MSI-A320M-A Pro Best CPU I can get?

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Hi all. I have here a PC with the following specs:

MSI A320M-A Pro Main board
Athlon 3000G CPU
Nvidia GTX1650 4GB
32GB Corsair 3200mhz RAM DDR4
350W PSU

I mostly want to play Escape from Tarkov which is CPU heavy and I'd like to put a 5800X3D in there, but I'm getting mixed reports about whether it is compatible with my board or not. Also, I don't know if 350W would be enough to run it, and would cooling be sufficient, my computer runs cool now but I hear the 5800X3D runs hot.

Basically I know this rig is hamstringed by the CPU, I'm looking at options. I'm going to want to upgrade the GPU at some point, but that's not a priority for me right now. Of course that will draw more power, so new PSU would definitely be needed, I do have an old PC with 750W PSU but this is a tangent.

So the question is, what is the best CPU I could put into this without overrunning on either power or heat.
 
but I'm getting mixed reports about whether it is compatible with my board or not
Is it compatible? Yes, look at the MSI compatibility page for your motherboard and you'll see it on there, but a BIOS update will almost certainly be required before the upgrade.

Is it wise? That's harder to say, your board is not the best (the VRM doesn't even have a heatsink), so it might get pretty hot around the VRM area. A downdraft cooler would help with that.

Also, I don't know if 350W would be enough to run it, and would cooling be sufficient, my computer runs cool now but I hear the 5800X3D runs hot.
Power: possibly, the gaming power consumption should be very comfortably under that, but it depends on the quality of your unit.

Cooling: you need a decent air cooler for the X3D, the 3000G's old stock cooler (the new ones come with the wraith stealth) would not be sufficient.
 
Is it compatible? Yes, look at the MSI compatibility page for your motherboard and you'll see it on there, but a BIOS update will almost certainly be required before the upgrade.

Is it wise? That's harder to say, your board is not the best (the VRM doesn't even have a heatsink), so it might get pretty hot around the VRM area. A downdraft cooler would help with that.


Power: possibly, the gaming power consumption should be very comfortably under that, but it depends on the quality of your unit.

Cooling: you need a decent air cooler for the X3D, the 3000G's old stock cooler (the new ones come with the wraith stealth) would not be sufficient.
Thanks for the quick reply. So basically it is doable with a CPU cooler (I figured buying a new one anyway, but know next to nothing about CPU coolers). I'm glad you said the board is crap because I was also thinking whether or not to just build from new, or how much money to sink into this. Frustratingly, I just found out about the 5600X3D which would have been perfect but only a small number were made and sold in North America.

I'll grab a screwdriver tomorrow and find out the exact PSU I've got, I'm not hopeful because I bought it as an off the shelf budget computer and just specified the RAM and GPU at the time so it's probably one of the cheapest.

Maybe the X3D is overkill for this rig anyway, perhaps I'll look at lower range Ryzen 5s, as my old PC has a full size case and I am hoping to do an AM5 build in that at some point when I have the money.

PS... Just checked out BIOS updates, apparently can brick the board if done wrong. In two minds as I want to learn but don't want to be without a PC - is this something I should get involved in?
 
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Maybe the X3D is overkill for this rig anyway, perhaps I'll look at lower range Ryzen 5s, as my old PC has a full size case and I am hoping to do an AM5 build in that at some point when I have the money.
I'd say so. Just a 5600 non-X would be a decent upgrade on the 3000G and should be plenty sufficient to keep pace with your 1650 and an upgrade around the level of a 4070 or 7800 XT or lower. It would also come bundled with a downdraft cooler.

Not much point paying out for the X3D if you're switching to AM5 soon. There's supposed to be a 5700X3D now, by the way.
 
Until you upgrade the GPU you might as well just put a cheap CPU in it, pointless wasting money on a 5800X3D, drop in an R5 3600, R5 5500, or what ever you can find cheap used for ~£50, then get your self a decent PSU. Once you have enough money get a graphics card.
 
