CPU+Mobo Upgrade

[nick25]

Budget (including currency): around 500 EUR would be ideal, but can go higher if necessary, let me treat myself

Country: Italy

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: mainly RTS, Cities Skylines, Anno 1800, Assassin's Creed, and occasionally FPS

Other details: I do have an RTX2060 and a decent 550W PSU that I am going to keep. 1440p monitor

 

Hello everyone, I have been out of the loop for some time now and I have literally no idea what CPU is the best on the market at the moment.

After 8 years of worthy service, I believe it is finally time to retire my poor i5 4570 and do a well-deserved upgrade. As mentioned, I do have already a decent GPU, PSU and case to use. What I would like is a piece of advice on which CPU/Motherboard to pair. AMD seems more compelling than Intel to me, but I am unsure whether I should shell out more for a new Zen 4 CPU or a new (used perhaps?) Zen 3 instead. Similarly, if I should buy something that supports DDR5 and has Pcie 5.0 or not.

I will be using the PC exclusively for gaming and home/office stuff, primarily on a 1440p monitor, although I have tried to game at 4k with some older titles (with limited success).

I am not in any particular hurry to do the upgrade if it is worth waiting for the launch of new cpus

 

Thanks

 

[Tetras]

If you want AM5, then you could look at a Ryzen 7500F bundle (if available in your country).

 

At the lower-end: a 5600 or 12400 would fit in your budget (their performance is very similar) and are both decent upgrades on an i5-4570.

 

For black friday, it is possible that the 12600K will be discounted heavily again, which can be paired with B660/Z690 or newer (which also get big discounts sometimes).

 

18 minutes ago, nick25 said:

should shell out more for a new Zen 4 CPU or a new (used perhaps?) Zen 3 instead

I'd say it depends on two things:

1. How likely are you to upgrade the CPU in the future?
2. How likely are you to upgrade the GPU in the future?

If you're content with what GPU you have (2060), then a Zen 3 5 or 7 is fine.

 

If you plan to upgrade the GPU in the near future (especially if you'd like to try 4K gaming), then a decent CPU is a good idea.

 

If you plan to upgrade the CPU in a year or two, then go AM5.

 

18 minutes ago, nick25 said:

Similarly, if I should buy something that supports DDR5 and has Pcie 5.0 or not.

PCI-E 4.0 graphics cards with 16 or 8 lanes lose very little performance in a PCI-E 3.0 motherboard (usually a few percent, on average, except for some edge cases), while storage is very rarely a significant bottleneck in a gaming PC.

 

Getting PCI-E 5.0 graphics and at least one PCIE 5.0 SSD is likely to increase the minimum cost of your motherboard by quite a lot, which is going to have an impact on the cooler, CPU and RAM you can buy.

 

DDR5: you can get pretty affordable DDR5 boards for both AM5 and 1700 and the price has come down a lot, so it is your call. Personally, I'd make the decision based on what the best bundle I can get. If it means I get a nice CPU and motherboard, then I'd accept DDR4, but otherwise...

[chtorogu]

8 hours ago, nick25 said:

Budget (including currency): around 500 EUR would be ideal, but can go higher if necessary, let me treat myself

Country: Italy

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: mainly RTS, Cities Skylines, Anno 1800, Assassin's Creed, and occasionally FPS

Other details: I do have an RTX2060 and a decent 550W PSU that I am going to keep. 1440p monitor

 

Hello everyone, I have been out of the loop for some time now and I have literally no idea what CPU is the best on the market at the moment.

After 8 years of worthy service, I believe it is finally time to retire my poor i5 4570 and do a well-deserved upgrade. As mentioned, I do have already a decent GPU, PSU and case to use. What I would like is a piece of advice on which CPU/Motherboard to pair. AMD seems more compelling than Intel to me, but I am unsure whether I should shell out more for a new Zen 4 CPU or a new (used perhaps?) Zen 3 instead. Similarly, if I should buy something that supports DDR5 and has Pcie 5.0 or not.

