Should I upgrade my CPU from a Ryzen 7 3800x to a AMD Ryzen 9 5900x?

[DriedSponge]

Hi there,

I was thinking about upgrading the CPU in my computer. I currently have an AMD Ryzen 7 3800X, but I've been looking at upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. I'm just looking for any comments/opinions before I pull the trigger.

I was also wondering if I should upgrade my motherboard as well? I currently have a MSI B450 Tomahawk, and I've been looking at getting a B550. Would this make any significant difference?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Eigenvektor]

What's your use case? E.g. if you're just gaming there's no point in 12 cores over 8 core. You'd get more out of a 5800x3D. B550 could make sense, if you need PCIe 4.0.

[NF-A12x25]

Another rec for 5800x3D. Better buy. If you REALLY want pcie 4.0 it could be a good idea to go b550 but your motherboard is fine for the 5800x3D. PCIe 4.0 isn’t currently an advantage in anything, but it will become one in the future with directstorage. I recommend upgrading CPU to 5800x3D now and upgrading to b550 or x570 in a few years for that 4.0 support.

[DriedSponge]

11 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

What's your use case? E.g. if you're just gaming there's no point in 12 cores over 8 core. You'd get more out of a 5800x3D. B550 could make sense, if you need PCIe 4.0.

I mostly program. I also game but not as much as I used to.

5 minutes ago, NF-A12x25 said:

Another rec for 5800x3D. Better buy. If you REALLY want pcie 4.0 it could be a good idea to go b550 but your motherboard is fine for the 5800x3D. PCIe 4.0 isn’t currently an advantage in anything, but it will become one in the future with directstorage. I recommend upgrading CPU to 5800x3D now and upgrading to b550 or x570 in a few years for that 4.0 support.

Alright I'll take a look at the 5800x3D. Thank you!

[NF-A12x25]

6 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

Alright I'll take a look at the 5800x3D. Thank you!

 

6 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

I mostly program. I also game but not as much as I used to.

That changes things. I would upgrade to a 5950x, programming is something that wants more cores over more cache. For programming and gaming together but more programming, between the 5900x and 5800x3D i would pick the 5800x3D, but throw the 5950x in and I’d pick that.

[Eigenvektor]

3 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

I mostly program. I also game but not as much as I used to.

The 5900x is better for productivity, but of course programming can mean a lot of different things. If you work with big projects that have long compile times and a compiler able to multi-thread well, then 12 cores might be wort it.

[DriedSponge]

9 minutes ago, NF-A12x25 said:

 

That changes things. I would upgrade to a 5950x, programming is something that wants more cores over more cache.

This is good to know.

 

7 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

The 5900x is better for productivity, but of course programming can mean a lot of different things. If you work with big projects that have long compile times and a compiler able to multi-thread well, then 12 cores might be wort it.

Yeah I mostly work with stuff that requires docker containers.

[Eigenvektor]

1 minute ago, DriedSponge said:

Yeah I mostly work with stuff that requires docker containers.

I'd say this requires a healthy amount of RAM first, a CPU with many cores second. So yeah, a 5900x or even a 5950x should be a good upgrade. I have a 5900x and 32 GB of RAM and it makes a difference when compiling large Java projects, working with Docker containers and the occasional VM (or all of that at once).

 

B550 can make sense if you're frequently bound by storage, since you could then use a PCIe 4.0 NVMe. But in many cases the difference isn't noticeable outside of benchmarks.

[Bombastinator]

I’m going to go with “for gaming? no”.  

why.  If anyone cares.

Spoiler

Going for pcie4 gets complicated fast.  Motherboard and cpu are both needed.   A 3800x is 8/16 and faster by a comfortable enough margin than the ps5/XboxX to make it not matter.  The only case where more cores might have value is some type of usually enterprise stuff.  Complicated spreadsheets or some kind of arts stuff.  The bottleneck on the system for gaming is the GPU or the monitor.

