New Year Upgrade!

[DanceswithUnix]

There's more to SSD than that, but you generally don't fall into it unless you start going to the very cheap end, eg there's a few m.2 ramless SSD's (ie it doesn't have a ram cache) which are very slow (ssd slow, so an HDD is still slower)
Also with SSD's not is it just larger tends to be faster but also the fuller they get the slower they go, if I remember my numbers correctly, at 50%full you get a very minor slowdown, at more than 75-80% is where it get very noticeable (although it's still going to be fast, just no as fast)

Agreed, but it's a delicate balance between mansplaining and a deluge of facts that will make most people just zone out

There seems to be a common theme of people recommending the WD Blue NVMe drives. That's a good recommendation for the price, I've used them at work and have one at home. Within that range, a bigger drive is better. You get more space, more read/write speed, more operations per second, more space for wear levelling to use. It's a dram-less drive, but worst case out performs SATA for the same sort of money as a SATA drive.

I've not looked for a couple of months, so there might be an even better drive out there. I know there are worse ones, like the Intel QLC drives that drop to below SATA speed on large writes.

Having praised the WD Blues, my last SSD at work was a Corsair MP510 960GB, but that's heading down the slippery slope of more expensive drives.

[wazzickle]

Corsair MP, Patriot P-series and WD Blue all seem to be striking a good balance between value and quality for M.2s imo.

[Jager]

Having been out of the PC world for some time, NVMe drives are very new and unknown to me. Is there any risk that NVMe drives could get scrapped and forgotten about?. I guess it doesn't really matter if I already have one though. Just asking as SSDs are really taking off and replacing traditional hardrives, but I couldn't see NVMe drives replacing hardrives, maybe they'll continue getting sold alongside SSDs? or may take over completely.


Thanks for all the great replies I'm finally starting to work out a plan now:

• Definitely need a new PSU as I don't want to run new components on a 10 year old one. So open hearing the best option on that. I know PSUs can vary a lot in quality and reliability. I need to take the PSU price into account with my budget

• I would like to possibly go for a Ryzen CPU instead of an Intel if it's not too much of a push on my budget this time. That will mean a 7 isn't viable but a Ryzen 3 or 5 could be on the cards. Still open to hearing about Intel builds if they are significantly cheaper and not far off a Ryzen anyway

• Obviously need a motherboard for all this. Only one rule out so far is the Gigabyte B450M board as someone left a review saying they potentially have issues with the M.2 Interface. MSI seems like a good alternative brand though

• Still not sure what to do with my graphics card?. I could keep my current one (EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 FTW Signature2 3GB GDDR5) or upgrade to something like a Geforce GTX 1650 as suggest in reply #4. Maybe to stay within my budget of under £500 I should drop to a Ryzen 3 and upgrade the graphics card too?

• Since the motherboards being upgraded I'll need to also upgrade my RAM from DDR3 to DDR4. Current ones that have been suggested are:
  Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB 3200MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Kit
  Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL16 Memory

• Will need a SSD or NVMe drive which will replace my oldest hardrive. Either 500GB or 1TB, I haven't quite decided that yet

• If compatible I will keep my current PC case (Antec 300 (Mid tower, standard ATX)). There's no point changing it unless I have to since it's mostly hidden under the desk anyway

• I need help with this. Just tried to activate Windows 10 again after changing the motherboard and apparently if you upgrade from OEM Windows 7 to Windows 10 is doesn't work as OEM versions don't support motherboard changes (Info Here). When trying to activate it I get an error message saying "We can't reactivate Windows as our servers aren't available right now".
  Is there a way round this? As I still have 2 genuine and unused Windows 7 OEM keys at hand. Can I used them to activate Win10?

Umm, I think that's everything. Let me know if I've missed anything off

[Xlucine]

Having been out of the PC world for some time, NVMe drives are very new and unknown to me. Is there any risk that NVMe drives could get scrapped and forgotten about?. I guess it doesn't really matter if I already have one though. Just asking as SSDs are really taking off and replacing traditional hardrives, but I couldn't see NVMe drives replacing hardrives, maybe they'll continue getting sold alongside SSDs? or may take over completely.


