Upgrade from ASUS Prime H310 Plus to ASUS TUF Z390-PRO GAMING

[Dee1971]

Hi guys/gals

Recently purchased a desktop/mid tower and like a newbie (out of gaming for thirty years) when I purchased it, I allowed myself to be talked into buying a different spec tower than the one I had previously reviewed, due to a more powerful processor, GPU and thinking the young chap who were throwing all these new terms at me knew what he was talking about and therefore I purchased this more expensive "gaming PC".

Okay so my problem is this, it came with a ASUS H310 Prime motherboard, which isn't exactly designed for a gaming at all, more for mass produced OEM's for office's etc etc.

So with that in mind, I'm looking to upgrade the motherboard, my current hardware is an RTX2070 GPU and a I7 9700F processer and playing through a 4K 50 inch screen TV. The power unit is a Corsair VS 550 power supply. I am no guru but after reviewing a number of boards I have decided on an ASUS TUF Z390-Pro Gaming, based on its user friendliness, much lower price than say the ROG XL or Godlike etc and its general positive reviews. (unless someone tells me otherwise). So I have two questions..

a. I notice the power supply on the H310 is 24 pin and 4 pin, as where the Z390 is a 24 pin and 8 pin. Does this mean my current supply will not work/or will it work with just the 4 pin connector?

b. Will the 550 power supply be enough power to run the board, i.e in regards to future proofing, upon adding possibly a second GPU in a couple of years, or more RAM banks, etc etc.

Computers have changed since my day of 128K ram, floppy disk and tape recorders, so please be gentle.
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated in the aid of turning my tower into what it should have had in the first instance.

Best regards

 

[Oussebon]

1) It's always best to get some advice on a forum - so you can get advice, and if it's poor advice, someone else will be able to read it and challenge it, or at least present different options. As well as any other advice you might get from sales staff. Or in the case of some people "a mate who knows about PCs"

2) Why upgrade the motherboard? What's the point? What does the motherboard fail to do that you want it to?
Replacing the mobo will probably void the warranty if it's a prebuilt system, and won't increase performance.
Overclocking's not an issue since you have a locked CPU anyway.

Don't throw good money in after bad. Just use the system as it stands, and keep your money for upgrades in 3-5 years. Or maybe longer.

3) Is this a system you bought from PC Specialist?

 

[Dee1971]

Hi,

Thanks for your comments/quick response. The tower was purchased via PC World, but after logging into my pc specialist account, they themselves recommend this MBoard as an office build, so did a little, then allot of research through different sources as the more I read the more it appeared to be graded very poorly and every recommendation I’ve read/watched say the same thing, it’s one of the cheapest 3000 series board on the market which grades below every board I’ve compared it to.

I have looked at going through upgrade my PC through pc specialist account but from what I see no option for upgrading the board.

Yeah certainly not wanting to void it’s warranty but feel like I was dooped based on it was sold as a mid/high gaming tower, which clearly it isn’t, so a little disappointed.

I’m hindsight, should have gone through its homepage and built from scratch but every days a school day.

The board itself, upto 266mhz ram, pcie 2.0, wireless not a.c which I do highly rely on as where I live has no broadband and it’s not SLI. Just little things like that which I’d a expected wouldn’t be on a gaming tower.

Yeah I was aware the i7F is a locked processor, I have no issues, I chose intel as from what I reviewed and used in laptops over the years, never had an issue.

If I did choose to upgrade, do pc specialist offer this option without affecting my warranty? As it’s either that or not at all.

Best regards

 

[ubuysa]

If I did choose to upgrade, do pc specialist offer this option without affecting my warranty? As it’s either that or not at all.

You'd have to ask them of course, but I'd be surprised if they did an upgrade and didn't warranty it.

I'm with Oussebon however, upgrading the motherboard is likely to be fairly expensive in terms of labour and testing time, it might be better to live with it for a couple of years and then buy new again, or try selling what you have and buying something else.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I think the point is, what features exactly would you use on a higher end motherboard?

SLI isn’t supported anymore by most games and those that do tend to suffer from micro stuttering etc. The general advice is to avoid sli like the plague.

You mention Wi-Fi, that wouldn’t be part of the board but an add on card and you could get any add on card you like and swap it out.

Up to 266mhz ram??? No board in the last 15 years has been that low, not sure what you’re referring to there.

PCIe 2 as well hasn’t been on boards for many years, not sure what you mean?

I don’t think you’re looking at the right board???

 

[Dee1971]

Please feel free to check.. yeah made a mistake with 266, clearly it’s upto 2666mhz but seen numerous complaints about the pcie 2.0

PRIME H310-PLUS｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

www.asus.com

Please correct me if required.

