Getting ready for a new build. Some thoughts and some questions.

Iselin

It's time to upgrade in the next couple of months and I have just started looking at some new things and have a couple of questiions.

I'm thinking of a Ryzen 3700 + Nvidia 2070 and a Cosair MP600 2TB Nvme on an Asus X570 Tuf MB as the foundation. I'm picking that particular MB and Nvme for the extra PCI4 read/write speed primarily. I get that PCI3 vs. PCI4 Nvme SSDs is a somewhat fiddly distinction going from super fast to super faster but are there any other current or future-proof reasons to go for a PCI4 MB?

I have 2 256 GB Vertex SATA SSDs in my current system so SSD itself is not a new thing for me. The storage size has been left behind due to the size of current games so going bigger will definitely be noticeable QOL upgrade but what about the real world speed? Are the Nvme drives noticeably faster than the SATA ones?

Also... is there anything new coming in the next couple of months that should make me hesitate about going with the Ryzen 3700 and Nvidia 2070?

Thanks.

Vrika

If you can wait until the end of the year, we should get next generation of GPUs from both AMD and NVidia and Ryzen 4000 CPUs.

It might mean waiting closer to 6 months for stuff to be released and available, though.

Ridelynn

First, I agree with Vrika and remsleep here. There is a lot of hardware on the near horizon. I don't often advocate waiting, as you can always be waiting for "the next upgrade", but there is a lot around the corner right now.

To answer some more specific questions:

Difference between NVMe and SATA - no, it's not really noticeable in typical real world use. That being said, if they are comparable in price (and they can be), I'd just as soon have the NVMe drive, as it makes for a lot cleaner installation.

PCI4 - there were some video cards that performed better on PCI4 than 3... it was largely attributed to a driver bug on the part of PCI3 performance though. Apart from storage, and possibly some very high end networking, not much today can really leverage PCI4 (and even when it does, it's rarely the bottleneck). Modern video cards can't even really push PCI3 yet. But that's today, and yet. Maybe high definition textures or faster storage and streaming assets like consoles are attempting will change things; but I doubt it will change things so fast as there are an awful lot of PCI3-based systems out there to continue to support.

Quizzical

If that SSD is one of the original OCZ Vertex drives, then just moving to a modern SATA drive would likely be most of the real-world performance upgrade that you'd see from moving to a PCI-E 4.0 drive.  I don't think the original Vertex was marketed as 256 GB, though, as it was multiples of 60, not of 64, before OCZ was forced by competitive pressures to use 1 GB to mean 10^9 bytes rather than 2^30.

AMD Navi GPUs are already PCI Express 4.0, and it's a pretty safe bet that all future GPUs (AMD Navi 2X, Nvidia Ampere, Intel Xe) will be PCI Express 4.0 or later.  Doubling the bandwidth to the GPU is not just a reason to prefer the newer PCI-E, but probably the most important reason.  That said, for gaming, it usually won't matter very much.

AMD has promised that Navi 2X (next gen GPUs) and Zen 3 (next gen CPUs) will launch this year.  While a launch doesn't look imminent, those could easily arrive in a few months.  Nvidia's next generation is Ampere, but they haven't said when that will launch, and the rumors that are out there do not look credible to me.  Intel launching new desktop CPUs that will actually matter is probably still a long way off.

Iselin

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

laserit

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

Your cpu and gpu are fine for 1080p gaming. I'd look for a motherboard replacement as a short term solution while waiting for the new tech to arrive.

Personally I'm holding off until next year for a system upgrade.

Vrika

laserit said:

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

Your cpu and gpu are fine for 1080p gaming. I'd look for a motherboard replacement as a short term solution while waiting for the new tech to arrive.

Personally I'm holding off until next year for a system upgrade.

I think if the motherboard needs to be replaced, I'd buy a new system but continue using that GTX 970 for a while, then switch to new GPU once new GPU generation launches.

Iselin

Vrika said:

laserit said:

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

Your cpu and gpu are fine for 1080p gaming. I'd look for a motherboard replacement as a short term solution while waiting for the new tech to arrive.