Thanks for all the great replies I'm finally starting to work out a plan now:

• Definitely need a new PSU as I don't want to run new components on a 10 year old one. So open hearing the best option on that. I know PSUs can vary a lot in quality and reliability. I need to take the PSU price into account with my budget

• I would like to possibly go for a Ryzen CPU instead of an Intel if it's not too much of a push on my budget this time. That will mean a 7 isn't viable but a Ryzen 3 or 5 could be on the cards. Still open to hearing about Intel builds if they are significantly cheaper and not far off a Ryzen anyway

• Obviously need a motherboard for all this. Only one rule out so far is the Gigabyte B450M board as someone left a review saying they potentially have issues with the M.2 Interface. MSI seems like a good alternative brand though

• Still not sure what to do with my graphics card?. I could keep my current one (EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 FTW Signature2 3GB GDDR5) or upgrade to something like a Geforce GTX 1650 as suggest in reply #4. Maybe to stay within my budget of under £500 I should drop to a Ryzen 3 and upgrade the graphics card too?

• Since the motherboards being upgraded I'll need to also upgrade my RAM from DDR3 to DDR4. Current ones that have been suggested are:
  Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB 3200MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Kit
  Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL16 Memory

• Will need a SSD or NVMe drive which will replace my oldest hardrive. Either 500GB or 1TB, I haven't quite decided that yet

• If compatible I will keep my current PC case (Antec 300 (Mid tower, standard ATX)). There's no point changing it unless I have to since it's mostly hidden under the desk anyway

• I need help with this. Just tried to activate Windows 10 again after changing the motherboard and apparently if you upgrade from OEM Windows 7 to Windows 10 is doesn't work as OEM versions don't support motherboard changes (Info Here). When trying to activate it I get an error message saying "We can't reactivate Windows as our servers aren't available right now".
  Is there a way round this? As I still have 2 genuine and unused Windows 7 OEM keys at hand. Can I used them to activate Win10?

Umm, I think that's everything. Let me know if I've missed anything off

M.2 is unlikely to go anywhere in the next couple of years, but over 10 years nothing's guaranteed! The physical socket has been common since ~2014 so seems to have staying power, and it's just PCIe electrically so has already piggybacked two new generations from the PCIe improvements (first m.2 slots were only gen 2, then they went gen 3, and now they're gen 4 with commensurate increases in bandwidth.

A decent 500-ish W PSU will go for ~£60 (example: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w...mm-fan-atx-psu), with more expensive models having nice features like a fan that turns off under low load or higher efficiency ratings.

Ryzens are a bit expensive at the moment - one like the 3600 was selling for ~£165 a couple of months ago, but is £190 now (£180 if you get the one without an included heatsink from scan). It's a competent 6 core chip, but comparable intel ones start at £140 (i5 10400F, the F meaning they turned off the GPU part). If you're looking for a new CPU cooler, I'd recommend the arctic freezer 34 - it's a bit cheaper than comparable ones from other manufacturers (scan has the one with a ball bearing fan for £25, look for the continuous operation (CO) label in the name), but has a higher quality fan.

I'd recommend leaving your GPU as is for now - we're still waiting on lower end next-gen GPUs, so the budget GPU market should improve in a few months

For the RAM, 2400 MHz is rather slow for DDR4! an intel system will limit you to 2666 MHz, while an AMD one should happily take 3200 MHz. RAM speed doesn't matter much in performance, but it's not super expensive and nice to have

[wazzickle]

RAM speed will affect your performance less than almost any other component.

M.2 isn't going anywhere for a long long time. SATA 3 likely to die out before M.2 does imo.

+1 on waiting to upgrade your GPU if you do want to, little value in doing so now.

[DanceswithUnix]

SATA won't die out any time soon if only for people who want things like NAS boxes full of hot swap drives, but NVMe is the way forward for most uses. So I see both surviving, but SATA becoming a more expensive niche interface.

If you are worried about being saddled with some stop gap storage interface, I think you blinked and already skipped SATA Express. We won't miss it

As for the Windows OEM licence, you aren't allowed to upgrade the motherboard but you are allowed to replace the motherboard in the event of failure. However that goes, if you get a new motherboard with a nice new SSD you can perform a Windows install from scratch using a USB stick and it should take the licence key. I've only seen that fail to work if the key was from something like a Dell machine as their keys are different and only seem to work on Dell motherboards.

[Pob255]

m.2 and NVMe can be a bit confusing at first, kingston did a nice simple explanation https://www.kingston.com/unitedkingd...rticleid/48543
a thing people keep getting wrong is that m.2 is the form factor, NVMe is the communication protocol.
NVMe basically means it's pci-e not sata

Now an m.2 slot can be ether sata or pci-e, goes for both the card (ssd in this case) or the slot (motherboard)
So you need to check what the motherboard supports before you by the SSD, tha said many motherboards have multiple m.2 slots and often both a sata m.2 and a NVMe m.2 slot

advantages of m.2 is it's smaller than a 2.5" ssd, there's no cables (sata or power) to worry about, and a direct motherboard connection so no worries about case support
Advantage of NVMe over SATA, it's faster

I know what you mean about will it last? mSATA was basically the same as sata m.2 yet it didn't last, however the big difference between m.2 and mSATA, is that m.2 has been picked up by far more products and companies, it's got enough support base behind it that it should stick around for a while.

