Upgrade path from AMD A8-6600K?

greengiant · 21 Sep 2021 at 08:49

Hi All.

I'm looking for some advice with regards to the best upgrade path from my current rig, which is an AMD A8-6600K Cpu, with 16gb DDR3 Ram, and Asus A88XM-A motherboard. GPU is an 6gb Nvidia GTX1660.

Ideally I'd be looking to spend £550 or there abouts all in for CPU, motherboard, and ram. I have a Corsair 750W PSU, so hopefully this should be adequate.

Now this is where I'm needing advice. For my limited budget, I'd like the best performance for my money.

Usage wise, I won't be gaming on this system, but I will be doing photo editing / multimedia / 3d rendering. So ideally the more CPU power for my budget the better, but still leaving enough money for 16gb or more of decent ram

So am I better sticking with AMD, and going for something like Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 3700X or a Ryzen 9 3900X? Would the price / performance sweet spot be to go for the Ryzen 7, 3700X?

Or would going back to Intel again be a better choice? Something like an Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz (Coffee Lake)?

Thanks in advance!

mickyflinn · 21 Sep 2021 at 09:42

If the rendering software can use the extra 4 cores then the 3900x would be a better fit. A b550 motherboard will add pcie4 and is 16 gb ram enough ?

Joxeon · 21 Sep 2021 at 10:28

Probably best waiting a month or so for the release of 12600k which with 10 cores and priced at around £250 is looking very strong for multithreaded workloads.

greengiant · 21 Sep 2021 at 15:29

Might be worthwhile moving this post to the "new to pc gaming and upgrade advice" board, I'm not sure how to do that

mickyflinn · 21 Sep 2021 at 15:50

greengiant said:
Might be worthwhile moving this post to the "new to pc gaming and upgrade advice" board, I'm not sure how to do that

Start a new thread if you feel the need or ask a mod to move it but myself and @Joxeon can help, others members may chip in. @EsaT @Quartz

Video editing i would want 32gb of memory you could be probablly get 3900x, 32gb 3600mhz memorry and a b550 motherboard in the £600 area.

How serious is your editing is it your job or just trying to get the best for your money ?

Quartz · 21 Sep 2021 at 16:18

Joxeon said:
Probably best waiting a month or so for the release of 12600k which with 10 cores and priced at around £250 is looking very strong for multithreaded workloads.

Those 10 cores are going to be 6 heavyweight cores and 4 lightweight cores.

Thekwango · 21 Sep 2021 at 16:46

greengiant said:
Might be worthwhile moving this post to the "new to pc gaming and upgrade advice" board, I'm not sure how to do that

you don't need to make a new post, report your own opening post and ask it to be moved. mods will usually be more than happy to help.

Joxeon · 21 Sep 2021 at 17:44

Quartz said:
Those 10 cores are going to be 6 heavyweight cores and 4 lightweight cores.

Still looks very strong though for multithreaded workloads, around 35% faster than a 5600X in cinebench R20 rendering.

greengiant · 21 Sep 2021 at 19:35

mickyflinn said:
Start a new thread if you feel the need or ask a mod to move it but myself and @Joxeon can help, others members may chip in. @EsaT @Quartz

Video editing i would want 32gb of memory you could be probablly get 3900x, 32gb 3600mhz memorry and a b550 motherboard in the £600 area.

How serious is your editing is it your job or just trying to get the best for your money ?

It's just a hobby for me, but I feel I could do with an upgrade for my current system as it's starting to show it's age now.

Thanks mods for moving the post

greengiant · 6 Oct 2021 at 11:07

What do people think of this combination, based on a Ryzen 7, 3700X

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte B550M S2H (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £79.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £259.99
1 x be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler - 120mm= £39.95
1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey= £124.99

Total: £515.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Or this one, changing the CPU to a Ryzen 5, 5600X?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte B550M S2H (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £79.99
1 x be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler - 120mm= £39.95
1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey= £124.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £269.99

Total: £525.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)

I won't be gaming on the system, mainly photo editing / video editing etc. So would I be best served with more cores on the Ryzen 7, 3700X, or fewer but faster cores on the Ryzen 5, 5600X?

GPU wise I'll be keeping my Nvidia GTX 1660

jigger · 6 Oct 2021 at 16:30

You could go with a 5700G within that kind of budget.

greengiant · 6 Oct 2021 at 17:31

jigger said:
You could go with a 5700G within that kind of budget.

I've already got an Nvidia GTX 1660 GPU so I'm not needing onboard graphics.

--edit-- also to add I've never had much success with OpenCL (open compute language) hardware acceleration on Linux using AMD GPUs / Apus, hence me using a discrete Nvidia card.

jigger · 6 Oct 2021 at 18:54

It’s the best way to get a 8c 16t Ryzen 5000.
Recently AMD work really well with Linux. I’m not sure on open cl performance with an APU, I consider the 5700G more for the Zen 3 single chiplet configuration.

greengiant · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:06

jigger said:
It’s the best way to get a 8c 16t Ryzen 5000.
Recently AMD work really well with Linux. I’m not sure on open cl performance with an APU, I consider the 5700G more for the Zen 3 single chiplet configuration.

I'm still undecided whether the Ryzen 7, 3700X would be a better match for my needs than the Ryzen 5 5700G? Especially since the Ryzen 7 3700X has 8C / 16t compared to the Ryzen 5, 5700G 6C / 12t.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:15

greengiant said:
I'm still undecided whether the Ryzen 7, 3700X would be a better match for my needs than the Ryzen 5 5700G? Especially since the Ryzen 7 3700X has 8C / 16t compared to the Ryzen 5, 5700G 6C / 12t.

I do a bit of image editing(DxO) and the odd bit of video transcoding and the Ryzen 7 3700X works fine. It also comes with a CM Hyper 212 level class stock cooler,the AMD Wraith Prism RGB(it is a tad noisy but is a chunky cooler).

Edit!!

The Ryzen 7 5700G is 8C/16T but has less L3 cache than the Ryzen 7 3700X or Ryzen 7 5800X. It also drops the PCI-E 4.0 capability of the latter two.

If you can find a good deal on a Ryzen 7 5800X,it is the best of the three CPUs mentioned(but it does run a tad hot so make sure you get a decent CPU cooler too).

jigger · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:20

greengiant said:
I'm still undecided whether the Ryzen 7, 3700X would be a better match for my needs than the Ryzen 5 5700G? Especially since the Ryzen 7 3700X has 8C / 16t compared to the Ryzen 5, 5700G 6C / 12t.

The 5700G is single 8c 16t. The 3700X is two 4c 8t chiplets but has more L3 cache.

Im not sure which of the three would be faster TBH.

Joxeon · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:24

You should keep your eye out on MM, a 3700X went for just £150 on there the other day.

greengiant · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:30

Joxeon said:
You should keep your eye out on MM, a 3700X went for just £150 on there the other day.

I'm a bit wary about buying used CPUs gpus etc, especially if they had previously been used for mining etc.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 6 Oct 2021 at 19:58

greengiant said:
I'm a bit wary about buying used CPUs gpus etc, especially if they had previously been used for mining etc.

Check HUKD - there have been deals on the Ryzen 7 3700X for as low as around £200 brand new in the last 2 months.

tamzzy · 6 Oct 2021 at 20:14

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core 4.7GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £389.99
1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £49.99
1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G320C6K)= £119.99
1 x Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo Black/White CPU Cooler - 2 x 120mm= £34.99

Total: £605.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)

this combination is within budget if you look around
i suspect a 5800x + b450 combi would be a much better performing system for cpu heavy tasks than either the 3700x + b550 or 5600x + b550 builds you've listed