Dilemma: Replace AM3 Motherboard or sell good parts and build an AM4 system

Hi, I currently have a system as follows:

CPU 1090T AMD
AM3 motherboard which I believe has gone bad
4 sticks of DDR3 Ram (16Gb)

I mainly used it for office works and it was sufficient.

Now that I have to fix it, I'm wondering whether I should sell the CPU and DDR3 ram and instead build a system as follows (with approximate prices):


32GB DDR4 = £150
Gigabyte A320M AM4 = £50
1200 Ryzen 3 = £60
Not sure what I'll get from the old DDR3 and CPU 1090T on ebay, but let's assume £60 for now, so total cost for newish sytem £200.
I can reuse the other parts of the system (SSD, PSU etc)

If I stay with the old system it will cost me about £60 for a new motherboard - but that will mean less performance and reliability I suppose.

What do you think?

See what prices are when the new Ryzen chips come out later this year, will push other stuff down.

Do you really need 32GB? You will save money by getting 16GB which should be more than capable for most things, I have 16GB and its fine for 3D work etc

If you can get an AM3 board for cheap, I'd stick to that.

Ah yes, good point about the RAM, If I match the old spec to 16Gb, it would bring it down to around £80, that would make the total down to £130. This is better for comparison and shows me I'll be spending £70 for the extra CPU performance and reliabillity of newer hardware.

However, I may end up getting two sticks of 16GB anyway because if there's an area I'd definitely like an upgrade, it is memory. I normally have about 30 tabs on google chrome by lunchtime with a bunch of other stuff running as well. (Plus I have another newer machine + my son\'s machine, all with sticks of 8Gb DDR4\'s .. so if it proves to be overkill on my lower spec machine, it can easily find a home in one of the other two machines.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pp05

If you can get an AM3 board for cheap, I'd stick to that.

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Well, money wise that's the route where I'd spend less. However, wouldn't £70 be good value to move from 1090T to Rizen 1200? According to 'User Benchmark' FX8350 is better than 1090T and Rizen 1200 is better than FX8350.

I know it's a good idea to upgrade but is it worth for £70 or more - Also I don't know for sure whether 1090T CPU and DDR3 Ram will sell on ebay or not yet ..

I think lots of people have rose tinted glasses when it comes to Phenom II chips. They were OK, but their time is long past.

I would get the Ryzen upgrade. Note that current chips are on a serious discount, according to AMD part of that is a 50 years of AMD reduction. Either way, my guess is that the current stuff won't get significantly cheaper (though I can't really see them going back up in price given Zen2 looks to soundly beat the old parts in performance).

Wait until Monday, see what the AMD announcement is and whether that changes your plans. If you drop to 16GB of ram you could save some money and get a 2600 CPU instead, a few pounds more than the Gigabyte board can get you an Asrock A320 Pro board with 4 RAM slots so you aren't stuck with 16GB.

I have now decided to go for AM4 system in the end. My thinking was to do with mainly the realisation that if another of the AM3 related component were to die, I'll keep throwing money to dated tech.

There are two things which I wish kept a universal/standard interface ... a motherboard and chargers/power adapters interface.

i take the sell approach, bin my system every 3 years for a brand new one, at the best bang for buck prices

Good idea to goto AM4, now to see how long AMD keep up their promise not to switch from AM4