Working on build, AM4 or AM5 or Intel? Please help

[Hi P]

A friend of mine is planning a build, while talking we pretty much got stuck on making a decision

 

The budget is not a problem, but he doesn't want to spend on something he won't use, which makes sense.

 

Here's what he plans to do:

• Front-end Development for Web, but has plans to learn / use Back-end
• Little to no gaming, mostly League of Legends in 1080p, will likely switch to 1440p
• Would like to learn Photoshop and Adobe XD

Even if he doesn't game much, he would like to have the option of being able to upgrade the PC further.

 

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Having said all of that, here's what I had in mind and also my doubts / comments on each of them:

AM4 - Ryzen 5600G or 5700G - No GPU

• If I recall correctly Photoshop can be GPU accelerated, what if it doesn't run well on integrated graphics?
• AM4 is the past gen, so I feel he would be spending money on something new... but old, if that makes sense

AM4 - Ryzen 5600 or 5700 - RTX 3050 or 3060

• The GPU seems to be more than enough for his little gaming and Photoshop
• Same concern regarding "purchasing something new but old gen", for both the CPU and GPU

AM5 - Ryzen 8XXXG - No GPU

• He would be on current gen and looks like the integrated graphics are more than enough for what he does
• Even if the budget is not a problem, I wonder if it's money well spent or not
• I've seen videos giving a bad review to Ryzen 8000 APUs

AM5 - Ryzen 7600 - RTX 4060

• Even if Ryzen 9000 and RTX 5000 are around the corner, these components are new enough
• He probably will not need to upgrade the PC for quite some time

 

What are your thoughts on these builds? Do you have any other to suggest? (explain your suggestion, please)

 

For Intel, is there anything newer than AM4 but not as expensive as AM5 that we should take a look at?

 

 

[Why_Me]

What country are you located?

[RONOTHAN##]

4 hours ago, Hi P said:

If I recall correctly Photoshop can be GPU accelerated, what if it doesn't run well on integrated graphics?

It can be GPU accelerated, but it much prefers Intel iGPUs for that. For just learning though, either are probably fine. 

 

4 hours ago, Hi P said:

AM5 - Ryzen 8XXXG - No GPU

• He would be on current gen and looks like the integrated graphics are more than enough for what he does
• Even if the budget is not a problem, I wonder if it's money well spent or not
• I've seen videos giving a bad review to Ryzen 8000 APUs

I will say the main reason you see the APUs getting bad reviews is because they're generally a bad value, not because they're bad chips. They make sense for a handful of situations, but a lot of the time you're better off getting a lower end CPU and a cheap GPU instead of one of these (RX 580 and R5 7500F would be a good combo for instance, and not too much more than an 8600G and a good kit of RAM). If you're really worried about power consumption, they make more sense. 

 

 

Personally, I'd go for an Intel setup here, mostly because the Intel iGPU works a lot better for Adobe stuff, it's still good enough to play LoL, and it's got a bit better upgrade path than AM4 does. Something like this would be a decent option:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pGr6fy

[Hi P]

On 4/26/2024 at 11:40 PM, Why_Me said:

What country are you located?

He's from the US

 

On 4/27/2024 at 2:52 AM, RONOTHAN## said:

Personally, I'd go for an Intel setup here, mostly because the Intel iGPU works a lot better for Adobe stuff, it's still good enough to play LoL

Sorry for the late reply, he did go Intel and will get a GPU some months down the road