[Jager]

What's your buys thoughts on these builds? Dunno if I'm doing this right or not

Ryzen 5
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00
or
Corsair 650W TX650M Gold Hybid Modular Power Supply/PSU
£85.00

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen3 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£190.00
or
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Gen2 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£150

Motherboard:

MSI AMD Ryzen B450 GAMING PLUS Max AM4 ATX Motherboard
£91.00
(Is this a good and compatible motherboard? Compatible with my Antec 300 Case too?)

Memory:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM/Memory Module
£65.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00
or
WD Blue SN550 1TB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£98.00

Total: £529
(Highest)
or
Total: £429
(Lowest Price - Lower PSU, Smaller NVMe, & Ryzen 5 2600)

Edit// Maybe this RAM is better?:

Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB 3200MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Kit
£78.00

______________________________________________


Ryzen 3
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen3 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£159.00

Motherboard:

Gigabyte B450M DS3H AMD Ryzen micro-ATX AM4 Motherboard
£64.00
(Compatible with my Antec 300 Case?)

Memory:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM/Memory Module
£65.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00

Total: £411

______________________________________________


Intel i3
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00

CPU:

Intel Hex Core i5 10400F Core i5 Comet Lake CPU/Processor
£140.00
(Whats the difference between the 10400F and 10400 besides £15 price difference?)

Motherboard:

ASRock Intel H410M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX Motherboard
£66.00
or
MSI MAG Intel B460M BAZOOKA Micro-ATX Motherboard
£95.00
(Compatible with my Antec 300 Case?)

Memory:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...0-20-38-xmp-20
£74.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00

Total: £403 - £432

This took a while Hope all the links work etc

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What's your buys thoughts on these builds? Dunno if I'm doing this right or not

Ryzen 5
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00
or
Corsair 650W TX650M Gold Hybid Modular Power Supply/PSU
£85.00

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen3 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£190.00
or
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Gen2 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£150

Motherboard:

MSI AMD Ryzen B450 GAMING PLUS Max AM4 ATX Motherboard
£91.00
(Is this a good and compatible motherboard? Compatible with my Antec 300 Case too?)

Memory:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM/Memory Module
£65.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00
or
WD Blue SN550 1TB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£98.00

Total: £529
(Highest)
or
Total: £429
(Lowest Price - Lower PSU, Smaller NVMe, & Ryzen 5 2600)

Edit// Maybe this RAM is better?:

Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB 3200MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Kit
£78.00

______________________________________________


Ryzen 3
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen3 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
£159.00

Motherboard:

Gigabyte B450M DS3H AMD Ryzen micro-ATX AM4 Motherboard
£64.00
(Compatible with my Antec 300 Case?)

Memory:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM/Memory Module
£65.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00

Total: £411

______________________________________________


Intel i3
Power Supply:

Corsair CP-9020133-UK TX550M 550 W 80+ Gold Power Supply Unit, Black
£68.00

CPU:

Intel Hex Core i5 10400F Core i5 Comet Lake CPU/Processor
£140.00
(Whats the difference between the 10400F and 10400 besides £15 price difference?)

Motherboard:

ASRock Intel H410M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX Motherboard
£66.00
or
MSI MAG Intel B460M BAZOOKA Micro-ATX Motherboard
£95.00
(Compatible with my Antec 300 Case?)

Memory:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...0-20-38-xmp-20
£74.00

Storage:

WD Blue SN550 500GB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD
£55.00

Total: £403 - £432

This took a while Hope all the links work etc

Skimping on RAM with Ryzen isn't a good idea. For one Corsair is variable in what you chips you can get and also I would be aiming for 3200MHZ DDR4.

This kit has guarenteed Micron E-die,which is probably the best memory chips(apart from Samsung E-die) if you want to get decent timings without mucking around too much:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-Bal...rs&sr=1-8&th=1

It's £64 so you are not paying any extra over the Corsair kits.

The B450 Gaming Plus is similar to the B450 Tomahawk so is a solid B450 motherboard. But if you want to save money or go mATX,the B450M Mortar Max has a decent VRM with a solid heatsink for around £71:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/29...board/MBD2689/

The CPU side VRM is similar between both motherboards but the Gaming Max has a heatsink on the SOC part of the VRM. I would also consider CCL Computers as the motherboards are cheaper on there:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/29...board/MBD2684/

Another good motherboard to consider is the B550M Bazooka:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/32...board/MBD2852/

Decent VRMs and decent heatsinks and you also get PCI-E 4.0 too. There is also this open box B550 PRO-A for £120:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/33...Box-/MBD2851X/



Edit!!

