Upgrade options left?

[steelo]

Hi everyone,

 

I am curious if my current MB has any upgrade room left. I do know it is a very low-end MB but it has served me well for the past 3 years. I'm usually at least 1-2 gens behind when it comes to CPU's as I seldom game and don't require the 'latest and greatest' I was thinking of upgrading the CPU to a Ryzen 5 3600, which I don't believe is listed on ASRock's compatiblility chart.

 

 

ASRock B450M HDV 

Ryzen 5 1600 AF overclocked to 4.0ghz

16GB DDR4 2800mhz RAM

RX5700 (Non XT)

500W EVGA PSU

Gigabyte 240GB SSD

Seagate 500 GB HDD

 

 

[IkeaGnome]

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450M-HDV/index.asp#CPU

You could go up to 5xxx series with a BIOS update on that board.

That being said, it's got tier E VRMs. Looks like the gurus are saying a 5600x is about as much as you'd want to put on that board. 3600 would work. 

 

[steelo]

16 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450M-HDV/index.asp#CPU

You could go up to 5xxx series with a BIOS update on that board.

That being said, it's got tier E VRMs. Looks like the gurus are saying a 5600x is about as much as you'd want to put on that board. 3600 would work. 

 

Thank you, I didn't even think to check the VRM list on here. It also looks like ASRock has updated their CPU list from the last time I checked. I'm really surprised they support 5x series....

[Radium_Angel]

I see a lot of room for upgrades, depending on money etc.

Bigger SSD, more RAM, CPU seems to be supported as well

[Jurrunio]

Also that PSU, not aware of EVGA making great 500w units. What model is that?

[steelo]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Also that PSU, not aware of EVGA making great 500w units. What model is that?

Hi Jurrunio,

 

I believe it is a evga br-100 500W if I recall correctly. I would definitely upgrade that before adding new hardware.

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

Thank you, I didn't even think to check the VRM list on here.

If it was me and prices are very similar where you are at between the 3600 and 5600x, the 5600x is a no brainer.

2800 mhz will do fine for it, but it also leaves room for a small RAM upgrade to 3600 later. Even with not requiring the latest and greatest, the jump from a 3600 to a 5600x is not much to joke about. I do agree with @Radium_Angelabout the SSD as well. That board supports a m.2. If it was me, this is probably what I would call "end game" on that board with the parts you currently have. 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($284.00 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($87.89 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($68.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $530.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-01-14 12:09 EST-0500

[steelo]

5 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

If it was me and prices are very similar where you are at between the 3600 and 5600x, the 5600x is a no brainer.

2800 mhz will do fine for it, but it also leaves room for a small RAM upgrade to 3600 later. Even with not requiring the latest and greatest, the jump from a 3600 to a 5600x is not much to joke about. I do agree with @Radium_Angelabout the SSD as well. That board supports a m.2. If it was me, this is probably what I would call "end game" on that board with the parts you currently have. 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($284.00 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($87.89 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($68.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $530.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-01-14 12:09 EST-0500

Awesome sauce. Thank you, very informative!

[Queen Chrysalis]

With that CPU/GPU combo you should be totally fine for a while  TBH your next upgrade will likely not be on AM4, so I would just keep the MoBo you have now.  I've never thought it worth upgrading a CPU until were looking at doubling performance and having a faster GPU that needs it. 

 

Open a resource monitor while you are gaming.  CPU speed is still way ahead of most GPU speed for gaming.  That 1600 is likely doing everything it needs to and probably still has headroom, while the 5700 is probably being close to fully utilized.  That being said, I wouldn't upgrade the 5700 either as that is what both the Series X and PS5 have, and games are currently being optimized to run and look really good on that.  

30 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

If it was me and prices are very similar where you are at between the 3600 and 5600x, the 5600x is a no brainer.

2800 mhz will do fine for it, but it also leaves room for a small RAM upgrade to 3600 later. Even with not requiring the latest and greatest, the jump from a 3600 to a 5600x is not much to joke about. I do agree with @Radium_Angelabout the SSD as well. That board supports a m.2. If it was me, this is probably what I would call "end game" on that board with the parts you currently have. 

 

With a 5700 upgrading from zen 1 to zen 2/3 will not give any real framerate improvements (one's that you could actually see) and most areas where the game isn't quite running at the refresh rate of your monitor are almost certainly bottlenecking a the GPU or could be resolved by changing a setting or to to high or medium instead of ultra (which again, you probably would never really be able to see).

 

2800mhz to 3200 mhz RAM will literally make 0 difference on Zen 1.

 

Sorry to say but you really shouldn't upgrade anything, unless you wanna get a better PSU, in which case I'd get a tier 1 850 if you can swing it, as new cards all want hella watts, and you can use those for a while.  Don't focus on your hardware, just enjoy gaming bliss and save your money.  Or if you got a wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket get a new mouse / keyboard / gamepad / headset / speakers / chair / etc...  Those will actually make a noticeable difference in your gaming experience

[steelo]

4 hours ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

With that CPU/GPU combo you should be totally fine for a while  TBH your next upgrade will likely not be on AM4, so I would just keep the MoBo you have now.  I've never thought it worth upgrading a CPU until were looking at doubling performance and having a faster GPU that needs it. 

 

Open a resource monitor while you are gaming.  CPU speed is still way ahead of most GPU speed for gaming.  That 1600 is likely doing everything it needs to and probably still has headroom, while the 5700 is probably being close to fully utilized.  That being said, I wouldn't upgrade the 5700 either as that is what both the Series X and PS5 have, and games are currently being optimized to run and look really good on that.  

With a 5700 upgrading from zen 1 to zen 2/3 will not give any real framerate improvements (one's that you could actually see) and most areas where the game isn't quite running at the refresh rate of your monitor are almost certainly bottlenecking a the GPU or could be resolved by changing a setting or to to high or medium instead of ultra (which again, you probably would never really be able to see).

 

2800mhz to 3200 mhz RAM will literally make 0 difference on Zen 1.

 

Sorry to say but you really shouldn't upgrade anything, unless you wanna get a better PSU, in which case I'd get a tier 1 850 if you can swing it, as new cards all want hella watts, and you can use those for a while.  Don't focus on your hardware, just enjoy gaming bliss and save your money.  Or if you got a wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket get a new mouse / keyboard / gamepad / headset / speakers / chair / etc...  Those will actually make a noticeable difference in your gaming experience

Oh yeah, I completely agree. The most cpu/gpu intensive games I play are Witcher 3, SW battlefront 2 and Star trek bridge crew for VR. All run absolutely fine on high (1080p) settings. I don't plan on upgrading any components anytime soon. I was just curious how much upgrading headroom I have in a year or so when my hardware no longer meets the recommended requirements of new AAA games I want to try. I would love a 2k or 4k monitor sometime in the future when prices become more sane. I'll probably just do a completely new build in a year or two.

 

Thank you everyone, you've all been more than helpful!