Until you upgrade the GPU you might as well just put a cheap CPU in it, pointless wasting money on a 5800X3D, drop in an R5 3600, R5 5500, or what ever you can find cheap used for ~£50, then get your self a decent PSU. Once you have enough money get a graphics card.
I was thinking this, even though Tarkov is extremely CPU heavy the 1650 will still be a weak link. I'll have a look round the local computer shops, see if they got any used CPUs that will fit.
I'd say so. Just a 5600 non-X would be a decent upgrade on the 3000G and should be plenty sufficient to keep pace with your 1650 and an upgrade around the level of a 4070 or 7800 XT or lower. It would also come bundled with a downdraft cooler.

Not much point paying out for the X3D if you're switching to AM5 soon. There's supposed to be a 5700X3D now, by the way.
Sounds like a plan, if I don't find a local used decent CPU (don't like buying 2nd hand online) I'll probably go that route.

Thanks for the help everyone
 
Alright, I've just opened it up and the PSU is a Cylon Aerocool, google told me everything I need to know about them, I don't think I'll bother upgrading this computer, I might relegate it to my work PC. That means a change of plan. I have a carcass of my old PC here and I want to reuse any parts that I can. I've decided going AM5 right now might be a bit optimistic in terms of budget, so to get myself a gaming rig I think I might go for an AM4 build with some kind of X3D processor. Anyway, next question, which parts of this computer to reuse, and are there any with resale value?

Apologies for blurry image but was best I could get, not too important anyway but just for context: https://ibb.co/yNNtzGZ
Better close up of CPU here: https://ibb.co/YZYq1xZ

Now I'm a bit of a noob to all this, this rig I bought off a friend who had it built to spec, it was quite decent at the time but is old now (2016 maybe?). I figure the case can't have anything wrong with it, done a bit of research and it's an ATX case, not sure of make. Sorry for lot's of questions but I'm trying to learn as I go without breaking anything or at least anything too expensive...

gigabyte ga-z97x-gaming 7 motherboard
Some sort of i5 CPU

I'm guessing the i5 is tat now, I'm not sure of the model but looked up i5s from that time period and they can be had for a tenner on ebay. If I was to unscrew the heat sink and have a look, taking care for static ofc, I wouldn't be at risk of breaking stuff would I? I have googled the motherboard and they still seem to fetch a good price - is it actually any good or is this just people trying it on? I'm not really into scamming people and if it's crap I'd rather just use it to practice or something. Also, last time I tried to run this PC, I couldn't get a display on my monitor, think I connected via HDMI. It is flashing what I think are error codes coming up on the board - could be CMOS issue as it hasn't been plugged in for some time. Should I just consider the motherboard to be scrap?

Geforce GTX 970 - now this I think is worth trying to save, in fact it might actually be better than the 1650 I have in this computer. Don't think I have any box or accessories as my life has been carnage the last few years and I've had to move house a lot.

Corsair CX750M PSU - now this I'm split about - on the one hand, it's a fairly decent PSU, the main fault being the fan sleeve bearing which I think is ok, but then again it is nearly 10 years old now. Is it worth trying to reuse this PSU?

8GB DDR3 RAM - Junk basically now, but think it is in working order

Some old Wifi card - surely not worth much but worth trying to reuse?

Surely the case is good to reuse, DVD drive etc. Edit - just managed to ID the case, it's a NZXT Phantom 410-B3 ATX Mid Tower, seems quite a decent case even if old.

I'm not sure at this point whether to try build myself or get the local shop to do it, a friend recommended this shop to me and he seems a genuine guy and he likes for people to just pick and buy a list of parts and he puts them together so although I am trying to educate myself, this might save frustration, time and energy.

TLDR: Is the gigabyte mobo scrap or not? Is it worth trying to reuse the Corsair PSU or should I buy new? Is building an AM4 PC now a dead end?
 
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The 5700X is solid chip. As stated though a decent low profile HSF is a must if going for a 95-105 watt part.
Thanks for the recommendation, as noted above I think I've decided on a change of course as there are too many limitations and as this computer works fine as it is, I'll keep it this way while I get my gaming rig sorted.
 
The CX750 PSU is probably serviceable even at 10 years old. I’d be tempted to replace the fan and use it. If PSU powered a DDR3 vintage i5 and GTX970 fine it will power AM4 system and most mid range graphics cards.
 
Thanks for the recommendation, as noted above I think I've decided on a change of course as there are too many limitations and as this computer works fine as it is, I'll keep it this way while I get my gaming rig sorted.

The current system has plenty of scope to upgrade, especially with having 32gb of DDR4 RAM.
 
