PC build for my dad - Advice?

[JeffTheSquid]

Hi there,

 

So, I built my own pc fully new probably 1 or 2 years ago with a 5900x and all the works and would upgrade to the new zen chips from AMD next in the coming years. However this is what is throwing me off sorting my dads pc out. His current pc is from 2016 and it was great then but not anymore. 

 

I am totally torn between going with a 5600 for him with the needed motherboard and new ram OR going with a 7600 on the new zen platform so he can upgrade as and when in the future. Problem is all in all that adds around £200 to the build going new zen when If I stick with a 5600 I would likely get him a decent m.2 as well. 

 

Just to put it into context his ram died out some time ago and he replaced it with some ddr3 at 1600... BOY is his pc slow under load and the worst part is he used to make a good living in IT! 

 

So plain and simply 5600? 7600? What are we thinking? He really doesnt need the most powerful of computers so I could even go down a notch but im just thinking if I spend more then no need to upgrade anytime soon. Yes I could go spend 1k+ on it but he really won't make use of anything crazy powerful I just want a good middle ground to last at least 4/5 yrs. I have also read a few horror stories of Zen 4's and their motherboards/ram getting upset and this isn't something that I want to be tinkering with. Just needs to be a plug and play situation for 4/5yrs so with that in mind 5600 best option?

 

I am only buying the CPU, MOBO, RAM and likely a 1tb decent m.2. Im giving him an Meshify C case that I had from a previous build. 

 

Will the 5600 be decent enough for 4/5 yrs use. (GPU is a 970 which im not dealing with right now as id like to see how is PC goes with decent ram and cpu first). 

 

 

Budget (including currency): Under 500 can happily go over if justified. 

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Some photoshop and probably the most hardware intensive game he plays would be world of tanks

 

 

[will0hlep]

16 minutes ago, JeffTheSquid said:

Hi there,

 

So, I built my own pc fully new probably 1 or 2 years ago with a 5900x and all the works and would upgrade to the new zen chips from AMD next in the coming years. However this is what is throwing me off sorting my dads pc out. His current pc is from 2016 and it was great then but not anymore. 

 

I am totally torn between going with a 5600 for him with the needed motherboard and new ram OR going with a 7600 on the new zen platform so he can upgrade as and when in the future. Problem is all in all that adds around £200 to the build going new zen when If I stick with a 5600 I would likely get him a decent m.2 as well. 

 

Just to put it into context his ram died out some time ago and he replaced it with some ddr3 at 1600... BOY is his pc slow under load and the worst part is he used to make a good living in IT! 

 

So plain and simply 5600? 7600? What are we thinking? He really doesnt need the most powerful of computers so I could even go down a notch but im just thinking if I spend more then no need to upgrade anytime soon. Yes I could go spend 1k+ on it but he really won't make use of anything crazy powerful I just want a good middle ground to last at least 4/5 yrs. I have also read a few horror stories of Zen 4's and their motherboards/ram getting upset and this isn't something that I want to be tinkering with. Just needs to be a plug and play situation for 4/5yrs so with that in mind 5600 best option?

 

I am only buying the CPU, MOBO, RAM and likely a 1tb decent m.2. Im giving him an Meshify C case that I had from a previous build. 

 

Will the 5600 be decent enough for 4/5 yrs use. (GPU is a 970 which im not dealing with right now as id like to see how is PC goes with decent ram and cpu first). 

 

Budget (including currency): Under 500 can happily go over if justified. 

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Some photoshop and probably the most hardware intensive game he plays would be world of tanks

I'm not sure AM5's upgradability is an advantage here. If his last PC lasted 8 years, then I'd guess that by the time a 5600 or 7600 equipped PC stops being enough (maybe 2030-2032 (does depend on use case)) AM5 might be dead and buried.

AMD's promise was only to support AM5 until atleast 2025 and therefore there is every chance we will only see one more generation of CPUs on the AM5 platform before they turn round and launch ***AM6*** in 2026/7. By 2030 they could even have launched ***AM7***. If that is the case, upgrading an AM5 system in 2030 will make very little sense.

[Tetras]

10 minutes ago, JeffTheSquid said:

Just to put it into context his ram died out some time ago and he replaced it with some ddr3 at 1600... BOY is his pc slow under load and the worst part is he used to make a good living in IT! 

What is the bottleneck under load and what kind of load are we talking about? It is hard to say "oh, yes, a 5600 will be fine for 4/5 years", when it isn't clear where the problem is.

 

In my experience of old PCs that are only lightly used, the most important thing is having a SSD instead of a hard drive, the second is having enough RAM (the speed doesn't matter much, but the quantity does).

[venomtail]

45 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

I'm not sure AM5's upgradability is an advantage here. If his last PC lasted 8 years, then I'd guess that by the time a 5600 or 7600 equipped PC stops being enough (maybe 2030-2032 (does depend on use case)) AM5 might be dead and buried.

AMD's promise was only to support AM5 until atleast 2025 and therefore there is every chance we will only see one more generation of CPUs on the AM5 platform before they turn round and launch ***AM6*** in 2026/7. By 2030 they could even have launched ***AM7***. If that is the case, upgrading an AM5 system in 2030 will make very little sense.

I can't remember where but there was a timeline graph with 2028 being last year of AM5 product releases. Of course, as long as whatever's planned for 2028 isn't canned. Then again, 5500X3D and 5700X3D did just come out (well was meant to Q1 this year, still yet to find any on sale), some 8 years into AM4's life time. If AMD does the miracle again 2022 AM5 release + 8 years of support like AM4 we can see 2030 as a possibility.

[will0hlep]

1 hour ago, venomtail said:

I can't remember where but there was a timeline graph with 2028 being last year of AM5 product releases. Of course, as long as whatever's planned for 2028 isn't canned. Then again, 5500X3D and 5700X3D did just come out (well was meant to Q1 this year, still yet to find any on sale), some 8 years into AM4's life time. If AMD does the miracle again 2022 AM5 release + 8 years of support like AM4 we can see 2030 as a possibility.

I agree that it is possible for AM5 to be relevant in 2030, but I felt it was worth pointing out that it is not a certainty.