CPU advice

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 09:22

I have a PC I built with a Ryzen 5600x, 48GB RAM, 7700XT graphics card and Asus ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming 2 Mobo.

I use it for some gaming but mainly Lightroom, Photoshop and occasional video editing.

I am wondering if it is worth upgrading to a 5900x and sticking with AM4 to tide me over to AM6 or whether I should look to upgrade to AM5.

PC seems fine at the moment and games are running well, but any extra performance when doing graphical stuff is helpful.

Interested to hear people's opinions.

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:04

Hi

What's your budget and what version of those applications are you using?

I would say that a 5900X would be a great upgrade but you should also just consider getting the full fat 5950X.

That being said, using a GPU to render stuff is faster than a CPU so you may consider moving to Nvidia instead of a CPU upgrade.

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:19

Here are Puget systems recommended hardware for Photoshop
Lightroom classic
Adobe After Effects

You'll need to decide which config works best for your software as if you're using an older version of each application, it may not have support for newer rendering techniques.

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:20

Thanks for the reply.

Budget is as little as possible, £500 tops.

photoshop and lightroom I am on subscription so latest versions of desktop applications.

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:27

wavemachine said:
Thanks for the reply.

Budget is as little as possible, £500 tops.

photoshop and lightroom I am on subscription so latest versions of desktop applications.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core 5.50GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02676) = £299.99
1 x Asrock B850M Pro RS WiFi (Socket AM5) DDR5 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-04008) = £164.99
1 x Crucial Pro 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C48 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01087) = £124.99

Total: £597.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

Not far off your budget and you could probably shop around for a bundle deal anyway.

I don't love the 12gigs of VRAM with the 5070 at that price - I would go for a minimum of 16gigs of VRAM if possible.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Palit GeForce RTX 5070 Gaming Pro OC 12GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-PAL-04301) = £554.99

Total: £562.98 (includes delivery: £7.99)

I'd go CPU over GPU if you're mostly using Photoshop.

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:45

JollyJamma said:
My basket at OcUK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core 5.50GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02676) = £299.99

1 x Asrock B850M Pro RS WiFi (Socket AM5) DDR5 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-04008) = £164.99

1 x Crucial Pro 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C48 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01087) = £124.99

Total: £597.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

Not far off your budget and you could probably shop around for a bundle deal anyway.

I don't love the 12gigs of VRAM with the 5070 at that price - I would go for a minimum of 16gigs of VRAM if possible.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Palit GeForce RTX 5070 Gaming Pro OC 12GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-PAL-04301) = £554.99

Total: £562.98 (includes delivery: £7.99)

I'd go CPU over GPU if you're mostly using Photoshop.

That looks like a nice setup, 9700x seems to have good performance as well.

I guess I will be able to sell my existing Mobo, CPU and RAM on ebay so that will easily offset the higher budget.

I am glad I asked the question as that makes a lot of sense, thanks for your help

WARburton · 19 Jun 2025 at 10:54

i would go 64gb over 48gb of ram for your use case

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-grade-kingston-fury-beast-64gb-2x32gb-ddr5-pc5-44800c40-5600mhz-dual-ch-bg-032-ks.html

i would look at a 9070 / 9070xt over then 5070 personally

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 11:10

WARburton said:
i would go 64gb over 48gb of ram for your use case

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-grade-kingston-fury-beast-64gb-2x32gb-ddr5-pc5-44800c40-5600mhz-dual-ch-bg-032-ks.html

i would look at a 9070 / 9070xt over then 5070 personally

Me too. It's just that Nvidia is better supported by Adobe software but the VRAM that AMD offers is so useful even if it doesn't run as quickly.

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 11:49

Thanks everyone, went with recommendation with AM5 9700x, ASRock board and 64GB grade b RAM option.

Will stick with current GPU for now but can upgrade later.

Feel on a better footing now with a new/current supported architecture on its way

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 11:53

What PSU do you have?

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 11:58

JollyJamma said:
What PSU do you have?

750W Kolink Gold, only 4 months old.

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 12:09

wavemachine said:
750W Kolink Gold, only 4 months old.

I don't know PSUs that well. @Tetras or one of the other members should be able to say if that PSU will be good enough for your upgrade.

mickyflinn · 19 Jun 2025 at 12:14

wavemachine said:
750W Kolink Gold, only 4 months old.

Could you give the model please there budget units are not good .

The 5950x can be had £240 its what I would get. .

wavemachine · 19 Jun 2025 at 12:41

mickyflinn said:
Could you give the model please there budget units are not good .

The 5950x can be had £240 its what I would get. .

KL-R750FG

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/kolink-regulator-750w-80-plus-gold-gen5-modular-power-supply-ca-07u-kk.html

mickyflinn · 19 Jun 2025 at 12:55

wavemachine said:
KL-R750FG

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/kolink-regulator-750w-80-plus-gold-gen5-modular-power-supply-ca-07u-kk.html

That's ok one of there better units.

I would seriously consider the 5950x as an option. .

tamzzy · 19 Jun 2025 at 12:56

that's not a bad PSU, if you already have it i'd keep it...but it wouldn't have been my first choice for a PSU
(FWIW, is a tier B+ psu on the ratings)

Tetras · 19 Jun 2025 at 14:01

wavemachine said:
I use it for some gaming but mainly Lightroom, Photoshop and occasional video editing.

I am wondering if it is worth upgrading to a 5900x and sticking with AM4 to tide me over to AM6 or whether I should look to upgrade to AM5.

The main problem with upgrading to the 5900X/5950X is that the single core improvement is marginal, so you'd really want to be waiting around a lot for multithreaded tasks to complete, since otherwise the improvement could be very small (if even noticeable).

Something like a 7600X would give you an improvement in both types of workload, but the multithreaded performance is not hugely better than a 5600X. An 8 core CPU like the 7700X would be better, since you're getting a decent upgrade in both single and multithreaded, but if you're primarily bottlenecked when multithreaded the 7700X is roughly equivalent to the 5900X (..hence the upgrade to AM5 wouldn't be worthwhile in that case).

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 14:18

mickyflinn said:
Could you give the model please there budget units are not good .

The 5950x can be had £240 its what I would get. .

Too close in price to a decent AM5 CPU.

mickyflinn · 19 Jun 2025 at 14:31

JollyJamma said:
Too close in price to a decent AM5 CPU.

Way cheaper upgrade no motherboard and ram required .

JollyJamma · 19 Jun 2025 at 14:42

mickyflinn said:
Way cheaper upgrade no motherboard and ram required .

Yeah, I guess and the 5950X is still a good CPU, I just think that £550 to £600 for a completely new system isn't unreasonable.

If I could pick up a used 5950X for cheap which wouldn't be too difficult to find, I'd do that any day of the week for Photo and video editing.