On the upgrade trail again

I'm seriously considering doing a PC upgrade again ...

Trying to remember the last time I was seriously checking out doing an upgrade. Probably when AMD brought out their Ryzen 2 processor and then the time before would have been the Ryzen 1. It's a good chip and is apparently a lot better than the competition from Intel, depending on who you talk to.

(Obligatory disclosure note - I don't get any sponsorship of any kind. Also, if anyone recognises a picture, all but 1 of these are all from the Google and I would be overjoyed to add a credit if you ask).

Oh ! Anyone recognise the picture from the thumbnail ? We actually had one of those. Ended up having to hack a lot of the games too so that they'd work with the disc interface. Memory limits meant that programs would cheat .... and overwrite memory vital to the Operating System, ok if you didn't need the floppy discs any more. Oh yes. This was a machine from the days of 5.25 inch actual floppy discs ...

But I digress again. As per usual :-D. No internet spaceships again. Maybe.

Couldn't resist. That's part of the thing about upgrading actually. For Elite, I don't actually have to upgrade at the moment. There is the very occasional judder but the machine I have at the moment (i5-2500k and nVidia 1060 graphics) is just fine with Elite at maximum graphics and 1440p. So no upgrade needed for that one. Maybe later when they bring in more features to the game. There will be more Elite screenshots in a later post, I caught a few shiny examples over the weekend in another expedition.

Games like Battletech and quite likely Prey and Deus Ex Mankind Divided (still need to play both of those) are a different story though. Battletech definitely munches through the 8GB in this machine and the Roguetech expansion was unplayable. Prey and DXMD will put greater pressure on the processor. So I'm much more open to an upgrade now.

The usual thing applies though ... only spend what you want to spend. There is literally no upper limit to the daft money you can spend on a computer ... but there's usually no reason to go above a certain point. My machines are powerful but on the modest side. A graphics card that costs £800 will not give you 4x the fun of a £200 graphics card. I'm not convinced that a processor costing £800 is 4 times as good as one costing £200. There's a certain pragmatism that has to come in to choosing the bits.

Saving money that can go to other better places means you can buy more toys than you could before. That £1173 between the £1476 nVidia 2080Ti card (yes you could buy a graphics card for more than what my first 2 cars cost) and a £303 RTX2060 card could go on a Lego UCS Millennium Falcon, a Lego Death Star with a significant amount of change.

Priorities.

Quite.

Ok, so what's this modesty PC ? First up, it's not going to be a whole PC.

It was a lovely relief when changing over laptops last time that my cookies and other internet stuff was just There. I didn't have to set up all the passwords again. Maybe a bit scary that though when you think about it.

What I'll be doing this time is keeping certain parts out of the old machine, like the screen, keyboard, mouse ...

... hard discs and bluray drive and the rest will be upgraded. New box, motherboard, memory, power supply and processor. Oh and actually maybe definitely a new SSD because ...

Quicker, much quicker. Oh and bigger too, so I could put the games that want the performance on the bigger disc. Last year, the 256GB M2 SSD that went in my laptop cost me a discounted £55 if I remember right. This year, you can have a 500GB SSD for £67 or a 1TB for £100. Neat. Pumpkin (current desktop) has a 256GB SSD, an ancient 256GB conventional drive but all the games (except Battletech which was more demanding) go on a 1.5TB conventional drive.

SSD - Solid State Device drive that's essentially memory like you card in your camera. Ultra fast to find your stuff but not as high capacity.
Conventional drive - uses spinning platters with chemicals that store data magnetically. Takes much more time to get the platter to the bit of the disc that has your data. Takes ages if your data is all over the disc.

I better get to the details before I run out of pictures !

Processor - 3rd gen Ryzen 5 3600 costing £190. This goes at 3.6GHz and I don't think the 3.8GHz of the 3600X is worth the extra £50. This comes in a Socket AM4 which needs a suitable motherboard.
Motherboard - there's either the newest shiny of the X570 chipset and MSI offer one that has my eye for £180. Or an older one with by MSI with the less capable B450 chipset for £89. I think the better one is probably worth it here because the advantage is in the bandwidth in the PCI bus.

(Translation - the bits can talk to each other faster and it'd mean shinier graphics that go more smoothly)

Either way, both of them demand DDR4 memory. Don't worry about what DDR4 means (Double Data Rate mk4 = faster than DDR, DDR2, DDR3, SDR and the other types that went before that I can't remember). Things to look for are "System Memory Specification" and the Ryzen 5 3600 is looking for 3.2GHz. It would work with slower memory but it's better to match the speeds. Options ?
DDR4-19200/2400MHz - slower, would work, 2 sticks making up 32GB from Kingston would be £145.
DDR4-25600/3200MHz - synchronised, 2 sticks for 32GB from Kingston again would be £188.

I think it'll be the faster memory because apparently (Rockpapershotgun article) the Ryzens might like the faster memory.

I'd usually go for a cooler as well. I'm only likely to ever go air cooling, as having water around PCs when you don't need to do that is a recipe for disaster. The Sandy Bridge machine I have now has been very stable on air cooling that probably has the Dust Bunny population of Bristol in it by now.

Wasn't taken from inside my PC ... honest.

Power supply ! Last but one piece. Corsair supplies have done me well over the years, so it's over to them again for a 750W. A 650W would be more than enough for what I'll put inside it but I'm looking to do a little future proofing. It's well worth spending extra on a named brand like Corsair because power supplies do blow ... and they can take out the other components with them when they do pop. I've had this happen before. Anyway, 750W for £75.

Case is a curious one. I had the eyes opened to one requirement I would have forgotten about. I do occasionally like to watch a dvd or bluray on my desktop and I'd miss that if I couldn't. My computer chair is sadly a little more comfortable than my sofa. So the requirement is to be able to fit a 5.25" sized bluray drive. Drives seem to be missing those out now ...

Anyway - case ... the AVP X6 caught my eye (link to Novatech) because it has 5.25" bays and a couple of internal fans. Something else to look out for is the graphics card depth ... there are some chunky cards out there. I need to do research there. Price - £35.

I think that's it ... total cost is £668 but bear in mind that's missing the price of :
Graphics - budget for me is c.£200.
Windows - £100 for Windows 10 64bit Home.
Keyboard - £30 will be fine. Unless you find a £150 keyboard for £30 :-D.
Mouse - £30, this is very your own preference again.
(I go for wired for both keyboard and mouse, wireless has drawbacks that I don't think balance the benefit)
Screen - mine is from AOC and I love it. 24" 1080p screen from them would be £140.
Storage - I'll probably acquire a 500GB SSD for £67. And there are 2TB conventional drives for £54.

I think that's it.

If anyone local wants a PC built by the way, supply the bits (I'd consult) and I'd ...

Substitute battlestation for computer.