Upgrade from 8600k to 5800X?

Ijen · 25 Jun 2021 at 09:54

I'm considering an upgrade, and just want to check whether it seems like I’ve got a plan that could work, and can justify to the missus.

I built my current system a few years ago for occasional home working (including Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop) and light gaming (eg. Witcher 3). For obvious reasons, home working has taken over. When “work” just meant running Adobe Illustrator fast, having only six cores seemed like an efficient solution. Now that I’ve also got half a dozen Microsoft apps open at the same time, a browser full of tabs and whatever else going on, there are times where I feel like I could use a few more cores….

Current system:

8600k
Noctua NH-U14S
MSI z370 Tomahawk
32GB RAM
1070ti
500Gb Samsung 960 EVO (and a couple of other SSDs for storage)
Fractal Define 7

I’m considering an AMD 5800X with an MSI X570 Tomahawk (+thermal paste...)

As far as I can see, this should offer me a noticable increase in single threaded performance, and a humungous boost in the amount of stuff I can have going on at once. Is this a good idea, good value, timely etc? Any particular considerations or concerns I should factor in?

Cheers!

mickyflinn · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:10

Sometimes you can get a 5900x 12 core for £450 along with the msi b550 gaming edge wifi would cost the same as the above.

Ijen · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:37

Interesting. I'd not considered that combo. Right now, from what I can see the 5800x + MSI X570 is around £620, where as the 5900x + (an available) b550 board is around £660.

I take it the implicit point here is that the advantage(?) of a X570 board over a b550 is outweighed by the higher core count, and the small price gap makes this a no-brainer?

MrRockliffe · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:39

I would definitely wait an extra year - by which time, Intel may be back in the game, and AMD may have transitioned to DDR5.

I don’t think an 8600k is going to hold you back in many situations - it’s still a monster CPU. Get it overclocked to 4.9 GHz in the mean time

Or just get a 9700k to tie you over.

Ijen · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:40

Of course, the third option would be a 5800X + a b550 board, which would come in around £550 (versus £660 for the 5900X + B550)... how would you rate that option?

MrRockliffe · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:42

Ijen said:
Of course, the third option would be a 5800X + a b550 board, which would come in around £550 (versus £660 for the 5900X + B550)... how would you rate that option?

See above - I wouldn’t bother going to a 5xxx CPU right now

No need for it

Ijen · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:48

MrRockliffe said:
See above - I wouldn’t bother going to a 5xxx CPU right now No need for it

Ah, pragmatism...

yeah, it does mostly do me proud. I've just had some moments running massive exports from Illustrator while also talking on Teams, Filezilla busy with an upload, flicking between Word, Excel and Firefox, and Onedrive going in the background. It occured to me that a few more cores might really be handy.

MrRockliffe · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:50

Ijen said:
Ah, pragmatism... yeah, it does mostly do me proud. I've just had some moments running massive exports from Illustrator while also talking on Teams, Filezilla busy with an upload, flicking between Word, Excel and Firefox, and Onedrive going in the background. It occured to me that a few more cores might really be handy.

Gotta ask yourself how often that happens though - you can save yourself some dosh for now and get a much bigger upgrade next year for the same money

Ijen · 25 Jun 2021 at 10:53

MrRockliffe said:
Gotta ask yourself how often that happens though - you can save yourself some dosh for now and get a much bigger upgrade next year for the same money

Grr. So sensible. But yeah, I think that's what I'll do. Thanks

mickyflinn · 25 Jun 2021 at 11:02

Ijen said:
Interesting. I'd not considered that combo. Right now, from what I can see the 5800x + MSI X570 is around £620, where as the 5900x + (an available) b550 board is around £660.

I take it the implicit point here is that the advantage(?) of a X570 board over a b550 is outweighed by the higher core count, and the small price gap makes this a no-brainer?

Yes those extra cores will be massive.

The diffrence between x 570 and b550.

X570 has more pcie4 lanes so if you want to run 2 x m2 pcie4 drives it will have no impact on gpu performance.

B550 has one pcie4 m2 and one pcie3 m2 so the second runs at pcie3 speed .

So if you want the fastest data transfer between 2 pcie4 drives then x570 gives you that optiom.

Joxeon · 25 Jun 2021 at 11:32

5900X would be my choice, 50% more cores for an extra 100 quid is a no brainer and will last much longer going forward before needing to upgrade again.