I will be using the PC exclusively for gaming and home/office stuff, primarily on a 1440p monitor, although I have tried to game at 4k with some older titles (with limited success).

I am not in any particular hurry to do the upgrade if it is worth waiting for the launch of new cpus

 

Thanks

 

I recently upgraded to Ryzen 3700X and 2600 (two systems) from basically the same platform and CPU as you and the experience is wonderful. I notice improvements in just about everything. For gaming my RX 580s hold the Ryzens back from performing great in newer games but for a bit older ones the experience is transformed. Whereas before I would have frame stutters in busy or complex areas in games like Red Dead 2 or Rise/Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it's now silky smooth all the time. Additionally the system feels way more responsive and snappy. There's minor improvements in speed and fluidity of everything which together adds up to a lot. I've also noticed that the audio quality is improved.

 

Coming from such an old and outdated platform, you don't need to upgrade to any of the latest to experience a massive improvement. Going to Ryzen 5 or 7 of the 2000 or 3000 series will be more than enough.

 

I'd advise you to get a new motherboard and a used CPU. Just be sure to have good buyer protection in case you get stiffed with one with bent pins or otherwise faulty. To ensure compatibility out of the box you should go for the B450 chipset for 2000 series and B550 chipset for 3000 series. If you get a board that turns out not to be compatible out of the box it's a pain to correct as you'd need a different CPU to do update. Also, you can't be sure that claims of out of the box compatibility of newer CPUs on B450 are actually true. I got an Asus Prime B450 board that advertised compatibility with 3000 series on the box but my 3700X did not work on it. It works fine on the B550 board I got to replace it.

 

Also, don't go for the very cheapest boards but rather try to go at least 30% up in price from those. If you get a Ryzen 7 you should get a higher end board to make sure it can handle it. It doesn't have to be high end though, something in the $150 price range should do fine.

 

You should probably get a new PSU too, depending on the quality of your current one. What's the brand and model of yours?

 

Good luck with your build.

[nick25]

Apologies for the late reply.

 

Thanks to both of you, after reading your input, I am leaning more towards an AM5 build to have the ability to upgrade the CPU in the future without replacing MoBo and ram again. My thought is to upgrade in the near-ish future the GPU, and then once the AM5 socket approaches the end of its (hopefully long) life I will change the processor again. The only thing that can make me change my mind is if I find a decent used bundle of a previous gen Ryzen or 12-13th Intel for very cheap, like around 220 EUR for CPU, RAM and MOBO. I know it's cheaper than going for AM5, but I don't really see the point in purchasing new hardware of the last gen, I'd rather spend more and build an up to date system that I will update and keep for a long time.

However, I am still unsure whether to go for a Ryzen 5 or a 7 (which I doubt I will need just for gaming, but you know...). 

 

To answer @chtorogu, the power supply is an EVGA SupernovaG2 550W 80+Gold. When I bought it I made sure it was a decent long-lasting unit, and it's about 5 years old. I believe it should handle an RTX 2060 and a Ryzen no problem.

@Tetras unfortunately bundles in my country are not super common, the 7500F is not on the market here yet. I will wait for Black Friday and see what I can get my hands on and will decide on the spot if it is worth spending more to have AM5 or stay with AM4 or LGA1700. I had no intention in the first place to cheap out on the motherboard, I'd like to spend around 150-200 EUR.

[Tetras]

5 hours ago, nick25 said:

I had no intention in the first place to cheap out on the motherboard, I'd like to spend around 150-200 EUR.

It depends on the motherboard if it makes a difference, but for example: you can get an Asus TUF B650-Plus for £150 in the UK (PCI-E 4.0 graphics, 1x PCI-E 5.0 SSD), but the board with PCI-E 5.0 graphics is £250 (Strix B650E-F). With your 500 euro budget, that could make the difference between say, a 7600 or 7700.