What and when to upgrade

[DeadnightWarrior]

Budget (including currency): 500€ or lower

Country: Italy

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Hogwars Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077 and future releases like Starfield; some light audio / video editing; office work; tinkering with multiple virtual machines.

Other details: current PC is: Ryzen 2400G, RX580 4Gb, 16Gb DDR4 3200, B350 mainboard. I have a 1080p display and no intention of swapping it for a long time.

 

My PC has been serving me very nicely for the last 4 years and counting. Athough I'm quite satisfied with it, I fear these newer games might bring it to its knees and that's why I'm thinking of an upgrade.
Being someone who tends to keep his machine for years, I'm considering moving to a next-gen platform but I also think prices are still way too high.

 

Right now in my country, prices for a hypothetical "cheap" AM5 build are as follows: 230€ for a Ryzen 5 7600, 180€ for a B650 board, 110€ for a 32Gb DDR5 dual channel kit. That's more than 500€ total and it's NOT CHEAP by my standards!
I'm not ruling Intel out but prices are not that much lower anyways.

 

I believe I have three choices here and I'd like your advice about them.

 

• 1) Swapping my CPU with a Ryzen 5 5600 and keep everything else.
  • PROs: AM4 CPUs are very affordable; no need to reinstall anything; a 5600 should perform significantly better than my 2400G; it would finally max out my RX580
  • CONs: I'd be stuck on a dead platform; keeping RAM and GPU could become a serious bottleneck but then again, if I decided to upgrade them, I'd rather swap the entire machine...
     
• 2) Upgrading the core components (MB, CPU, RAM) and sell my 2400G/B350/16Gb combo for hopefully around 150€.
  • PROs: new platform, new upgrade path, new features.
  • CONs: with this, the RX580 would REALLY be a bottleneck and I'd still be spending a substantial amount.
     
• 3) Building an entirely new PC and sell mine as-is for hopefully around 250 / 300 €.
  • PROs: it would be a shiny new machine, ça va sans dire!
  • CONs: way over budget and I guess I'd get less money for my complete rig than for its single parts (you can check every detail of my current build on my profile).

What would you do?

 

[Needfuldoer]

What specific motherboard do you have? From what I understand, Ryzen 5000 support on 300-series boards can be spotty.

 

IF your motherboard supports the Ryzen 5600, I'd get one of those and see how the GPU keeps up. It's probably going to hold you back a bit, but you should be able to swing a much newer midrange card and stay within budget.

 

It's not like AM4 is completely useless now that AM5 is out. (And Intel's probably going to change sockets next generation anyway, so it's not like their current platform is future-resistant either.)

[Fasauceome]

20 minutes ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

PROs: AM4 CPUs are very affordable; no need to reinstall anything; a 5600 should perform significantly better than my 2400G; it would finally max out my RX580

A Ryzen 7 5800X3D might be a good call, max out the platform. Otherwise, Ryzen 5000 series processors are far from disappointing with performance, while not being the newest generation they still pack quite a punch for gamers.

[will0hlep]

On that budget I'd choose option 1. You can always upgrade the GPU later, ram is unlikely to become your bottleneck before you come to replace the CPU again (imo) and as for not having an upgrade path, the only way to get that atm is AM5.

However, as @Needfuldoersays, check compatability of your motherboard and the 5600 first.

If it turns out that option 1 isn't an option, then upgrade cpu+mobo+ram or gpu depending on which needs the upgrade.

[HorseBattery]

I have a 5800X3D on a B350 motherboard. Definitely viable, as long as the VRMs are decent.

[DeadnightWarrior]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

What specific motherboard do you have? From what I understand, Ryzen 5000 support on 300-series boards can be spotty.

 

IF your motherboard supports the Ryzen 5600, I'd get one of those and see how the GPU keeps up. It's probably going to hold you back a bit, but you should be able to swing a much newer midrange card and stay within budget.

 

It's not like AM4 is completely useless now that AM5 is out. (And Intel's probably going to change sockets next generation anyway, so it's not like their current platform is future-resistant either.)

I have a Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming and it should support 5000 series with a BIOS update, according to the manufacturer:

[DeadnightWarrior]

56 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

A Ryzen 7 5800X3D might be a good call, max out the platform. Otherwise, Ryzen 5000 series processors are far from disappointing with performance, while not being the newest generation they still pack quite a punch for gamers.

I feel the 5800X3D is overkill for me, I usually play at 1080p medium / high and never looked for extreme fps counts... Of course, should I find one for a insanely low price, I'd take it in a heartbeat!

[HorseBattery]

That is the exact same motherboard I have.

[PDifolco]

38 minutes ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

I feel the 5800X3D is overkill for me, I usually play at 1080p medium / high and never looked for extreme fps counts... Of course, should I find one for a insanely low price, I'd take it in a hearbeat!

Thing is the 5800X3D is especially good for 1080p gaming, less for higher res

But really pairing that with a RX580 is kinda wasteful

Really with 500EUR + maybe 250 for your rig you'll be a bit short for a new rig if you want to play HL and CP2077 comfortably...

But if you can up the budget to 550EUR you can get a 5600 and a 6650XT (faster than a 3060, double perf from your 580), that would be a good combo

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (€159.13 @ Amazon Italia) 
Video Card: XFX Speedster MERC 308 Black Radeon RX 6650 XT 8 GB Video Card  (€387.15 @ Amazon Italia) 
Total: €546.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-02-15 13:12 CET+0100

 

[DeadnightWarrior]

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

Thing is the 5800X3D is especially good for 1080p gaming, less for higher res

But really pairing that with a RX580 is kinda wasteful

Really with 500EUR + maybe 250 for your rig you'll be a bit short for a new rig if you want to play HL and CP2077 comfortably...

But if you can up the budget to 550EUR you can get a 5600 and a 6650XT (faster than a 3060, double perf from your 580), that would be a good combo

I was actually targeting the RX6600 "non XT" (i.e. this model) which should be a lot faster than the 580.
The games I usually play are quite slow paced, so I don't care if I don't always hit 60+ fps, as long as it isn't a stuttery mess.