The Core i5 10400F lacks an IGP. Also CCL Computer is £10 cheaper for the B460 motherboard you listed:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/31...board/MBD2832/

The B460 chipset can't run DDR4 RAM above the rated maximum for the Core i5 10400F which is 2666MHZ IIRC.

[DanceswithUnix]

The Ryzen 3100 is a bit of an oddity, I would try and avoid that.

The 3600 is a nice chip, aim for that. If you need to keep costs down, get a B450 motherboard, you are unlikely to miss any B550 features. If you aren't gaming, then a 500GB SSD is probably enough, depending on size of files if you are video editing.

I have an Antec 300 case here. I've had lots of full sized and micro ATX motherboards in it, I wouldn't worry about compatibility. You sometimes have to move a support post if going from full to micro atx sized or back, so just check that the little brass supports line up with the holes in the board.

[Pob255]

It's so weird that intel is the better mid range cheap option.
I'm really looking at the i5 10400f too.

motherboards should comply with the standards so size and standoff placement, ATX, mATX and ITX are all fine.
Exceptions are that sometimes you'll find a listing for something that claims it's mATX or ITX when it's not (flexATX, DTX and miniDTX are the common ones here that get miss labelled mATX or ITX)
EATX is the other issue, because there's no 1 agreed standard for that, there's 2 or 3 different sizes that are referred to as EATX but we're not looking at these in this thread.

The bigger issue you'd run into with the old Antec 300 is the lack of cable management and very long video cards

The 3100 and 3300x actually would be great cpu's if you're not gaming (although they are generally ok for gaming) and you actually find one for a sane price . . . treat them like i3's that's what they basically are.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The OP kept their current build for a very long time - the Core i5 750 came out in 2009! I would really consider spending a bit extra on a B550 motherboard(OK,more like £50 if you compare a £70ish B450M Mortax Max and £120ish B550M Bazooka),because even if PCI-E 4.0 is not that important now,I suspect almost all SSDs and GPUs will use the standard in a few years time. Also the fact B550 will have support for more NVME drives,and generally better VRMs and VRM heatsinks.

Intel does seem better value,but the main issue is that the platforms are very short in lifespan. I think that is a consideration here if the OP rarely upgrades. AMD,OTH will probably support AM4 for longer(even though AM5 is probably out in 2022) and I think replacement motherboards will be available for longer with AM4 IMHO. Sure, Rocketlake will work with socket 1200,but I suspect they might try locking it to Z490? It was really silly of Intel to lock down RAM speeds on anything other than Z490 motherboards. So because of this the Core i5 10400F ends up being slower on a B460 motherboard when compared to a Ryzen 5 3600 on a B450/B550 motherboard,but with XMP its very competitive. Apparently Rocketlake B/H series motherboards might support XMP.

Personally the best value Intel SKU is actually the Core i3 10100F - even in a B/H series motherboard it's as fast(or faster) than a Ryzen 3 3100X in games whilst being much cheaper. The Ryzen 3 3100X is really not brilliant in games.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems Ebay are doing another 20% off promotion with certain retailers. The B450 Gaming Plus is available for £75 now:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-B450-...AAAOSwESRdg5nE

SN550 500GB for £50:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WD-Blue-S...sAAOSwSMZeDG-Y

[DanceswithUnix]

The OP kept their current build for a very long time - the Core i5 750 came out in 2009! I would really consider spending a bit extra on a B550 motherboard(OK,more like £50 if you compare a £70ish B450M Mortax Max and £120ish B550M Bazooka),because even if PCI-E 4.0 is not that important now,I suspect almost all SSDs and GPUs will use the standard in a few years time. Also the fact B550 will have support for more NVME drives,and generally better VRMs and VRM heatsinks.

Oh the B550 is a lovely upgrade if it is in budget, but the OP also has a GPU that was mid range when released in 2012 so I doubt there will be constant upgrading there. I haven't seen recent PCIe4 GPU tests, at what performance level do you start to see a benefit? Last I saw it only happened on a budget video card because there wasn't enough VRAM so the driver was constantly swapping textures onto the card. Get a card with enough ram on it, and it isn't such an issue.

