I have an AM4 based desktop with the following current configuration:
- Ryzen 2200G CPU
- 8 x 2 DDR4 3000 MHz RAM
- RX 7600 GPU
- Gigabyte B450M D3SH motherboard
- Corsair RM550 PSU
- 1 GB M2 NVME disk
- 2 HDDs - 1 mirroring the NVME and the other as data drive
- Acer FullHD flat panel with FreeSync
Goals are casual gaming at 1080p or slightly lower resolution, target fps 30+
Please give me suggestions for:
- Best AM4 CPU available now (a) with no integrated graphics (b) with integrated graphics.
- How would you rate Ryzen 5700G for this setup? It is available and budget friendly.
- Can I buy 3200 MHz RAM to fill the 2 vacant RAM slots in my motherboard so that I can continue to get dual channel benefit? 3000 MHz RAM seems to be no longer available from the brand/locally.
- 1 GB SATA SSD for cheap purely to store game installations (Crucial BX) but there is no spare SATA port in the motherboard, is there a way to connect 2 HDDs to same SATA port?
EDIT 1: I think there are 3 HDDs and 1 DVD drive occupying all 4 motherboard SATA ports. I erred in the post above earlier.
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The only reson I can think of to want integrated graphics is because you have 5 monitors and graphics cards generally only have 4 outputs, but if that’s not the case, you should be fine without. 5700x3d as another commentor said is decent, I would go look at the Gamer’s Nexus charts to compare models.
Ram should only be used with the sticks in the kit because they are binned so tight. If they’re off by a little bit, you’ll lose a lot of performace, so you want to upgrade to 32 GB, you’ll have to buy a 32 GB kit.
Sata drives need to be connected directly to the mobo, so if you want more storage, you’ll have to swap a drive with no empty sata ports, but looking up your mobo, I’m seeing at least 4 ports, 3 in the bottom right and one spaced a little higher, so do you have disc drives or something taking up the other 2 ports left from your hard disks?
The only reson I can think of to want integrated graphics is because you have 5 monitors and graphics cards generally only have 4 outputs, but if that’s not the case, you should be fine without.
I thought this too at one point, and I deeply regret it. Having an integrated GPU can make many things much easier. Such as using the video encoder/decoder on the CPU while leaving the deducted GPU alone to do other things, like rendering a game.
But it also opens up 2nd hand use cases too. I can’t use my current CPU in another system as efficiently as I would want once I upgrade.
And CPU’s without an integrated GPU are few and far between ones with an integrated GPU. There’s no real benefit in going out of your way to get one.
I think in Ryzen CPUs having integrated GPU means loss of some memory bandwidth due to internal traffic or some other reason. This was true at least for the initial generation or two. Not sure about present.
One other reason I am looking at integrated graphics is as a backup solution for times the discrete one conks off and I need to get another or get it serviced which could be upwards of 2 weeks easily.
Integrated graphics is mainly as a backup plan for when discrete GPU conks off.
Presently the 2 sticks of RAM although of same brand and specification, were bought a month or two apart. So not sure if they are working as intended. How to confirm if they are working in dual channel mode or not?
If the dimms are in the correct slots, they should be in dual channel. I belive cpuz shows memory information. I did some more reading on mixing memory and I remembered things a little off. The rule of thumb to not mix kits only applies to if you’re going for peak performance, but otherwise if you match speeds and timings it should work fine but you’ll loose the top 0.5% of performance, which is margin of error. If you start mixing timings and speeds, it will all run at the lower speeds if it works,but you run the risk of incompatibility, which generally shouldn’t be a problem, but you could get unlucky, so taking that risk is entirely up to you.
Integrated graphics is mainly as a backup plan for when discrete GPU conks off.
The 5700G is decent overall, using my old 5600G as comparison. It’s an excellent option for integrated graphics gaming, but their underlying architecture borrows chips from the 3000 series and adds some modern extras. It can’t support PCIe4, so you’ll be hard limited by that lack of support, should you upgrade your motherboard up a generation in the future.
However, since your current one doesn’t have PCIe4 anyway, perhaps the 5700G could be a good option until you upgrade the motherboard (at which point, you should probably move on from AM4/Zen3 anyway).
Yes, buying a brand new AM4 setup would be a dead end choice. Because I already have these AM4 things, I wanted to just upgrade.
Will changing the CPU cause me to lose my Windows license? I use only local account. And end of road for Win 10 is also another reason to choose a new CPU.
I don’t think so, but I don’t know for certain if the Windows license will check for hardware in a SecureBoot fashion. I linked my license with a MS account to facilitate easy upgrades and reinstalls.
Your license shouldn’t care what hardware is installed, though, and if you’re upgrading from AMD to AMD, Windows should be able to handle that virtually seamlessly. The only thing you want to make sure of is that your BIOS version supports whatever processor you choose.
If you have room on your motherboard and in your case, there exist PCIe to SATA expansion cards that could give you several more SATA connections.
Those are quite expensive hence I have not explored that option yet. Another reason is exactly what you are afraid of, the room or absence of it. The GPU itself is impinging on one of SATA ports and I had to get a bent SATA connector to just make it work.
I will open the case and visually check again.
- Not sure about with graphics, but I have 5700x3d (upgraded from3600 on a520 board nad I’m happy with it) it needs a cooler though
- don’t know but not sure why you would want integrated graphics since you have a decent dedicated GPU
- I think it’s going to be fine
- No it’s not possible but it looks like your motherboard has 3 sata ports.
There are 4 SATA ports, 3 of which are taken up by HDDs (forgot about the total HDDs earlier while posting and 1 for DVD Writer.
Integrated graphics is for backup for when the discrete card fails.
How often are you planning on having your dgpu fail?
Yeah it’s nice as a backup, but why spend more money for a worse performing chip? On the used market a 5700x/5800x can be pretty damn cheap. But the APU variant is a lot less common, and as a CPU performs worse because it’s completely different from the 5700x that shares its name.
Recently I am thinking like that too, but my previous cards failed within 2 years.
