Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 5 or something else?

Malice

I'm looking to put together a PC for a combination of gaming, software development and music production. I've put together this build which I'd like opinions on as to whether I've done something silly like the last time where I managed to pair a motherboard and processor that were incompatible .

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor (€368.95 @ Komplett)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€86.84 @ Custompcparts)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€189.73 @ Custompcparts)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€194.94 @ Komplett)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€66.59 @ Custompcparts)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Dual Series Video Card (€452.95 @ Komplett)
Case: NZXT - H500 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (€89.85 @ Komplett)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€99.85 @ Komplett)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (€118.95 @ Komplett)
Total: €1668.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-10 19:01 GMT+0000

My big question is whether there's much of a performance difference between the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 processors. I'd ideally like to keep the price under €1500 but if the performance difference justifies the extra expense then I'll go for it.

1. What is your budget?
Around €1500

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Gaming, software development and music production

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?
Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?
No

5. Do you need a monitor?
No

6. Do you need any of these peripherals?
No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
Yes

8. How can you pay?
Bank Transfer or Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing?
As soon as possible

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
I'm in Galway

Samuel T. Cogley

Will the motherboards VRM be beefy enough for a 2700X - honestly no idea.

If you're willing to over clock would you be better off with a 2700 and simply OCing it?

Venom

Overclocking on Ryzen + CPU's is kinda odd in that for the most part they will boost up to 4.0-4.1 GHz on there own and even if you win the silicon lottery with your CPU, the best you will get is around the 4.3 mark. Is there a particular reason for going for a matx case in an atx case? Why not a mid-range X470 board?

You need to check to make sure that board will run that make of ram at 3200mhz, as while ram settings have gotten better compared to first gen Ryzen, it's still not as good as on Intel systems so best check the QVL listing for that motherboard.

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£250.36 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U12S 55 CFM CPU Cooler (£54.97 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI - B450 Gaming Plus ATX AM4 Motherboard (£88.81 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£123.32 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£131.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB ARMOR Video Card (£379.97 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! - Pure Base 600 (Black/Silver) ATX Mid Tower Case (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.01 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£0.00)
Total: £1228.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-11 16:47 GMT+0000

Malice

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Will the motherboards VRM be beefy enough for a 2700X - honestly no idea.

If you're willing to over clock would you be better off with a 2700 and simply OCing it?

VRM - Now there's an acronym I've never heard before. I will switch the 2700X for a 2700.

Venom wrote:

Is there a particular reason for going for a matx case in an atx case? Why not a mid-range X470 board?

No reason. It was defined in a different build that I used as the basis for mine and I hadn't gotten around to switching the case.

Venom wrote: »

You need to check to make sure that board will run that make of ram at 3200mhz, as while ram settings have gotten better compared to first gen Ryzen, it's still not as good as on Intel systems so best check the QVL listing for that motherboard.

Thanks for the tip. The compatibility check that the site runs doesn't cover that I guess?

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£250.36 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U12S 55 CFM CPU Cooler (£54.97 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI - B450 Gaming Plus ATX AM4 Motherboard (£88.81 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£123.32 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£131.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB ARMOR Video Card (£379.97 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! - Pure Base 600 (Black/Silver) ATX Mid Tower Case (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.01 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£0.00)
Total: £1228.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-11 16:47 GMT+0000

Thanks for that, it brings down the price a good bit. I'm just wondering - is it better to order off Irish retailers? Does it happen that some of the UK ones don't ship to Ireland for example?

Samuel T. Cogley

Malice wrote: »

VRM - Now there's an acronym I've never heard before.

They weren't really an issue until the move was made away from quad cores. They can make a difference on boards with intel processors, I'm not sure what the story is with AMD.

K.O.Kiki

Malice wrote: »

VRM - Now there's an acronym I've never heard before. I will switch the 2700X for a 2700.
No reason. It was defined in a different build that I used as the basis for mine and I hadn't gotten around to switching the case.

Thanks for the tip. The compatibility check that the site runs doesn't cover that I guess?


Thanks for that, it brings down the price a good bit. I'm just wondering - is it better to order off Irish retailers? Does it happen that some of the UK ones don't ship to Ireland for example?