Personally I'm holding off until next year for a system upgrade.

I think if the motherboard needs to be replaced, I'd buy a new system but continue using that GTX 970 for a while, then switch to new GPU once new GPU generation launches.

Hmm... that's actually a good point. The X570 MBs will also support the AMD 4000 series CPUs so I could actually upgrade from the 3700 later on as well.

OK now you're talking me into upgrading now minus the GPU upgrade lol.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

Vrika said:

laserit said:

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

Your cpu and gpu are fine for 1080p gaming. I'd look for a motherboard replacement as a short term solution while waiting for the new tech to arrive.

Personally I'm holding off until next year for a system upgrade.

I think if the motherboard needs to be replaced, I'd buy a new system but continue using that GTX 970 for a while, then switch to new GPU once new GPU generation launches.

Hmm... that's actually a good point. The X570 MBs will also support the AMD 4000 series CPUs so I could actually upgrade from the 3700 later on as well.

OK now you're talking me into upgrading now minus the GPU upgrade lol.

You probably don't want to buy a 3000 series CPU, and then upgrade to a 4000 series CPU later.  That's not going to be a very large upgrade, and the CPU will be most of the expense.

If the only immediate problem is that your SSD is having trouble, you could just buy a new SSD.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Vrika said:

laserit said:

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

Your cpu and gpu are fine for 1080p gaming. I'd look for a motherboard replacement as a short term solution while waiting for the new tech to arrive.

Personally I'm holding off until next year for a system upgrade.

I think if the motherboard needs to be replaced, I'd buy a new system but continue using that GTX 970 for a while, then switch to new GPU once new GPU generation launches.

Hmm... that's actually a good point. The X570 MBs will also support the AMD 4000 series CPUs so I could actually upgrade from the 3700 later on as well.

OK now you're talking me into upgrading now minus the GPU upgrade lol.

You probably don't want to buy a 3000 series CPU, and then upgrade to a 4000 series CPU later.  That's not going to be a very large upgrade, and the CPU will be most of the expense.

If the only immediate problem is that your SSD is having trouble, you could just buy a new SSD.

It's not a specific drive having problems. The reason I say flaky SATA on MB is because I have 2 SSDs and 2 IDE drives and at one time or another all of them except luckily, the SSD boot and OS drive, have disappeared and then reappeared after a cold boot.

Typically they disappear after I have uninstalled a game on Steam, Gog or Origin and then do something else but sometimes just randomly go away.

Occasionally they need more than one reboot to come back.

That's what makes me suspect the MB's SATA controller.

It's an old MSI z87 chipset MB and every driver imaginable has been checked and reinstalled but all the MB chipset and other drivers are at least 4 years old and the latest BIOS, which I'm using, is from May 2015.

Ridelynn

Iselin said:

Thanks guys.

My main motivation for thinking about upgrading now is really my old MB that hasn't had support for several years, has somewhat flaky SATA controler (I have several drives that disappear in Win10 although just shutting down and rebooting brings them back... so far) and is stuck on Win10 1176 and just refuses to upgrade no matter what I've tried.

My CPU and GPU are old but still serviceable for 1080P gaming (i4770k and Nvidia 970.)

I'll take your advice and keep holding off as long as I can waiting for the AMD refreshes.

Thanks again. 

I'm in almost exactly the same boat (4790 and 980). And yes, my motherboard and other components are all  starting to exhibit some flakiness (GPU randomly locks up after long idle times, computer stalls on reboots, etc). Then again, this build has always had some issues with stability.

I'm holding off waiting for GPUs to support HDMI 2.1 / DP 2.0. Then I'll rebuild the entire thing from the ground up using whatever MoBo/CPU are best bang/buck at that time.

Not saying that's what you should do, I know I've been itching to upgrade to a Zen2 computer for a long time now, but for me, I don't want to have to crack it back open after I get it built for a while.

