PC upgrade recomendations please

[PaulHubers]

Budget (including currency): $750-$1000 USD (Monitors are already accounted for)

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

 

Games: Mostly Strategy/Simulation games like EU4, CK3, Stellaris, SimCity etc.

 

Programs: Adobe PDF, FastEst estimation software, Bluebeam, Slack, 6+ web browser tabs and google meet sometimes

 

Other details So I am starting a new job working from home estimating construction projects soon and am a little concerned my existing setup may lag. The company I am leaving has mostly everything setup on a central server so the basic systems we have do okay as the server is what gets hit but it sometimes still has issues with lagging which I know may just be a network side item. With my new job everything is going to be ran through my home setup and I only ever thought of basic gaming when I built it.

 

At work I am currently setup with two monitors and need that at the minimum (may switch to 3) and usually have over 6 browser tabs open for emails, web searching for items, web based office software etc.. I also have anywhere from 3 to 8 different sets of PDF plans open with somewhere between 5 to over 100 pages on each set. Both jobs use the same estimating software stack FastEst though the new job I am using Slack and Bluebeam which is a CAD/PDF viewing/modifying program. My worry is I like to have everything I am going to use open as I work fast and switch between things a lot and not running into program lag/extensive loading times is preferred. I do not believe I will have to do long term storage of anything on my system but I should have to at least move around a 100mbs of stuff at a time (some files can be 300mb+)

 

I have provided my existing system below and would like recommendations from you guys on upgrade changes to help ensure work performance. I really do not like it when the computer I am working on runs slow. I would prefer to stay on the same MB platform to help with cost. Thanks in advanced.

 

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

Motherboard: Asrock B550 Velocita PG

Ram: Kingston Fury Beast 3200 16gb (8 x 8)

GPU: Asrock RX 5600XT

Case: NZXT H5 Flow

Storage: WD SN850X

PSU: XPG Core Reactor 850w

Cooling: EK 280 D-RGB

OS: Windows 11

[191x7]

Ryzen 5700X or 5700X3D

Additional 16GB of the same RAM

 

Is your monitor 1080p or 1440p?

1080p - Radeon RX 7700 12GB

1440p - Radeon RX 7900GRE, RX 9070

[PaulHubers]

1 hour ago, 191x7 said:

Ryzen 5700X or 5700X3D

Additional 16GB of the same RAM

 

Is your monitor 1080p or 1440p?

1080p - Radeon RX 7700 12GB

1440p - Radeon RX 7900GRE, RX 9070

My main is 1440p and the 2nd is 1080p, I know a bit sacrilegious

[Why_Me]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($150.00 @ Amazon) 
Memory: *Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: *ASRock Challenger OC Radeon RX 7700 XT 12 GB Video Card  ($571.10 @ Amazon) 
Total: $811.09
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-31 10:07 EDT-0400

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($150.00 @ Amazon) 
Memory: *Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: *Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card  ($784.33 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1024.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-31 10:08 EDT-0400

[191x7]

38 minutes ago, PaulHubers said:

My main is 1440p and the 2nd is 1080p, I know a bit sacrilegious

Why sacrilegious? I run the same way myself. For years, it was a 32" 1440p and a 22" 1080p in landscape, now it's 32" 1440p and a 23" 1080p in portrait. I'll move the 23" 1080p from the right side portrait to above the 32" in landscape using a wall mount.

 

Go with the 5700X3D, additional RAM and the best GPU you can afford.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

cpu intensive or gpu intensive? sounds like mostly cpu intensive stuff though if i had to guess youll probably want 32gb+ ram if you are gonna have lots of stuff open at once

[BahnStormer]

23 hours ago, PaulHubers said:

My main is 1440p and the 2nd is 1080p, I know a bit sacrilegious

Nothing wrong with that at all - 1440P is the performance sweet-spot for high FPS, high detail gaming - 4K will see too many FPS dips, even with a RTX5090....

 

I have a 1440P 27" main (360Hz) and then another 1440P 27" (175Hz) and a portrait 24" 60Hz for Discord, etc. 

[PaulHubers]

On 3/31/2025 at 10:34 AM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

cpu intensive or gpu intensive? sounds like mostly cpu intensive stuff though if i had to guess youll probably want 32gb+ ram if you are gonna have lots of stuff open at once

More CPU then GPU, the strategy style games I play do 60fps at 1440p just fine with my current GPU. I would prefer to put more money into the CPU and RAM and see whats left over for the GPU, I can always upgrade that later on. I am thinking 32gb 3600mt for the RAM and the CPU still I am up in the air on. Between the the 5700x and 5700x3d what is the performance delta difference between the two for productivity work? I heard it is a little noticeable.

[BahnStormer]

5700X3D is a bit quicker in almost all games (sometimes 20-30% faster!), but slightly slower in productivity work... and it will also mask the memory deficiencies if you don't get low latency RAM.... so probably better to get a 5700X3D and 32Gb of CL16 3600MT/sec than a 5700X and 32Gb of CL14 3600MT/s.

It is almost certainly the best CPU that you can still buy for AM4 (I got lucky and picked up a 5800X3D just before the prices on those kicked up and now them pure "unobtainium").