The current system has plenty of scope to upgrade, especially with having 32gb of DDR4 RAM.
Ok, maybe I was being pessimistic. My thinking was to get a 4x DIMM AM4 board with 2x16 to start with, and then when I decide to send this PC to the office swap out the 2x16 in this to give the new one 64GB as it will probably be required in a year or two time. Or I could just nick one strip and leave this with 16 and 48 in the other, not sure if that would affect data rates though. So I'm still gonna keep an eye out for a new or used chip for this one and if something comes along for a reasonable price I'll do the switch. The 5600 does look quite reasonable, I think it's the route I'm going to go down. The 5700x would probably just draw more power and be bottlenecked by my GPU.

Thanks for the advice on the PSU, maybe I wasn't clear, as far as I can tell there is no fault with this particular PSU, I just know that is a common fault with that model. So seeing as I have a perfectly good case and PSU sitting there, I might as well start a build with that. I see what you mean about the i5 and 970, I didn't used to need any heating when I ran that thing. I suppose I could use that PSU in this PC if it came to it, but I quite like the idea of starting fresh. I'll perhaps get the shop to swap the 5600 into this and do the BIOS update, and then I can take my time and do my research with the new PC.
 
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honestly i would drop in the ryzen 5600 (non-x) onto the AM4 rig
i did a quick skim read and seems that you have the z97 computer as well

if so, i would swap the psu and gpu to the AM4 build, so
computer 1) ryzen 5600, 32gb ram, corsair cx750m, gtx 970
computer 2) intel i5, whatever ddr3 ram, aerocool psu, gtx 1650

the gtx 970 although old, is still about 20% faster than the 1650...so worth the "upgrade" considering it's essentially free
then sell computer 2 on fb marketplace or whatever
 
@Harold X

see here:
would also like to point out that the 5600x is a 95w tdp part vs the 5600 which is "only" 65w
also the computer spec which has an aio, so no direct VRM cooling on the non-heatsinked a320 board (asus a320m-k)
 
honestly i would drop in the ryzen 5600 (non-x) onto the AM4 rig
i did a quick skim read and seems that you have the z97 computer as well

if so, i would swap the psu and gpu to the AM4 build, so
computer 1) ryzen 5600, 32gb ram, corsair cx750m, gtx 970
computer 2) intel i5, whatever ddr3 ram, aerocool psu, gtx 1650

the gtx 970 although old, is still about 20% faster than the 1650...so worth the "upgrade" considering it's essentially free
then sell computer 2 on fb marketplace or whatever
Not a bad idea, swap the PSU over to this, along with the 970 and then stick the 5600 in. I was going through a bit of a mad stage of life when I bought this rig and didn't do my research on the graphics cards properly, hence going from a 970 to 1650. Also need new storage in this as running off a single 240GB SSD at min, I've got a couple of 240GB SSDs laying about that can go in.

I'll be honest, I'm a bit scared of messing about with my current rig myself as I haven't done much before (why those SSDs are still laying about), that's partly why I want to build on the other PC rather than change too many parts about and potentially break something. Been reading up and some articles are making a big thing about BIOS updates saying they can brick your motherboard if not done right.

@Harold X

see here:
would also like to point out that the 5600x is a 95w tdp part vs the 5600 which is "only" 65w
also the computer spec which has an aio, so no direct VRM cooling on the non-heatsinked a320 board (asus a320m-k)
Yeah I figured the 5600X is just an overshoot and it's gonna pull more power, just worked out I'm gonna need another 70 watts for GPU if I swap the 970 in. I see what you're saying, the Athlon is running nice and cool it's idling at 34C at the minute according to Speccy. Looking back though it was a bit mental thinking of putting the X3D in.

Think I'm gonna grab a 5600 and take it to the shop and let them fit it, get them to chuck the SSD drives in at the same time. I'm gonna hold on swapping the 970 in because that will mean changing the PSU, and that should mean I now have a case, PSU, and a basic but somewhat capable GPU for the new system. Then I'm probably going to use the Gigabyte rig to practice on and get more confident in my skills - if I can get that up and running and start swapping some parts about successfully then I know I'm ready to start building my new PC.
 