As for the SSD, I'm typing this on my office machine with an NMVe SSD and it does indeed feel slightly faster than my home machine with the same CPU but a SATA SSD. Compile times are improved as well. But the difference isn't that big, not enough for me to be itching to upgrade the home PC any time soon. So that's a big "meh" to an improvement from 550MB/sec to 2000 MB/sec on storage and way better latency. The improvement from PCIe 3 to 4 on an SSD is going to be way less noticeable than this SATA to NVMe upgrade something that isn't impressing me that much.

So why get a B550 board? As newer boards they tend to have more up to date USB etc on them, and there is always the chance that AMD will drop a 6000 series CPU in the future and there is little chance they will give us that on B450.

So I'm thinking that a 3600 is a really big upgrade from an i5 750, so there is a good chance the OP won't care to upgrade for the next 10 years with that.

I would try and get the 3600CPU. Save money elsewhere to do it.
If there is budget left, get the 1TB SSD. Bigger is faster and just easier to live with.
If there is still money in the pot, a B550 motherboard buys a possible better upgrade path in the future.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Oh the B550 is a lovely upgrade if it is in budget, but the OP also has a GPU that was mid range when released in 2012 so I doubt there will be constant upgrading there. I haven't seen recent PCIe4 GPU tests, at what performance level do you start to see a benefit? Last I saw it only happened on a budget video card because there wasn't enough VRAM so the driver was constantly swapping textures onto the card. Get a card with enough ram on it, and it isn't such an issue.

As for the SSD, I'm typing this on my office machine with an NMVe SSD and it does indeed feel slightly faster than my home machine with the same CPU but a SATA SSD. Compile times are improved as well. But the difference isn't that big, not enough for me to be itching to upgrade the home PC any time soon. So that's a big "meh" to an improvement from 550MB/sec to 2000 MB/sec on storage and way better latency. The improvement from PCIe 3 to 4 on an SSD is going to be way less noticeable than this SATA to NVMe upgrade something that isn't impressing me that much.

So why get a B550 board? As newer boards they tend to have more up to date USB etc on them, and there is always the chance that AMD will drop a 6000 series CPU in the future and there is little chance they will give us that on B450.

So I'm thinking that a 3600 is a really big upgrade from an i5 750, so there is a good chance the OP won't care to upgrade for the next 10 years with that.

I would try and get the 3600CPU. Save money elsewhere to do it.
If there is budget left, get the 1TB SSD. Bigger is faster and just easier to live with.
If there is still money in the pot, a B550 motherboard buys a possible better upgrade path in the future.

I just feel the B550 is more flexible and the OP did get a P55 with their Core i5 750,which was a £120 motherboard in 2009:
https://bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/mo...-ud4-review/1/

So £120 on a motherboard in 2020,means they are getting a relatively cheaper one.

Personally the B450M Mortar for around £70 and the MSI B450 Gaming Pro on the Ebuyer Ebay store for £75 is the maximum I would pay for a B450 now. The B550 motherboards have now dropped in price and are better in every way.

Also another advantage of the B550 is its better support for multiple NVME drives,and I would expect PCI-E 4.0 to be the standard for M2 NVME SSDs in a few years. If they do video work on their desktop,I would think the B550 is worth the extra for the options it opens up.

The only reason I haven't suggested the best value B550 motherboard,ie,the B550M PRO VDH,is that even though it has excellent reviews,the customer reviews on Newegg hint it has problems,unlike other B550 motherboards. This is a shame as for £100 it ticks all the right boxes!

Edit!!

I was trying to price up a Ryzen 7 3700X with a decent B450 motherboard and it was still more expensive than a Ryzen 5 3600 with a B550 motherboard!

[DanceswithUnix]

So £120 on a motherboard in 2020,means they are getting a relatively cheaper one.

Bargain!

I supposed it depends on how hard that £500 budget is.

£190 3600 CPU
£68 550W PSU
£64 Ballistix 3200 RAM
£98 1TB WD Blue SSD
Motherboard?

£420 total

That's a nice system right there, add an RX570 and that's about the spec of the PC I have downstairs to drive the VR headset. But leaves £80 for the motherboard. A B450 board is quite possible for that money, but to hit B550 something has to be cut back which I think you would feel as a definite immediate loss vs a potential improvement should you want to upgrade in the future.

Extra NVMe on B550?? Well, if you choose carefully. The only B550 board I have in the house has a second M.2 slot that can do 2 lanes of PCIe 3, so twice the speed of SATA. Not the biggest win.
Same as one of these B450 Pro-4 full ATX boards (about 50p more than the micro ATX version), which would fill out an ATX case quite nicely:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-ATX-...dp/B07FVYKJHR/