Is it worth waiting for the AM5 release to upgrade?

[Tamoker]

Budget (including currency): £400/$400

Country: US/UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Paradox Grand Strategy games, modded Skyrim, as many AAAs as possible (Assassin's Creed, GTA, etc.)

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): Already have a 1060 6GB that I'm keeping from a previous build. All other parts are too old to keep. No peripherals needed, 1080p.

 

Hey guys! I'm looking at upgrading my computer, coming up from an AMD FX-6300 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM and I'm my budget is as low as possible haha. In reality we're looking at around £400 for the upgrade.

Is it worth waiting for September for the AM5 and DDR5 release in the hopes that AM4 and DDR4 stuff will drop in price or is that just wishful thinking?

I have a 1060 6GB that I'm keeping to my new system and basically getting the rest new, I'm probably keeping my case too. So I was looking at a Ryzen 5 5600X and an MSI B450 Tomahawk with 16GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 RAM. Basically the top bang for the buck stuff on PC Part Picker lol and all this comes to $400 which is almost perfect.

EDIT: I'm now looking at the i5-12400F as well as that seems great bang for the buck for similar performance.

 

I live in the UK so would be buying GBP ordinarily but I'm in the US at the moment till the end of August so I'm also in a position to buy stuff here and take it with me if that's cheaper.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

[Ryuikko]

Case and psu is definitely in question as well. Do you have a solution to either of those? If so consider this instead

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NpM8Q6

This will perfrom similarly to the 5600x while being cheaper

[RONOTHAN##]

10 minutes ago, Tamoker said:

So I was looking at a Ryzen 5 5600X and an MSI B450 Tomahawk with 16GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 RAM. Basically the top bang for the buck stuff on PC Part Picker lol and all this comes to $400 which is almost perfect.

You can save ~$80 while not losing any performance by going Intel and a cheaper kit of RAM - https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NpM8Q6

 

If you're gonna be buying last gen stuff anyway, I'd just buy now. Yes, prices on last gen stuff will eventually drop, though odds are AM4 boards and CPUs won't really drop until October or November at the earliest, and DDR4 is pretty much as low as it's gonna get at this point. You'll be waiting a while and realistically the $40-50 you'd save isn't worth the extra ~4-5 months of using an FX system. 

[Tamoker]

6 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

Case and psu is definitely in question as well. Do you have a solution to either of those? If so consider this instead

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NpM8Q6

This will perfrom similarly to the 5600x while being cheaper

I just saw the 12400F and have pretty much landed on it rather than the 5600X, thanks! I'm planning to keep my case as I'd only get rid of it if I was flipping the pc wholemeal but I wouldn't really wanna sell on an FX system anyway haha. As for the PSU that will need replacing as my current one works, but has bad bearings. That said, I reckon it'll last a while longer so I'm happy to hold off on replacing.

[svmlegacy]

It will be a moderate amount of time before AM5 is budget friendly.

[WereCat]

While £400 is a lot of money for CPU upgrade, when AM5 releases I doubt you will fit anything in that budget.

The motherboards will be reallt expensive at launch, DDR5 is still very expensive and you also have to fit a CPU in there somewhere which is at the very least half of that budget... likely way more.

 

i5 12400f is a lot better option if you don't want to wait or spend more money

[Tamoker]

10 minutes ago, WereCat said:

While £400 is a lot of money for CPU upgrade, when AM5 releases I doubt you will fit anything in that budget.

The motherboards will be reallt expensive at launch, DDR5 is still very expensive and you also have to fit a CPU in there somewhere which is at the very least half of that budget... likely way more.

 

i5 12400f is a lot better option if you don't want to wait or spend more money

Oh I'm definitely not going for AM5, way to expensive for me. I meant more just using the release of AM5 as an opportunity to see if AM4 would get cheaper. The plan has always been to stick to something AM4, or as it seems, current gen Intel.