I've also got my wife's computer to build, and her's is older than mine (Ivy bridge i5, RTX 470)

Quizzical

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Ridelynn

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

Quizzical

Ridelynn said:

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

That's a good question.  I don't know.  I would check to see if there are extra SATA ports not through the chipset already on the motherboard, though, as that costs you nothing.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Ridelynn said:

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

That's a good question.  I don't know.  I would check to see if there are extra SATA ports not through the chipset already on the motherboard, though, as that costs you nothing.

In addition to the 6 main ones from the z87 chipset - 4 of which I'm currently using - it does have 2 additional ASMedia ports.

When I first started having this problem I did move connections around to a different set of 4 ports of the z87 ones without it making any difference.

One of the ASMedia connections is currently hooked up to my front hot-swap SSD slot that I almost never use so I could free that up. However that's still only 2 connections from the other chipset and I need 4 all total.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Ridelynn said:

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

That's a good question.  I don't know.  I would check to see if there are extra SATA ports not through the chipset already on the motherboard, though, as that costs you nothing.

In addition to the 6 main ones from the z87 chipset - 4 of which I'm currently using - it does have 2 additional ASMedia ports.

When I first started having this problem I did move connections around to a different set of 4 ports of the z87 ones without it making any difference.

One of the ASMedia connections is currently hooked up to my front hot-swap SSD slot that I almost never use so I could free that up. However that's still only 2 connections from the other chipset and I need 4 all total.

You're using 5 SATA ports?  What for?

You could try moving the boot drive to one of the ASMedia ports and see what happens.  If the boot drive keeps disappearing, then you'll know that the chipset SATA ports aren't the problem.  If that fixes the boot drive while everything else keeps disappearing, then you've found the problem.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Ridelynn said:

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

That's a good question.  I don't know.  I would check to see if there are extra SATA ports not through the chipset already on the motherboard, though, as that costs you nothing.

In addition to the 6 main ones from the z87 chipset - 4 of which I'm currently using - it does have 2 additional ASMedia ports.

When I first started having this problem I did move connections around to a different set of 4 ports of the z87 ones without it making any difference.

One of the ASMedia connections is currently hooked up to my front hot-swap SSD slot that I almost never use so I could free that up. However that's still only 2 connections from the other chipset and I need 4 all total.

You're using 5 SATA ports?  What for?

You could try moving the boot drive to one of the ASMedia ports and see what happens.  If the boot drive keeps disappearing, then you'll know that the chipset SATA ports aren't the problem.  If that fixes the boot drive while everything else keeps disappearing, then you've found the problem.

Like I aid in previous post my boot drive never disappears it;s one of the other 3.

As far as 5 sata goes I only use 4 routinely - the 5th if for the hot-swap SSD on the front of my case but it's unpopulated 99% of the time. Otherwise yeah, 2 SSDs and two with the IDE drives being extra data storage (photos and stuff) I brought over from previous builds when 2TB+ drives were exotic and expensive.

Why? Is there something wrong with using 4 SATA drives on a MB with 8 SATA connectors? My PC worked just fine for several years that way. This disappearing drive thing has only happened in the past year with zero hardware changes.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Iselin said:

Quizzical said:

Ridelynn said:

Quizzical said:

You can get a SATA add-in card for a lot less money than a new motherboard:

https://www.newegg.com/linkreal-lrst9685-1m4s-pci-express-to-sata-card/p/17Z-00TX-00016

Though at that price, I don't think it's very tempting to buy one just to see if the SATA controller in the chipset is truly the culprit.

Depending on exactly which motherboard you have, it could have some extra SATA ports that use a different SATA controller rather than the motherboard chipset.  Those extra SATA ports will still have to connect through the chipset via PCI Express lanes, but if you have such ports, you could try moving the SSDs to them to see what happens.

Can you boot from that card?

That's a good question.  I don't know.  I would check to see if there are extra SATA ports not through the chipset already on the motherboard, though, as that costs you nothing.

In addition to the 6 main ones from the z87 chipset - 4 of which I'm currently using - it does have 2 additional ASMedia ports.

