Upgrading son's gaming rig

Caradog

Caradog

Caradog

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Hi all,

I'm hoping you can give me some advice on what's best for him to upgrade on his 4 year old pre-built. He is mostly into gaming (COD, etc) at 1080p. Current specs: Ryzen 5 3600, 16gb DDR4, GTX 1660 S, PSU 500W, micro ATX MB. I'm a little concerned about the PSU so might need to upgrade that if necessary.

Budget around £800-£900


Cheers!
 
Hi and welcome.

What monitor does he have as it may be pointless if it's a low refresh rate monitor without upgrading that?

There are lots of options I think would could squeeze a 1440p monitor in there also.
 
mickyflinn said:
Hi and welcome.

What monitor does he have as it may be pointless if it's a low refresh rate monitor without upgrading that?

There are lots of options I think would could squeeze a 1440p monitor in there also.
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Thank you.

He currently has this: BenQ MOBIUZ EX2710 27" 1920x1080 IPS FHD HDR 144Hz 1ms FreeSync LED Backlit Gaming Monitor.
Not really looking to change it now but perhaps in a year or so.

I was thinking about just upgrading the CPU to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D (which is what I did on my own PC) and then getting a new GPU but I couldn't find the X3D for a decent price anywhere now.
 
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pastymuncher said:
What make and model is that 500w psu?

Don't bother with a 5800x3d, the smart money is on the 5700x3d which is much more reasonably priced.
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It's just a generic unbranded Chinese thing.

I also just noticed his games are on an HDD whereas windows is on SSD so explains why they're so slow to load up lol! So I guess we need to add on an M2 drive as well?
 
If it were me I'd go with a 5700X3D, new PSU, NVMe drive and then whatever you can get GPU-wise for the remaining budget.
You're then sort of maxed out on AM4 so any future upgrade is going to be the full platform but it doesn't seem like he needs bleeding edge stuff and going for a full platform update now will hurt your budget.

This ALL depends on you having a motherboard that supports the X3D chip, M.2 and have something like 3200MT/s RAM

Approx pricing (depending on where you get it from)
5700X3D ~ £140
PSU ~ £70
1TB M.2 ~ £50

Leaves you with a good few hundred for the GPU, wait for the new releases before buying that though.

Don't forget you can sell the old stuff to make some money back.

If you wanted to go full upgrade (AM5) and ignoring selling your old kit you're looking at £80ish for a new CPU (Ryzen 7600)/motherboard & RAM, performance would be a little better than the 5700X3D and you have a better upgrade path though, your choice.
 
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Caradog said:
It's just a generic unbranded Chinese thing.
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Definitely change it.

Caradog said:
So I guess we need to add on an M2 drive as well?
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Or a SATA SSD.

I agree with @Rob_B - get a new PSU, a Ryzen 5700X3D, a SSD (SATA or NVME / M.2), and a new GPU. You will be able to carry forward all but the CPU to a new system later on.

Something to consider is a second non-gaming monitor (~£100) so he can chat with friends, stream, etc. Then there are the other peripherals: perhaps a better headset or keyboard?

Do be aware that Nvidia are about to launch their new GPUs and AMD will swiftly follow so that will - hopefully - mean lower prices for older GPUs.
 
Wait for the 50 series and 9070s to get reviewed, they're so close I wouldn't suggest buying a GPU right now.
For ~ £500/£600 you have a decent choice of current gen and probably the new cards too. Unlikely you'll be bottlenecked too badly by the X3D with that range of GPU.
 
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Caradog said:
Ok sounds good. What GPU would be a good match with the 5700X3D?
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You will need to update the bios on his motherboard and please read the bios notes on the manufacturer website as some need to be done in a specific order.

A 7800 xt wil double his fps in games and can be had for around £450 but you want a new PSU.

750w to 850w will give you plenty of headroom for future upgrade beyond this and hold rated with a 10 year warranty is advisable.

You could actually just do the GPU, PSU and m2 drive see how the pc performans and then CPU and memory later.. if required.


Lots of options really as new GPUs coming also if you can wait.
 
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