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

5900x or 5950x is a viable upgrade, youd want more ram also, b550 maybe if you are bound by storage but at that point you may aswell go straight to ryzen 7000 or 13th gen if you are already swapping the board since i think the 13600k matches the 5950x in multicore and obviously crushes it in singlecore

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

5900x or 5950x is a viable upgrade, youd want more ram also, b550 maybe if you are bound by storage but at that point you may aswell go straight to ryzen 7000 or 13th gen if you are already swapping the board since i think the 13600k matches the 5950x in multicore and obviously crushes it in singlecore

Ecores start being interesting when gaming is left out.  Some stuff just doesn’t run on them, but if it does ecores can get real real interesting.  Ecores have big problems with real-time stuff because they’re more laggy than pcores.  If you’re not doing that though all of a sudden a 13600k is a 20 core chip.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Bombastinator

[DriedSponge]

25 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

I'd say this requires a healthy amount of RAM first, a CPU with many cores second. So yeah, a 5900x or even a 5950x should be a good upgrade. I have a 5900x and 32 GB of RAM and it makes a difference when compiling large Java projects, working with Docker containers and the occasional VM (or all of that at once).

 

B550 can make sense if you're frequently bound by storage, since you could then use a PCIe 4.0 NVMe. But in many cases the difference isn't noticeable outside of benchmarks.

Yes I currently have 32GB of ram so I should be good in that department. I think either 5900x or the 5950x would be perfect.

 

[DriedSponge]

43 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

5900x or 5950x is a viable upgrade, youd want more ram also, b550 maybe if you are bound by storage but at that point you may aswell go straight to ryzen 7000 or 13th gen if you are already swapping the board since i think the 13600k matches the 5950x in multicore and obviously crushes it in singlecore

Wouldn't upgrading to a 7000 series be way more expensive? Doesn't the 7000 series only support DDR5?

[Somerandomtechyboi]

6 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

Wouldn't upgrading to a 7000 series be way more expensive? Doesn't the 7000 series only support DDR5?

Yea am5 is expensive but 13th gen isnt really that expensive since you can still use existing ddr4 and z690 chipsets so if you can use the ecores then may aswell go 13th gen if you are swapping the board

[DriedSponge]

39 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Yea am5 is expensive but 13th gen isnt really that expensive since you can still use existing ddr4 and z690 chipsets so if you can use the ecores then may aswell go 13th gen if you are swapping the board

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into intel to see what they offer.

[191x7]

2 hours ago, DriedSponge said:

I currently have an AMD Ryzen 7 3800X, but I've been looking at upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. 

I was also wondering if I should upgrade my motherboard as well? I currently have a MSI B450 Tomahawk, and I've been looking at getting a B550. Would this make any significant difference?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Is it a Tomahawk B450 or a Tomahawk Max or a Tomahawk Max II?

Running the latest BIOS? 

 

Although the B450 Tomahawk boards have good VRM-s for B450 boards, they might not be the best choice for a 5900X which is the highest drawing AM4 CPU.

 

Have you considered the 5700X?

[DriedSponge]

6 hours ago, 191x7 said:

 

Is it a Tomahawk B450 or a Tomahawk Max or a Tomahawk Max II?

Running the latest BIOS? 

 

Although the B450 Tomahawk boards have good VRM-s for B450 boards, they might not be the best choice for a 5900X which is the highest drawing AM4 CPU.

 

Have you considered the 5700X?

It's a Tomahawk B450 MAX. I have not yet considered the 5700x.

[DriedSponge]

7 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Yea am5 is expensive but 13th gen isnt really that expensive since you can still use existing ddr4 and z690 chipsets so if you can use the ecores then may aswell go 13th gen if you are swapping the board

That's a good point. What's the difference between a 13600K and a 13600KF? Also what exactly are E cores? Sorry I'm not as familiar with intel CPUs.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, DriedSponge said:

That's a good point. What's the difference between a 13600K and a 13600KF? Also what exactly are E cores? Sorry I'm not as familiar with intel CPUs.

