Upgrading my PC

17 Nov 2025 · CPU · RAM · Thermal Paste

I use a PC daily at home, ever since I can remember I've built them (read : stuck bits together) myself. The last time I built one for me was 2018. That was ages ago, recently I've started to notice she's a bit sluggish. I'm not a gamer, but I do like to tinker with photos & videos, there's usually a few hundred browser tabs open too.

The last one had a Ryzen 5 1600x, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and an RTX graphics card which was upgraded 18 months (or so) ago. The motherboard is an MSI 350 Tomahawk, it's fine for what I use it for and by keeping it I didn't need to faff about reactivating Windows!

I did a bit of googling and with a BIOS firmware update I could stick a Ryzen 7 5000 series CPU in. There are 2 of the 4 memory slots populated, so it was as simple as plugging in 2 more to go to 32GB. A plan was formed!

I've used Scan computers for decades, I remember when they were a cow shed outside of Bury, and now they have a royal warrant and a shiny showroom on Middlebrook retail park, so off I went to the website. I was originally going to go for a Ryzen 7 5600, an old processor, but way faster than the Ryzen 5 1600 I had in. I was on the page for the 5600 and at the bottom I saw the 5800, which although still old has a bit more umph and was cheaper than the 5600.

Add to basket.

RAM is horribly expensive at the minute, something to do with companies needing to drag more revenue in... regardless, 2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 modules.

Add to basket.

New bits — Ryzen 7 and 2 Vengeance 8GB modules.

As ever the whole Scan experience was spot on. Ordered what I wanted, and it arrived well packaged the following day. I shut the old girl down & broke out the vacuum cleaner. Lid off, vacuum on. 5 minutes later, the insides look fresh again. The steps I followed are below.

Step 7 & 9 will no doubt be contraversial, but it works for me. Another contraversial point will be the thermal paste I use. None of that fancy stuff they sell in IT shops, oh no. It's Servisol heatsink compound. I've used it for years and never had any problems. When I pulled the cooler off the CPU, it was still goo, it's been on it for 7+ years. I don't overclock the PC but it's on 24/7. I don't game on the PC, but it does work fairly hard every now and again. Anyway, back to my process.

Step 0. Update BIOS firmware.
Step 1. Clean up the dust.
Step 2. Remove the cooler.
Step 3. Disassemble the cooler vacuum the fans & brush & vacuum the heat sink & fins.
Step 4. Pull out the old CPU.
Step 5. Clean the old thermal paste from the cooler (and CPU).
Step 6. Drop in the new CPU.
Step 7. Apply new thermal paste.
Step 8. Apply cooler & squish it down well, don't do the clips though.
Step 9. Remove cooler & wipe away excess thermal paste.
Step 10. Stick new RAM sticks in.
Step 11. Re apply cooler, do the clips this time.
Step 12. Slide back under desk & power up.

Steps 8 & 9 deal with the arguments about how to apply paste and how much to apply. Stick some on in the middle, four dots and a blob. Step 8 smooshes the goo all over the die. Step 9 tells you if you've put enough / too much on and gives you chance to clean it up / apply more before it goes back under your desk.

The first boot takes a moment or two longer than usual as the new RAM is recognised, but seconds later you're staring at the Windows login page, unless you've done somthing wrong! As soon as I logged in I noticed the difference. Press enter after the password and boom, it's ready to go. Nice.

Before doing the upgrade I ran Cinebench and wrote down the figures. After the upgrade I ran Cinebench again and wrote down the results.

Test Type	Before upgrade	After upgrade
Cinebench Single-core	61 pts	96 pts
Cinebench Multi-core	382 pts	849 pts

I'm happy with the numbers, and the real world performance is instantly noticable. Much snappier to start programs, all in program lag has gone, rendering videos is about twice as fast as it was.

Happy me.

Temps are good too, that CoolerMaster cooler is doing stirling work, at idle the die sits at 38 - 40C and after 5 minutes of multi thread Cinebench it's 80 - 82C with a max of 86.4C. All well within the 'normal' range for the CPU.

Update 1: BIOS Tweaking

I've done some more tweaking, curve optimisation per core & under volting. Multicore Cinebench is 855, peak temps 71C after a multicore Cinebench run. Idle is 32 - 35C. Yeah baby!

Most important of all, the PC is still quiet.

The current cooler is locked in up/down orientation, ideally it would be left/right. I've also snapped off one of the fan mounting clips figuring out if I could flip it 90 degrees, which is annoying. I've looked for kits to rotate it but I'm struggling to find one, I've bitten another bullet and ordered a new water cooler. A decent air cooler was roughly the same price with the black friday deal I got. It should be cooler and quieter, when it arrives, I'll update the numbers. I've had to modify the case slightly to get the radiator to sit higher than the CPU. We'll find out when it gets here if it all fits in! Before I built this one I had a water cooler out the back of the old one, it was cool and quiet. We'll see what this new one is like.

Goodbye old friend

Sure, if I upgraded the motherboard then I could've got a newer, faster processor, DDR5 RAM. But I doubt I would notice much difference, and it would've turned what was a 10 minute job into a 2 hour job. I would've had to faff about re-activating windows, then formatting the drive and reinstalling everything, so it's now upto a 4 hour job. It would've also been significanly more expensive that this was. I'm still not sure I would've noticed more difference than I have.

