Hi all! I was wondering if I could get some suggestions for an upgrade for my rig. I'm pretty sure my bottleneck is my CPU (my comp bogs down playing Total War:Warhammer3 under proton, but not at all/minimal in other games), I'm currently running:
Ryzen 5 2600x
AMD RX5600xt
16 gigs ram
Asrock Asus B450M-A
500 Watt power supply
Running Linux if that matters
So, what should I upgrade first? My budget is $500, but it's pretty flexible. I'm pretty sure I could get both a better GPU/CPU under that price.
Edit: wondering about the power supply, have had it since 2017 or so, should I upgrade? From all appearances, it's working fine, but I'm unsure about headroom with a more up to date CPU and GPU.
Also should I try to get more cores, or a faster CPU? It looks like some of the more recent AMD CPUs have better TDPs than my current CPU (95W vs 65W), but I'm not concerned about the difference between my current one and the newer, higher wattage CPUs (which look to max out at 105 or so?)
Ryzen 9 3900x is $216 on sale, sale ends in 9 hours though. double check it works with your board but i think it does. Thats a really good deal and would massively upgrade your CPU. Probably have money left over to even upgrade the GPU if you wanted, or just keep the savings. You would want a better fan though if you dont have a Noctua brand one already. I tried looking for something cheaper but this sale price is really good and cheaper stuff would be much weaker.
Edit: Im not sure if i got your mobo right, here is a similar one and it says the 3900x works. https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450Mac/#CPU
But youll definitely want to upgrade your cooling option if you choose the above. I have a Noctua like this and it's been great with an AMD 5600x. It's big as fuck though so the case needs to be big.
If you have a SSD storage for games already, i think youre fine everywhere else.
Thanks! I kinda messed up on the Mobo though. It's actually an Asus B450M-A, I checked it out and it looks like it can handle up to the 5xxx series with a BIOS upgrade (kinda daunting).
5800x3d is best for games, though I would scroll benchmark sites for the difference
Asus B450M-A
BIOS updates arent scary anymore. EZ Update lets you do it through a GUI. https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/PRIME_A320M-A/E13571_BIOS_Update_EM_V4_WEB.pdf?model=PRIME%20B450M-A
Overclock cpu, buy cooler if needed. Get nvme drive (or donate to palestine)
In your circumstances I would split the difference between CPU and GPU. I agree w/ PrincessCharlotte on the 5600, then something like a 6700 XT. Your 500w supply should be fine, but depending on the make and efficiency you may want to get a new one.
If there's money left you could take a look at a new CPU cooler for better temps/noise (Thermalright peerless assassin is great price/perf) or maybe another 16gb of RAM.
6700(xt) are at much better prices now. You have a lot of options for cpu, pretty much depends on how high you want to go. The high end Zen 2 cpus might need a newer motherboard. Put whatever you end up deciding on in pcpartpicker and it'll give you a wattage estimate, the main thing I would worry about for psu is gold rating from a well known brand. All of the Zen 2 prices are good, it's really just a matter of how high you want to go and if you're willing to upgrade your motherboard if necessary.
If you get an aftermarket cooler, get this. It performs pretty much as well as a high end Noctua but for around half the price.
I would look at getting 32gb of ram sometime unless you've checked and definitely don't need it for anything you do.
Generally, productivity things benefit from and utilize more cores more effectively. Some games use more cores well, some don't. Some exceptionally shitty ones won't use them well at all and will pretty much need strong single core, ie 5800x3d. I wouldn't worry about it unless you specifically know something you do falls into the last category or if you have a productivity hobby.
Thermalright coolers are good and cheap. I used all Thermalright fans and their AIO cooler (only cost $75 CAD) when I built my PC.
You should buy a fancy new SSD card, you can get a terabyte for less than 100 dollars.
How flexible is your budget? If you simply add a zero to the end of it you can get a nice 4090 and i9 and youll be blastin zombies in 4k 60 in no time bropedo.
yes, but I simply don't want to fiddlefuck with Nvidia drivers on Linux. Even if I had that kind of money ( I wish!), I just want to plug in a card and have it work. Would be really cool to have the AI capabilities of an Nvidia card, but for me it's just about having something with good support rather than the most features.
For gaming, a 5800X3D will make every game run fantastically for some graphics settings, which is good to have. Also not very demanding on power, maybe a little more than 2600 but not by much. Will stay capable for quite a while, and keep the motherboard/RAM going too. Same is true for a 5600 as a cheaper option, but not by nearly as good. There's talk that a 5600X3D might happen soon too, which would be ideal and maybe worth waiting on.
Adding more RAM up to 32GB would do a bit too, especially if you have other stuff running in the background. Doubling the RAM you have should be pretty cheap by now.
Graphics there is no end to how much you can spend to upgrade.
You don't have to upgrade everything at once necessarily.