Thanks

 

[Shepard]

I have looked at going through upgrade my PC through pc specialist account but from what I see no option for upgrading the board.

Yeah certainly not wanting to void it’s warranty but feel like I was dooped based on it was sold as a mid/high gaming tower, which clearly it isn’t, so a little disappointed.

Hi there,
changing the motherboard will void your warranty. Same goes for Case, CPU and BIOS. Have a further look in our T&Cs, 7.7 till 7.10 As you haven't bought it directly from us, we're the manufacturer in this, you might have another kind of warranty with PC World. You'd have to ask them on that.

I would recommend to get back to PC World and get a refund. Then you build yourself the perfect system with the help of this forum and/or the staff from us.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Please feel free to check.. yeah made a mistake with 266, clearly it’s upto 2666mhz but seen numerous complaints about the pcie 2.0

PRIME H310-PLUS｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

www.asus.com

Please correct me if required.

Thanks

It’s pcie 3, pci 2 died about 15 years ago.

Whilst it is an entry level board, I think you’re basing your negatives on things that aren’t actually applicable to the board.

If you want cutting edge, then definitely return it, because it’s an entry level/mid range system.

You’ll no doubt get more for your money (and better support) through buying from PCS

 

[Oussebon]

1) The PCIe 2.0 thing:

1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 mode, gray)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
3 x PCI
- Asus

So the slot that the GPU goes into is 3.0 x16, which is what you want and exactly the same as on any ultra high end Intel Z390 board.

2) Just to check, is the motherboard definitely, definitely the PRIME H310-PLUS and not the TUF H310M-PLUS GAMING?

Reason I ask is that when PCS do builds for resale via PC World etc, they still tend to use their normal selection of components and I can't recall them ever using an ATX H310 board. Their cheaper mobos, whether Intel or AMD, always tend to be MATX.

Also the PCIe 2.0 issue makes me think the following:

3) Coming back to the PCIe 2.0 thing:
If it is, for instance, the H310M-PLUS as above, then there is a 'thing' with PCIe 2.0. Specifically the M.2 slot is:
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support(both PCIE 2.0 x4 & SATA mode)*1
This means if you used a 970 Evo Plus, or other very expensive high end NVme SSD, you'd be limiting the sequential read/write speeds to - I guess - somewhere between 1500 and 2000 MB/s instead of the upto ~3500 MB/s you can get those SSDs to do on a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. Though you'd still have a drive with very high IOPS. And if you were to buy a more modest PCIe / NVMe SSD like the SX6000, which is half the price of the likes of the Evo, you'd see much less of a performance loss as they're very fast, but not that fast.

And in any event, games won't really care. There's very little difference in loading speed between a 970 Evo Plus and any non-trash Sata SSD, and no difference in performance.

So while that's a valid complaint about H310 - the PCIe 2.0 M.2 slot - and is why I'd avoid them personally, it's not actually a problem for gaming performance.

NB: The PRIME H310-PLUS has a PCIe 3.0 M.2 slot, but it's x2 - which is the same speed as PCIe 2.0 x4*. So PCIe generation numbers aren't everything

4) What did you pay for it, and is returning still an option?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Sincerest apologies to OP, I didn't read the spec of the motherboard properly.... just couldn't imagine anyone would put PCIe 2 on a modern motherboard, it's just crazy. Not that it would necessarily decrease performance by a huge amount, just seems rediculously unnecessary and not something I would choose for a mobo platform either.

I would definitely return it if you're unhappy, come back and spec up a beastly AMD build with PCIe 4.

 

[Dee1971]

Hi,

Thanks for all advice and comments previously, when purchased. After taking on advice given I kept it as it was and actually it’s performed very well.

So I’ve returned to this thread as now looking at options for building one from scratch…. So I wonder, which board should I base it on. Not limited by cost.
Gaming machine in mind.

Thanks

 

[JUNI0R]

Hi,

Thanks for all advice and comments previously, when purchased. After taking on advice given I kept it as it was and actually it’s performed very well.

So I’ve returned to this thread as now looking at options for building one from scratch…. So I wonder, which board should I base it on. Not limited by cost.
Gaming machine in mind.

Thanks

Hi there, welcome back! When you say build, do you mean build yourself or have a machine built for you? As this is the forums for PCS, we can only advise on systems from them. If you're looking to self build, I'd recommend a post in Tom's Hardware or the LTT forums or r/buildapc as they're all open forums and would be able to help with anything. If you're looking at buying a build from PCS, we'd be happy to help!

 

[Dee1971]

..I’ve just realised the original format of this message, content and forum I’ve posted on. Thank you for the quick reply.

Regards