4 year old PC upgrade options

masto

masto

masto

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Joined
29 Apr 2012
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120
Location
Sevenoaks
Hi,

I'm looking to improve the performance of my PC. It's a Ryzen 1600 on a Gigabyte GA-AB350M-Gaming with 16GB of 3200Mhz Corsair memory and an Asus Strix GTX 1060 6GB. PSU is a Seasonic Focus Plus 550W Gold.

What I'm wondering is:

- If I drop a 6600XT into this machine will the CPU struggle? Will the PSU be ok? I have no SATA drives in this PC, just using nvme on the motherboard.

- Is it worth replacing the CPU?

Or would it be better to build something new from scratch?

I've been using a 1440p 144Hz monitor for the last 8 months, and have had to compromise on quality to get reasonable frame rates. I planned on replacing the graphics card when I bought the monitor but the current state of things has stopped that from happening. I don't use it for anything too demanding (mainly ARPGs and a fair bit of WoW recently) but would like to crank up the settings whilst keeping the frame rates acceptable. At the moment it's 'good enough' but could be better.

Cheers.
 
A ryzen 5 3600 would be a drop upgrade for your current board and also the most cost effective option, the other option would be a B550 and 5600X although then your talking about atleast another £200 extra but the extra SC speed would help maintain higher frame rates in WoW especially during raids.

If you have the patience to chase a founders edition then a 3060ti FE @£369 or 3070FE @£469 would both be much faster for similar cost to the 6600XT and are better suited to 1440P high refresh rate gaming.
 
I would just get a 6600xt if you cant wait and see, your psu is good enough to cope and selling your 1060 would be a cheaper upgrade.

@Joxeon advice is solid motherboard will need a bios update for a 3600.
 
I went from a R5 1600 with 1080 to a R9 5900x with 6800 and yes the performance is much imporoved but the old system is still very capable and is being put to good use by my son.

Joxeons advice is correct. Change to 3600 is the most sensible option and one I will look into for the old system when I have time. 6600xt is the only readibly available gpu at a sensible price but it does have an odd memory bus so 3060ti is better at 1440p but to get one you have to join the gpu lottery and camp out for FE drops.

If you go for a new build then you still have the struggle of sourcing the gpu you want and with a prebuild you always have to compromise something.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

The 3600 wasn't something I'd thought about. It looks like a decent upgrade for the cost. That plus a 6600XT would probably do the job, as I can't face struggling to nab a 3060ti and would prefer to stick with AMD anyway.

I am tempted to build a 5600X/6600XT setup from scratch and just keep this pc as a spare, but it feels a bit wasteful. My son has a 2700X build, so I can't even hand this one down, but it'd be a useful backup should anything in the house break.

I have also considered just dropping back down to 1080p and making do with what I have! It might be a more sensible approach for now.
 
masto said:
Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

The 3600 wasn't something I'd thought about. It looks like a decent upgrade for the cost. That plus a 6600XT would probably do the job, as I can't face struggling to nab a 3060ti and would prefer to stick with AMD anyway.

I am tempted to build a 5600X/6600XT setup from scratch and just keep this pc as a spare, but it feels a bit wasteful. My son has a 2700X build, so I can't even hand this one down, but it'd be a useful backup should anything in the house break.

I have also considered just dropping back down to 1080p and making do with what I have! It might be a more sensible approach for now.
Click to expand...
you need to check gpu prices every day at a few sellers..yesterday one of them sold the 6600xt for £399...when you get a price drop like that as they obv. just got a good batch of stock in, price doesn't stay down for long, but worth checking
 
You might want to get the gpu first and see how you get on as with a card like the 6600XT which is a similar speed to the 5700XT it don't look like you'll see much improvement from swapping out the CPU and certainly wouldn't be getting bang for your buck in going for a new board and the more expensive 5600X

Screenshot-126.png
 
Thanks for that, Joxeon. I'm going to hang on with it as is for a bit longer, and will just upgrade the gpu if I get the itch and can find one that's decently priced like Craig_d1 mentioned.
 
Joxeon said:
You might want to get the gpu first and see how you get on as with a card like the 6600XT which is a similar speed to the 5700XT it don't look like you'll see much improvement from swapping out the CPU and certainly wouldn't be getting bang for your buck in going for a new board and the more expensive 5600X

Screenshot-126.png
Click to expand...
Which vid was that one?...does it have 1440p on there too? Just interested seeing results myself and OP has a 1440p monitor
 
I was expecting the CPU to have a similar or smaller effect at 1440p, which the graph supports. Looks like unless you jump up to a £700+. card there's no real point in CPU upgrades.
 
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