With this round of new bits it's a bit like triggers broom, "it's had three new heads and two new handles".

Update 2: Water Cooler

I was woken up this morning by a knock on the door, it was DPD with the water cooler. I only ordered it yesterday, I did wonder if with it being December (probably their busy period, what with Christmas and all that) if DPD would get it in thier network and out of it as quickly as possible. Well my suspicion was correct. 0807 ding dong (me, having only gone to bed at 0330 "what the shizzle is that?") I came too and realised it was the door, I got dressed quickly and went down & was greeted by DPD man holding a box that was way bigger than I expected.

I went back to bed, hoping to snooze until 10ish, but knowing that the final piece of the upgrade jigsaw was in the office I couldn't. I got back dressed and cracked on.

I unpluged everything, took the old (and now with broken fan attachments) cooler off, cleaned the thermal paste off the CPU, and then unpacked everything. Good work be quiet! your instructions were clear and easy to follow, packing all the required bits in an Intel or AMD bag (depending on your CPU) is excellent work. I mounted the CPU bracket and held up the pump head, "that bit's gonna fit, now lets check the radiator with my case modification". I trimmed the optical drive bay to extend the radiator housing ensuring that the top of the radiator would be the highest part of the system, nobody wants a gurgling water cooler & a pump running dry. I spray pained my grinder handiwork when I finished (a grinder & paint, makes me the welder I aint), and now the paint has dried, you can't tell it was a hack job. BINGO, everything lines up and I've got 4 screws holding the radiator to the case.

It's a hack job if you look closely and yes, I could buy a new case, but there's no need, this one works just fine. The radiator is 140x317x27mm with a couple of 140mm fans, the block is 52mm thick. It's mounted on the front of the case using 4 existing fan mount holes, and everything lines up beautifully. The case face has also been trimmed, removing the stiffening bar that supported the optical drive bays. I forgot to do this yesterday, so it's still rough, needs the edges flattened back, but if I did that the project would be finished, and I don't often fully finish projects, so for now, it's a scratch risk. I also need to sort out an extended filter holder for it (see above about not fully finishing projects).

The Fans are powered by the CPU_Fan header on the board with a DIY Y cable, upon looking in the box properly there was a Y cable included, but I thought I had unpacked everything and couldn't find it so I made one, to be fair, the one I made is the perfect length, so it was a 15 minute side project that was well worth it. Anyway, the fan header means the motherboard can control the fans, so they're nice and quiet and get slightly louder when required.

The CPU block looks great in the case and has dramatically improved the airflow through the case. The pump is connected to the Pump header on the board all control is off, it's set to pump 100% the whole time. The pump is almost silent, and keeping water flowing round the circuit is all good.

The old cooler was creating a hotspot round the graphics card, nothing too naughty, but now it's significantly cooler. The hottest thing in the case now is the heat spreaders on the power caps. I'll get to them if they become a problem.

I've continued to tinker with the tune, couple of tweaks to the curve optimisation for each core, faffing with precision boost overdrive and some ram power & clock tweaks on the graphics card. The results are spot on.

Test Type	Before water	After water	Temp air	Temp water
Cinebench Single-core	61 pts	97 pts	62C	49.4C
Cinebench Multi-core	855 pts	866 pts	71C	54.9.7C
Cinebench Multi-core after more tweaking	N/A	915 pts	N/A	62.7C

The PBO increases temps a little, but well under what it was and cool as a cuccumber for a 5800X. Doing it kicks the score up by ~50 points, so well worth it for the grunt unlocked. To test things from graphics point of view I've been stressing it with MSI Kombustor. Results below.

Test Type	Score	FPS	GFX Power	GFX Temp
PhysX4 GPU – medium++ @2560x1440	4420 pts	247 FPS	78.803W	64C
PhysX4 GPU – medium++ 10 minute stress	N/A	~250 FPS	79W	64C

I'm delighted with the results. The computer feels lightning fast, Photochop, Premier & Resolve love the extra grunt. Video encoding is in a different league. I'm not really a gamer, but it's spitting out way more frames per second than it was before the water and second tweaking session. Everything happens instantly, zero lag, zero stutter and best of all the cooler is so quiet! When it's doing light stuff, it's essentially silent. After a 10 minute Cinebench test it's still whisper quiet. The cooler is awesome.

Below are the results from Geekbench, I didn't run it before so no before / after, but I have included the reference scores for a Ryzen 7 5800X. Happy tweaking.

Geekbench. — Geekbench Results & Reference Chip Score.

As ever I got the bits from scan.co.uk they arrived quickly, were exactly what I wanted, were well packed, and good prices. I was going to go to the shop to get the cooler, but I misread their opening hours, good job I double checked before I left the house! The 3XS support line is open until 1800 on Satdi, but the store closes at 1600. As discussed, DPD are busy right now, so as soon as they get a parcel, they want it delivered ASAP. I ordered the cooler at about half 5 on Satdi evening, it was in my hand at 0807 Sunday morning.