Looking back though it was a bit mental thinking of putting the X3D in.
honestly i think that the best match would be the ryzen 5600
then get a 1tb nvme ssd into the m.2 slot and get a 6700xt/3060ti
that a320m board will not be the bottleneck even though it only has pcie gen 3 rather than gen 4
 
Harold - do you not have an hands on experience with PC hardware? Please tell me you aren't paying a shop lots of money to swap over CPU's etc. If you were close to me I'd happily rebuild your systems into one rig, or whatever you wanted etc. Maybe someone closer to you would be willing to help?
 
honestly i think that the best match would be the ryzen 5600
then get a 1tb nvme ssd into the m.2 slot and get a 6700xt/3060ti
that a320m board will not be the bottleneck even though it only has pcie gen 3 rather than gen 4
It does sound like a match, I was thinking if I keep the Athlon chip I could swap it back over when I get an AM4 board for the new PC - that'd mean there is case, PSU, GPU and CPU and 16GB RAM sorted already. Plan is coming together nicely. My thought process has changed a little, because what I saw before as spending too much on a lost cause, I can upgrade my current PC gradually with parts that can also be used for the new one, so I'm kind of doing both at once. Just checked and there are 4 SATA slots on this board, seeing as I have 2 240GB SSDs here I might as well put them in? I wouldn't expect to need any more than that as I have external drives anyway. Will def look at NVME in the future though.

I know I've not been focusing much on the GPU, that is because the games I want to play at the minute aren't especially GPU intensive and I don't mind lowering settings a little, but this is definitely the next point of attention. I'm pretty determined to go Nvidia at this point, as it is what I'm used to and also supposedly gets better performance on these games, 3060 was what I was thinking actually, but this is probably going to be later in the year.

Harold - do you not have an hands on experience with PC hardware? Please tell me you aren't paying a shop lots of money to swap over CPU's etc. If you were close to me I'd happily rebuild your systems into one rig, or whatever you wanted etc. Maybe someone closer to you would be willing to help?
I haven't been, no. To be honest I've been being pig ignorant with my computers, buying them, running them into the ground and then getting rid of, which is something I have decided I need to stop - this has been partly due to life circumstances and having to move houses and not always have places to keep things but anyway I digress. My only experience as stated was changing a graphics card over, I'm pretty sure I can get my head around doing this because I am quite technically minded but lacking in confidence.

I don't really know anyone who could help, there is an old friend who used to work in a PC repair shop but I haven't spoken to him in some time, I may ask when it comes to putting the new rig together. There is a local shop near me who was recommended by a friend who is also into his PCs, he says he's a good fella and won't charge the earth, I think I'm going to phone him up tomorrow and ask if he'll give me a quote to swap the CPU and put the SSD drives in. Alternatively (ie if the quote is more than I was expecting) I might try and start with putting the new SSDs in myself as that seems a lot less complicated than CPU swap and see if I feel confident to try now.

Thanks everyone, I'm a lot more clear on what way to go now.
 
It does sound like a match, I was thinking if I keep the Athlon chip I could swap it back over when I get an AM4 board for the new PC - that'd mean there is case, PSU, GPU and CPU and 16GB RAM sorted already. Plan is coming together nicely. My thought process has changed a little, because what I saw before as spending too much on a lost cause, I can upgrade my current PC gradually with parts that can also be used for the new one, so I'm kind of doing both at once.
nah. that'll be unwise.
the ryzen 5600 should be the last upgrade you do for that board. and for AM4.
AM4 is a dead platform, I wouldn't invest too much into it. Much less your consideration of getting a new AM4 board. get that idea out of your head now lol.
your next upgrade should be a full platform change to whatever is current when you next upgrade.

Just checked and there are 4 SATA slots on this board, seeing as I have 2 240GB SSDs here I might as well put them in?
if you're happy with the 240gb ssds then yeah, you could chuck them in i guess.
personally prefer one massive boot/games drive than multiple dotted around. but for the price of free...can't really argue

I know I've not been focusing much on the GPU, that is because the games I want to play at the minute aren't especially GPU intensive and I don't mind lowering settings a little, but this is definitely the next point of attention. I'm pretty determined to go Nvidia at this point, as it is what I'm used to and also supposedly gets better performance on these games, 3060 was what I was thinking actually, but this is probably going to be later in the year.
sell computer (2) as described in my earlier post and you'd find a majority of your funds for a used 3060ti from cex that also comes with 2 year cex warranty
 
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