UK retailers have better prices for us, and better stock/variety.

Damien360

Malice wrote: »

VRM - Now there's an acronym I've never heard before. I will switch the 2700X for a 2700.
No reason. It was defined in a different build that I used as the basis for mine and I hadn't gotten around to switching the case.

Thanks for the tip. The compatibility check that the site runs doesn't cover that I guess?


Thanks for that, it brings down the price a good bit. I'm just wondering - is it better to order off Irish retailers? Does it happen that some of the UK ones don't ship to Ireland for example?

CCL ship by DPD for a very small fee on top. Amazon, I use parcel motel. Not sure about Aria in your build. I made the same mistake as you and priced Euro but it makes no sense as ordering from UK is a lot cheaper.

TerrorFirmer

Would you consider a 2600 or 2600X? Still has enough cores/threads to tear through productivity and either is faster than the 2700 in games out-of-the-box, and would save you some cash to invest elsewhere.

I wouldn't be a motherboard maestro but I can't see there being any issues with the 2700X in that board you had picked out, in any case. Overclocking might be limited; but Ryzen 2 CPU's really don't need overclocking anyway to be honest.

Also to be honest I don't get peoples obsession on this board with expensive third party coolers as an absolute mandatory purchase! Sure, if you want it and can personally justify it, but the stock AMD cooler that comes with the CPU is perfectly fine and does a decent job.

By ditching the 3rd party cooler and dropping to a Ryzen 2600, you could easily afford an RTX2070, which would make a difference in games (as well as give you a latest generation GPU).

Venom

Malice wrote: »

Thanks for the tip. The compatibility check that the site runs doesn't cover that I guess?

No, as the ram will work 100% at 2333mhz in most case's but may not overclock up to 3200mhz with certain boards. There should be a link on the motherboard in questions product page that has a QVL file stating what ram will run at what frequency with that board.

K.O.Kiki

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Also to be honest I don't get peoples obsession on this board with expensive third party coolers as an absolute mandatory purchase! Sure, if you want it and can personally justify it, but the stock AMD cooler that comes with the CPU is perfectly fine and does a decent job.

By ditching the 3rd party cooler and dropping to a Ryzen 2600, you could easily afford an RTX2070, which would make a difference in games (as well as give you a latest generation GPU).

Because OP mentioned music production, I put in a nice Noctua which is super quiet.

K.O.Kiki

ALSO I'M A SPANNER

If buying the NH-U12S (not NH-U12S SE-AM4) you need to contact Noctua for a free NM AM4-UxS bracket adapter.

Malice

Thanks for all the responses so far folks, certainly plenty for me to ponder!

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Would you consider a 2600 or 2600X? Still has enough cores/threads to tear through productivity and either is faster than the 2700 in games out-of-the-box, and would save you some cash to invest elsewhere.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are you saying a Ryzen 5 2600 is faster than a Ryzen 7 2700?

Venom wrote: »

No, as the ram will work 100% at 2333mhz in most case's but may not overclock up to 3200mhz with certain boards. There should be a link on the motherboard in questions product page that has a QVL file stating what ram will run at what frequency with that board.

So, using the board from K.O.Kiki's build I found this page. Is it saying that the 3200 RAM is supported at 3466 MHz?

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory

I seem to recall before that RAM had to be installed in pairs in certain boards. Is that not the case any more or at least in this case?

K.O.Kiki

Honestly I just picked by-price; there's very few times dual-channel matters other than in iGPU systems.

Despite all that I thought I knew leading up to our MSI meeting last July, dual-channel just isn't necessary for the vast majority of the consumer market. Anyone doing serious simulation (CFD, parametric analysis) will heavily benefit from dual-channel configurations (~17.7% advantage). Users who push a lot of copy tasks through memory will also theoretically see benefits, depending on what software is controlling the tasking. Video editors and professionals will see noteworthy advantages in stream (RAM) previews and will see marginal advantages in render time. It is probably worth having in this instance -- in the very least, I'd always go dual-channel for editing / encoding if only for future advancements.