KF means it overclocks but the iGPU has been lasered out.  One weirdness about KF chips is because they’re supposed to be cheaper they are preferred by people that already have dGPUs but it creates higher demand, so the KF can cost more than a K.  The 12600 had no ecores but the 12600k did.  The 13600 may have ecores.  If it does it’s a 13600k that doesn’t overclock. Ecores are single threaded CPUs that are much more energy efficient than pcores and cannot multithread which is why I said 20 cores.  20 ecores. So 6 pcores and 8 ecores. 6/12 gaming and 20 threads if the given app runs on ecores

13600F may be the cheapest way to get ecores then.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Bombastinator

[191x7]

P (performance) cores = modern high end cores that support hyperthreading.

E (efficiency) cores = weaker cores that draw less power and don't have hyperthreading, their performance is close to a few generation older cpu cores.

CPU-s with P and E cores are great for productivity, but E cores aren't that good for gaming.

[QuantumSingularity]

If most of what you do is productivity workloads, then the 5900X makes more sense than the 5800X3D. The X3D is extremely good for gaming, but falls behind even from the regular 5800X in most productivity scenarios. As for the Mobo, i'm also looking to snipe down a good offer on a B550 Steel Legend mobo. PCIe 4.0 is cool for fast storage and getting rid of mechanical drives.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, QuantumSingularity said:

If most of what you do is productivity workloads, then the 5900X makes more sense than the 5800X3D. The X3D is extremely good for gaming, but falls behind even from the regular 5800X in most productivity scenarios. As for the Mobo, i'm also looking to snipe down a good offer on a B550 Steel Legend mobo. PCIe 4.0 is cool for fast storage and getting rid of mechanical drives.

I was seeing a thing where ai seems to be all about vram.  I wonder if 5800x3d is good at that too?  AI wasn’t mentioned as a use case that I saw, but it might be a consideration.  Also a 3900 has as many cores but I think uses less power than a 5900.  Dunno if that makes a difference or not.  3950s become possible as well.  I don’t know what they go for though.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Bombastinator

[DriedSponge]

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

KF means it overclocks but the iGPU has been lasered out.  One weirdness about KF chips is because they’re supposed to be cheaper they are preferred by people that already have dGPUs but it creates higher demand, so the KF can cost more than a K.  The 12600 had no ecores but the 12600k did.  The 13600 may have ecores.  If it does it’s a 13600k that doesn’t overclock. Ecores are single threaded CPUs that are much more energy efficient than pcores and cannot multithread which is why I said 20 cores.  20 ecores. So 6 pcores and 8 ecores. 6/12 gaming and 20 threads if the given app runs on ecores

13600F may be the cheapest way to get ecores then.

 Is there a benefit to getting a CPU without integrated graphics, other than cost?

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

 Is there a benefit to getting a CPU without integrated graphics, other than cost?

Nope.  Sometimes there are even problems.  The 5600g is an exception because they also changed the way the pcie works with that one for the worse, which is why it’s cheaper. 8/8 pcie3 only. It Caps the max level of dgpu that can be used by halving the number of pcie lanes that can be accessed to 8. The 2080ti was the first card that could more than saturate 8 lanes of pcie.  So low end cards basically aren’t affected unless like the AMD cards below 6 (6400, 5500, etc) that really need the bandwidth of pcie4 to operate correctly because their 16 pin combs are a lie.  If you’re not GOING to use a dGPU in the first place this doesn’t matter.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Bombastinator

[DriedSponge]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Nope.  Sometimes there are even problems.  The 5600g is an exception because they also changed the way the pcie works with that one for the worse, which is why it’s cheaper. 8/8 pcie3 only. It Caps the max level of dgpu that can be used by halving the number of pcie lanes that can be accessed to 8. The 2080ti was the first card that could more than saturate 8 lanes of pcie.  So low end cards basically aren’t affected unless like the AMD cards below 6 (6400, 5500, etc) that really need the bandwidth of pcie4 to operate correctly because their 16 pin combs are a lie.  If you’re not GOING to use a dGPU in the first place this doesn’t matter.

Alright this is good information to know, I really appreciate it!

After reviewing my options, I think I'm going to go for a MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK with either a 5900 or a 5950x. I'm not an expert but either CPU should be an upgrade over my 3800x.