I was talking with someone the other day about our PCs and he pointed out that my motherboard is going for $200 on ebay. The mind boggles. But looking at the other parts, I might be able to get 300-400$ out of my Motherboard, CPU and RAM.
I was looking at some Ryzen stuff and I can put together a pretty good kit to replace my parts for around $800. Then I can put my parts on ebay and recoop nearly half that money.
For reference, this is my current setup:
Cooler Master HAF 942 (OG HAF)
Corsair RM850x supply
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Intel Core i7 980X @ 3.85GHz
Prolimatech Megahalems w/ 2x Fractal Venturi 120mm
Mushkin Redline 12GB (3x 4GB) DDR3-1600
XFX AMD R9-280X 3GB For Monitor #1
Nvidia GeForce GT 520 for Monitor #2, #3
Samsung 830 256GB for OS
Adaptec RAID 6805 PCIe card with AFM 600 cache protection module
-4x Toshiba MG03ACA200 2TB drives in RAID 10 (Primary Storage; Programs, games and most of my personal files)
-3x Toshiba MG03ACA300 3TB drives in RAID 5 (Bulk storage; large files, backups, and etc)
-An additional MG03ACA300 drive for Hot spare
Literally Ive changed every part on this machine from the original build in January 2010 except for the motherboard and the Megahalems.
Im very happy with how it runs, for a 8,9 year old machine. My main concern is one of the parts I haven't changed, the Mobo or the CPU going TU on me and taking me out. This machine has run 24x7 since it was built. And also I find I lack RAM at times. Really would like to move up to at least 32GB.
So with that in mind, this is what I am considering;
ASUS Prime X370 Pro
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (probably just run the stock cooler unless my chip is a good one and can OC well)
Corsair LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3000
Right around $779 on Amazon +tax of course.
The detriment to this is, the lack of PCIe lanes... My current X58 setup has no lack of lanes; and so I have the AMD card in the top X16 slot, the Nvidia card in the middle X16 slot which is in x8 mode because the Adaptec card is in the bottom x16 slot also at x8 mode. The Adaptec card is PCIe 2.0 x8. So, its perfect for this setup. The Nvidia card can't push enough pixels to need the full 16 lanes anyway. 4 or even 1 would be fine for what it does.
None of the boards I have looked at for the Ryzen really have enough lanes. Which is a issue with the whole design, not a motherboard thing. If I go this route, I will have to drop the GT520 and go a different route for my other monitors. Likely end up going back to a dual, which I can handle. The third was more of a, "I have the port and this free monitor, lets plug it in!" It also might be feasible to find a low profile card and add one of those PCIe adapters to put it in a x1 port.
My low buck "hacky" method Ive done before is to count the pins on the connector, mark with a sharpie and the saw the connector down. It works! Take a 16 lane card and turn it into a 1 lane card.
Really on the AMD boards all you have besides the main x16 slot is, a x16 slot at x4, along with 2 or 3 x1 slots. So the x4 is definitely going to be absorbed by my Adaptec. 2GB/s is plenty for my arrays. Most I get it 300-400MB/s from either. Though I have been dreaming of adding a SAS expander so I can put another 4 drives, SSDs of course and put the OS on a RAID 0'd set of SSDs. In that case I'd really like to have all 8 lanes, but I think Ill live with it.
Then I have to watch what x1 PCIe ports I populate, either with the hacked video card or something else, as a couple are shared with the x4 slot and populating one would cut my Adaptec to a single lane, which I would notice...
I really need the lane capability of a sTR4 based solution, but that would cost me quite a bit more.
Hmmm, decisions.
I was looking at some Ryzen stuff and I can put together a pretty good kit to replace my parts for around $800. Then I can put my parts on ebay and recoop nearly half that money.
For reference, this is my current setup:
Cooler Master HAF 942 (OG HAF)
Corsair RM850x supply
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Intel Core i7 980X @ 3.85GHz
Prolimatech Megahalems w/ 2x Fractal Venturi 120mm
Mushkin Redline 12GB (3x 4GB) DDR3-1600
XFX AMD R9-280X 3GB For Monitor #1
Nvidia GeForce GT 520 for Monitor #2, #3
Samsung 830 256GB for OS
Adaptec RAID 6805 PCIe card with AFM 600 cache protection module
-4x Toshiba MG03ACA200 2TB drives in RAID 10 (Primary Storage; Programs, games and most of my personal files)
-3x Toshiba MG03ACA300 3TB drives in RAID 5 (Bulk storage; large files, backups, and etc)
-An additional MG03ACA300 drive for Hot spare
Literally Ive changed every part on this machine from the original build in January 2010 except for the motherboard and the Megahalems.
Im very happy with how it runs, for a 8,9 year old machine. My main concern is one of the parts I haven't changed, the Mobo or the CPU going TU on me and taking me out. This machine has run 24x7 since it was built. And also I find I lack RAM at times. Really would like to move up to at least 32GB.
So with that in mind, this is what I am considering;
ASUS Prime X370 Pro
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (probably just run the stock cooler unless my chip is a good one and can OC well)
Corsair LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3000
Right around $779 on Amazon +tax of course.
The detriment to this is, the lack of PCIe lanes... My current X58 setup has no lack of lanes; and so I have the AMD card in the top X16 slot, the Nvidia card in the middle X16 slot which is in x8 mode because the Adaptec card is in the bottom x16 slot also at x8 mode. The Adaptec card is PCIe 2.0 x8. So, its perfect for this setup. The Nvidia card can't push enough pixels to need the full 16 lanes anyway. 4 or even 1 would be fine for what it does.
None of the boards I have looked at for the Ryzen really have enough lanes. Which is a issue with the whole design, not a motherboard thing. If I go this route, I will have to drop the GT520 and go a different route for my other monitors. Likely end up going back to a dual, which I can handle. The third was more of a, "I have the port and this free monitor, lets plug it in!" It also might be feasible to find a low profile card and add one of those PCIe adapters to put it in a x1 port.
My low buck "hacky" method Ive done before is to count the pins on the connector, mark with a sharpie and the saw the connector down. It works! Take a 16 lane card and turn it into a 1 lane card.
Really on the AMD boards all you have besides the main x16 slot is, a x16 slot at x4, along with 2 or 3 x1 slots. So the x4 is definitely going to be absorbed by my Adaptec. 2GB/s is plenty for my arrays. Most I get it 300-400MB/s from either. Though I have been dreaming of adding a SAS expander so I can put another 4 drives, SSDs of course and put the OS on a RAID 0'd set of SSDs. In that case I'd really like to have all 8 lanes, but I think Ill live with it.
Then I have to watch what x1 PCIe ports I populate, either with the hacked video card or something else, as a couple are shared with the x4 slot and populating one would cut my Adaptec to a single lane, which I would notice...
I really need the lane capability of a sTR4 based solution, but that would cost me quite a bit more.
Hmmm, decisions.