New PC Upgrade 2020 into 2021
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:50 am
My PC is 7.5 years old with a triple core AMD APU and is is only letting me play games in Source because of 8GB DDR3 so now the time has finally come to do an upgrade.
As usual though there is the minefield of the graphics cards - I need to know if I pick a 4Gb card will the RAM be split across the two monitors - as well as generally put it this way I could buy the GPU and monitor separately and use them before picking up a CPU Mobo and New RAM and also another PSU, if not in Black Friday sales then possibly Christmas new year. So specs matter more than price at the moment.
So at the moment it goes like this:
GOT: The ATX case, 1TB HDD, DVD Burner that can be tested from an old build
NEED: CPU - Ryzen is a minefield and I know they have announced new models for November- potentially making Custom PC's benchmarks of two months ago, out of date once more. Anyone with Ryzen experience post in as it would be good to know how they run. Keeping the TDP at 65W rather than 100 would be good considering I'm paying the electric bills and for just operating in Windows I'd want it idling at 50W at the wall maximum in power saving mode. I have never spent more than £150 for a chip ever though and am unlikely to start now.
RAM: I know it fluctuates but can I assume that it's £150 approx if I push the boat out and get 2 x 16 in a kit? That's how it was eight years ago trying to get 16gigs instead of 8.
MOBO: MSI being AMD's launch partner I tend to look at their boards first but all opinions welcome, in the end I have a Giga-byte for the APU that's still going strong. There's loads of time before I get the new build parts if I go piecemeal. Micro ATX preferred for my classic ATX PSU-at-the-top case.
PSU: I wouldn't plan to go above whatever the equivalent is of Ryzen 5 or midrange Quad Core, Six core might be overpowered and like I said, I'd be wanting to keep down to 65W TDP. A decade ago I paid £80 for 650W non-modular made by Antec then that would allow for potentially more than the one build. Any other recommendations would be great, I didn't get the best out of the last model I bought (Corsair) so once again any changes in the last 12 years would be good, currently on an Antec 430W. However once again if I could get a half-decent 700W for what I paid for 650 I would consider that progress and once again, if I wanted to upgrade I wouldn't need to change the PSU again.
GPU: Like I said if I see something decent and could live with it being slowed down by an older CPU then I could get one anytime before the main backbone of the new machine and then move it over later but as usual, they rebrand and relaunch quarterly so just whatever you picked up and if it was a Radeon, how long AMD supported it before you were hit with the legacy driver. Nvidia did seem to support with the Detonators for longer but it could've all changed.
MONITOR: Has anyone bothered with a larger monitor later on for the second screen and has anyone seen Displayport on a monitor? I haven't seen any from looking around, and do GPUs still come supplied with HDMI back to DVI converters? Or should I save my sanity and just get same size, as close to the same MS as possible? Thankfully Iiyama have expanded their range and my ceiling for the monitor is £100. Once again the 22in I have at the moment is OK but as usually, it's tempting to push it up to 24 but only if it wouldn't stress a dual monitor setup for just having Windows on the other screen.
So all opinions and education welcome! No hurry whatsoever if I am awaiting those newest Bonfire Night Ryzen benchmarks from Bit Tech Custom PC or any other tech site.
As usual though there is the minefield of the graphics cards - I need to know if I pick a 4Gb card will the RAM be split across the two monitors - as well as generally put it this way I could buy the GPU and monitor separately and use them before picking up a CPU Mobo and New RAM and also another PSU, if not in Black Friday sales then possibly Christmas new year. So specs matter more than price at the moment.
So at the moment it goes like this:
GOT: The ATX case, 1TB HDD, DVD Burner that can be tested from an old build
NEED: CPU - Ryzen is a minefield and I know they have announced new models for November- potentially making Custom PC's benchmarks of two months ago, out of date once more. Anyone with Ryzen experience post in as it would be good to know how they run. Keeping the TDP at 65W rather than 100 would be good considering I'm paying the electric bills and for just operating in Windows I'd want it idling at 50W at the wall maximum in power saving mode. I have never spent more than £150 for a chip ever though and am unlikely to start now.
RAM: I know it fluctuates but can I assume that it's £150 approx if I push the boat out and get 2 x 16 in a kit? That's how it was eight years ago trying to get 16gigs instead of 8.
MOBO: MSI being AMD's launch partner I tend to look at their boards first but all opinions welcome, in the end I have a Giga-byte for the APU that's still going strong. There's loads of time before I get the new build parts if I go piecemeal. Micro ATX preferred for my classic ATX PSU-at-the-top case.
PSU: I wouldn't plan to go above whatever the equivalent is of Ryzen 5 or midrange Quad Core, Six core might be overpowered and like I said, I'd be wanting to keep down to 65W TDP. A decade ago I paid £80 for 650W non-modular made by Antec then that would allow for potentially more than the one build. Any other recommendations would be great, I didn't get the best out of the last model I bought (Corsair) so once again any changes in the last 12 years would be good, currently on an Antec 430W. However once again if I could get a half-decent 700W for what I paid for 650 I would consider that progress and once again, if I wanted to upgrade I wouldn't need to change the PSU again.
GPU: Like I said if I see something decent and could live with it being slowed down by an older CPU then I could get one anytime before the main backbone of the new machine and then move it over later but as usual, they rebrand and relaunch quarterly so just whatever you picked up and if it was a Radeon, how long AMD supported it before you were hit with the legacy driver. Nvidia did seem to support with the Detonators for longer but it could've all changed.
MONITOR: Has anyone bothered with a larger monitor later on for the second screen and has anyone seen Displayport on a monitor? I haven't seen any from looking around, and do GPUs still come supplied with HDMI back to DVI converters? Or should I save my sanity and just get same size, as close to the same MS as possible? Thankfully Iiyama have expanded their range and my ceiling for the monitor is £100. Once again the 22in I have at the moment is OK but as usually, it's tempting to push it up to 24 but only if it wouldn't stress a dual monitor setup for just having Windows on the other screen.
So all opinions and education welcome! No hurry whatsoever if I am awaiting those newest Bonfire Night Ryzen benchmarks from Bit Tech Custom PC or any other tech site.