Upgrading my build

[Austin.F]

Budget (including currency): 170

Country: USA 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: gaming 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

I built me a system a few months ago and was looking to upgrade it. I have a asus B550f Wi-Fi 2 and a rx 580 8g, 5700g, 2x8g sticks of ram at 2666, 1tb m.2 ssd and AMD stock cooler. I was wondering if I should upgrade my ram or my cpu cooler?

[RONOTHAN##]

What I would personally do would be to save your money until you can get a better GPU. The stock cooler for the 5700G is more than adequate, so it's not really worth upgrading. Faster memory would definitely help a bit, but RAM overclocking is free and depending on the exact sticks you've got, getting some fairly impressive speeds out of it isn't out of the question. 

[CKilburn]

Ram is super cheap right now and you could see maybe a 10% uplift in performance moving to 3200 MHz memory. The 5700g is fine under the AMD stock cooler, but if you want to upgrade it for aesthetics, you may also get a bit of a performance boost.

 

However, your CPU is already way better relative to your graphics card. I say keep that money and save some more for when RDNA3 and the RTX 40 series cards release their mid-range parts.

[Austin.F]

Thanks for your help

If I was to upgrade my gpu which one would be the best for playing 1440p? 

 

[CKilburn]

Right now, something 3070 or 6700 XT and up would be recommended for a really solid 1440p experience. So when the new cards launch, RTX 4070 or 7700 XT.

 

Of course, rumors are pointing towards the next generation cards being a lot more powerful, so something like an 4060 or 6700 XT might be enough at that point.

 

Regardless, it's not the time to buy a card with new ones so close on the horizon. Keep an eye out for when pricing and performance is more clearly defined.

[CKilburn]

Also, what card to purchase totally depends on what games you play. So those recommendations are for AAA gaming.