Will that be a problem?

 

[Xaios]

Well I'm certainly not against giving it a shot, I just usually go with what I know works.

Are there any downsides to going with AMD I need to consider?

Not at this point. When Ryzen first released, the quality of partner motherboards wasn't great because they were wary of spending too much resources on an unproven product line. That's in the past now though, and current motherboards have quality equal to those for Intel chips. Ryzens also have a far better reputation for security nowadays as, in the past few years, several vulnerabilities have been identified on Intel CPUs, while AMD has only had to deal with a couple.

Or conflicts with my current video card?

Nope, nothing of the sort.

OK Question on the PCI-e slots. The original board I listed shows PCI-e 3.0 slots, which the hard drives I chose show have a PCI-e 3.0 interface, however the board you linked shows PCI-e 2.0 slots. Will that be a problem?

Apologies, that is actually an oversight on my part. I didn't realize both drives were NVMe, I thought one was SATA, and the mobo I linked does only have one NVMe slot. I'll see if I can dig up an alternative.

HOWEVER, it does bear mentioning that, when it comes to running programs, the difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe SSD isn't nearly as pronounced as it is between a hard drive and a SATA SSD, because at those speeds, the CPU becomes the bottleneck for anything besides pure file transfers. Even in the newest, most advanced games like Red Dead Redemption 2, the difference in loading time is pretty much imperceptible (something I've personally tested). Ironically, the only way I could see you benefitting from it for your use case is if you were using it as a data drive instead, as it would allow for smoother scrubbing while editing video if your source files were located on that drive. Otherwise, I'm confident that you really wouldn't notice any difference in performance if you used a SATA SSD as an application drive.

 

[MIL8]

Not at this point. When Ryzen first released, the quality of partner motherboards wasn't great because they were wary of spending too much resources on an unproven product line. That's in the past now though, and current motherboards have quality equal to those for Intel chips. Ryzens also have a far better reputation for security nowadays as, in the past few years, several vulnerabilities have been identified on Intel CPUs, while AMD has only had to deal with a couple.


Nope, nothing of the sort.

Apologies, that is actually an oversight on my part. I didn't realize both drives were NVMe, I thought one was SATA, and the mobo I linked does only have one NVMe slot. I'll see if I can dig up an alternative.

HOWEVER, it does bear mentioning that, when it comes to running programs, the difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe SSD isn't nearly as pronounced as it is between a hard drive and a SATA SSD, because at those speeds, the CPU becomes the bottleneck for anything besides pure file transfers. Even in the newest, most advanced games like Red Dead Redemption 2, the difference in loading time is pretty much imperceptible (something I've personally tested). Ironically, the only way I could see you benefitting from it for your use case is if you were using it as a data drive instead, as it would allow for smoother scrubbing while editing video if your source files were located on that drive. Otherwise, I'm confident that you really wouldn't notice any difference in performance if you used a SATA SSD as an application drive.

Thanks, obviously I'm far from an expert with this stuff, I'm just trying to build something that will serve me for some time without a rebuild. Obviously looking at my current system and the fact that I got 9 years out of it with only upgrading my graphics card shows how I do things. I was seriously considering just buying a faster used CPU for this system to try to get another year or two out of it but then thought better of it.

 

[Xaios]

https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-b450-aorus-pro-wifi/p/N82E16813145082?&quicklink=true

This one looks good. The only worry I had about it is, because B450 predates 3rd gen Ryzen, it would require a firmware update. However, someone left a review specifically stating that it came out of box with firmware for 3rd gen Ryzen, so it should be good. It also has two M.2 slots, one for just NVMe, and the other for both NVMe and SATA.

 

[MIL8]

All right, thanks a lot for your help, you have certainly given me reason to switch sides lol.