Time for an upgrade: MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX and Ryzen 3600 a good choice?

Bruno Batista

Hi folks

This is my current build:

Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Storage: Crucial MX100 512 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB AMP! Extreme Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

Want to upgrade things but can't do it all in one go.

So thinking of starting with a new motherboard/CPU/Ram combo and then upgrade more stuff later in the year.

Right now I have my eyes on:

Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (£104.97 @ Box Limited)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£152.25 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£74.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £332.20

Now, I didn't put together my computer, a friend did, but I've upgraded the power supply and the graphics card, so I'm fairly confident I'll be able to take out the motherboard in my current case and replace it with the new combo.
(fingers crossed)

• Any changes to that parts list that you can think of?
  I read that the MSI B450 Gaming PRO Carbon AC has a few more bells and whistles but the Tomahawk Max is better value.
  
• Will the included cooler with the 3600 be alright or is the current one I have (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO) better?
  
• Will my current power supply still be enough to run everything?
  
• Will I need to reinstall Windows?
  (half thinking of getting a 1 TB M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD right now too as I was never 100% happy with the SSD performance, so if I have to reinstall everything that might help with my decision there)

Thanks for any help you can provide!

K.O.Kiki

You can get MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX for the same price: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/CXvqqs/msi-x470-gaming-plus-max-atx-am4-motherboard-x470-gaming-plus-max

Other than that it's a good upgrade.

Your Hyper 212 probably won't have the brackets for AM4. Stock cooler is grand though.
AMD Wraith Prism / Wraith Max are cheap RGB upgrades if you can find them for under 20 quid.

You have more than enough power; the Ryzen 3600 will use less power at full draw than the FX-8320 did at idle!

Yes, you should 100% reinstall Windows. Keep your Windows key handy - you can probably use it to activate Win10.

Tropheus

I did a similar upgrade a few weeks back from an i5 3750K. Very straight forward and worked first time. If you don't have your Windows key, there are utilities online that can read it from your current installation. It activated no problem for me after I reinstalled.

Bruno Batista

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

You can get MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX for the same price: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/CXvqqs/msi-x470-gaming-plus-max-atx-am4-motherboard-x470-gaming-plus-max

Other than that it's a good upgrade.

Your Hyper 212 probably won't have the brackets for AM4. Stock cooler is grand though.
AMD Wraith Prism / Wraith Max are cheap RGB upgrades if you can find them for under 20 quid.

You have more than enough power; the Ryzen 3600 will use less power at full draw than the FX-8320 did at idle!

Yes, you should 100% reinstall Windows. Keep your Windows key handy - you can probably use it to activate Win10.

Cheers, will have a look at that X470 motherboard!

Homelander

The GTX1070 is still pretty good, whereas the FX-8320 is a terrible processor. Even by just getting a 3600 your performance will be massively improved in games, whereas coming from something like say an i7-4770 the difference would've been much less noticeable.

At 1080P the 1070 is still good for most things at ultra, the FX-8320 struggles badly in most new games with inconsistent framerates and stutter. In some games with just a 3600 your framerate would a) sometimes double and b) remain far more consistent with no stutter/drops.

Bruno Batista

Homelander wrote: »

The GTX1070 is still pretty good, whereas the FX-8320 is a terrible processor. Even by just getting a 3600 your performance will be massively improved in games, whereas coming from something like say an i7-4770 the difference would've been much less noticeable.

At 1080P the 1070 is still good for most things at ultra, the FX-8320 struggles badly in most new games with inconsistent framerates and stutter. In some games with just a 3600 your framerate would a) sometimes double and b) remain far more consistent with no stutter/drops.

It was a fine little processor for what I needed then and I can't say I've ever pushed it THAT much but it was definitely the bottleneck of my (1080p) gaming, I did see those inconsistent framerates in stuff like RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 alright.

And wow, thanks for saying that, I knew I would be seeing an improvement but didn't think it would be that much based on the processor alone!

Homelander

Yes there are loads of videos on YouTube which will give you more detail.

Like this one here where a lot of new 2020 games running at 80-90fps average on Ryzen 3600 but just 40-50 fps average on FX-8350.

You can also see the minimums, in many games lowest 0.1% on 3600 is 60-70fps but on FX it is more like 25-40fps.

Your GTX1070 has been very badly bottlenecked the last few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl5oG4v7lgs

Anima

I have the 3600 + B450 Tomahawk with an ARCTIC Freezer 34 eSports DUO. It works great. Temps are like 45 idle / ~65 under load. Doesn't go beyond that really. That fan is not that quiet I'd say though. It's definitely noticeable.

Gaming wise it works well. I forget to check the XMP profile after a bios upgrade one time and the drop was noticable. So I'd definitely enable that and there is also a game boost mode which I haven't enabled yet.

I haven't had any of the crashes or other issues some people have had. I get the odd funny boot issue or wake from sleep though (the sleep one might be something else). I've had slow boots, like 20 seconds to get to post screen. Had one strange boot where the CPU was downclocked to like 0.5 ghz on each core. Reboot fixed it. Once I'm at the desktop though there are no issues.