When I first started having this problem I did move connections around to a different set of 4 ports of the z87 ones without it making any difference.

One of the ASMedia connections is currently hooked up to my front hot-swap SSD slot that I almost never use so I could free that up. However that's still only 2 connections from the other chipset and I need 4 all total.

You're using 5 SATA ports?  What for?

You could try moving the boot drive to one of the ASMedia ports and see what happens.  If the boot drive keeps disappearing, then you'll know that the chipset SATA ports aren't the problem.  If that fixes the boot drive while everything else keeps disappearing, then you've found the problem.

Like I aid in previous post my boot drive never disappears it;s one of the other 3.

As far as 5 sata goes I only use 4 routinely - the 5th if for the hot-swap SSD on the front of my case but it's unpopulated 99% of the time. Otherwise yeah, 2 SSDs and two with the IDE drives being extra data storage (photos and stuff) I brought over from previous builds when 2TB+ drives were exotic and expensive.

Why? Is there something wrong with using 4 SATA drives on a MB with 8 SATA connectors? My PC worked just fine for several years that way. This disappearing drive thing has only happened in the past year with zero hardware changes.

There's nothing wrong with using so many drives.  It theoretically should work.  I was just curious as to why, as I don't think I've ever used more than two SATA ports at a time.

Tiller

Do you really want a clone?

Asm0deus

Something to be aware of is that using a "M2" slot be it a ssd or nvme drive on many mobo's it will disable some sata ports. 

Not sure about the asus x570 tuf itself so you might want to take a look at that on the website or download the manual to see if it does so if you plan on using lots of sata ports.

Iselin

Well I bit the bullet or rather my computer did it for me with even more flakiness that's beyond my ability to troubleshoot.

Disk access is so unstable now that about all i can do with it is hope for a good boot and that the SSD where I keep most of my games will be one of the lucky ones to behave. If I hit the jackpot I just keep the computer on as long as I can lol.

I've also come to the sad realization that I just no longer have the physical capabilities to wrestle around with computer components and all the bending, visual acuity (I have cataracts that need dealing with soon) or dexterity to do it any more... getting old sucks.

So I did the second best and went with a carefully scoped out custom builder that uses many of the same parts and for the same reasons I would have used. 

I went with this (Canadian dollars): https://www.gamingpc.ca/purchase.php?pcID=6

After they agreed to a discount I was happy with, free shipping and throwing in a free upgrade of the boot drive from a 512 GB SSD to this 1TB NVME:  https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adata-xpg-gammix-s11-pro-m2-nvme-ssd we had a deal.

So just a couple of more weeks of limping along with my current PC.

Ozmodan

Vrika said:

If you can wait until the end of the year, we should get next generation of GPUs from both AMD and NVidia and Ryzen 4000 CPUs.

It might mean waiting closer to 6 months for stuff to be released and available, though.

The new AMD CPUs will be available in September/October

 that is NOT 6 months.

Quizzical

Ozmodan said:

Vrika said:

If you can wait until the end of the year, we should get next generation of GPUs from both AMD and NVidia and Ryzen 4000 CPUs.

It might mean waiting closer to 6 months for stuff to be released and available, though.

The new AMD CPUs will be available in September/October

 that is NOT 6 months.

AMD has only promised that they'll launch this year.  Unless you have some inside information, we don't actually know the month.

Asm0deus

Welp I just hope they will be here for Black Friday at least as I want to build a new PC again!

Quizzical

xD_Gaming said:

Not a bad tiome to build, though , waiting will create more options. If your computer can still hammer away on games, I would wait, but if you were like me was really old stuff, then yeah build. 

If you do build now, be prepared for back orders and items out of stock.

There is always something new coming.  It sounds like the original poster's computer is in bad enough shape that waiting very much longer wouldn't be a good idea.

Kyleran

Speaking of which, finally bought a new Sager notebook to replace my 5 year old one.

Now I only experience the "normal" one crash every few days in FO76 like everyone else does, used to be up to 6 times in a single play session, every day.