What to upgrade first...

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Looking for some advice on what I should upgrade first in my machine. I’m currently running an AMD FX 8320e and a GTX 960 2GB with 8GB DDR3. I’m aware that the entire system needs upgrading and am looking at moving to AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and possibly 5700XT Red Devil, but I can’t afford to do it all at once just yet. I’ve already upgraded my case to a Fractal Design 7 and got a Benq EX3230R 1440p 144hz monitor so will be aiming for a 1440p system. But I’m just looking for some advice on whether a new GPU first would be advisable to give me some game time or if the platform upgrade with cpu and ram would be better first? Any ideas?
 
I would go with CPU mb and ram upgrade as newer Gpus are supposedly arriving in September and should offer better price/performance than what's currently available.

If you went with a powerful Gpu now you would get higher fps but would be choppy with low 1% lows.
 
What PSU do you have and how old is it?

One of the new Ryzen 3300X quad cores with a cheap B450 (Asrock B450 Pro4? ) and 16GB of 3200 mhz Ram could be had for under £250

Best bang for buck at the budget end of the graphics cards would probably be a 8GB RX580/590 as these still appear new and cheap often enough (£120 would be a good price to aim for with decent cooler and clocks)

I would think the above would let you game at high details at 1080p in most games, probably not maxing out details at 1440p though

With the right board you will have a solid base for the new Ryzen and graphics cards that should drop later this year.
 
What PSU do you have and how old is it?

One of the new Ryzen 3300X quad cores with a cheap B450 (Asrock B450 Pro4? ) and 16GB of 3200 mhz Ram could be had for under £250

Best bang for buck at the budget end of the graphics cards would probably be a 8GB RX580/590 as these still appear new and cheap often enough (£120 would be a good price to aim for with decent cooler and clocks)

I would think the above would let you game at high details at 1080p in most games, probably not maxing out details at 1440p though

With the right board you will have a solid base for the new Ryzen and graphics cards that should drop later this year.

I’ve got about a £450 budget at the moment. As I have a white case, I was thinking of keeping the white theme and going with the Asus x570-Pro and Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB in white. Think that should be do-able with that budget. Thought about the Tomahawk Max to save £150 but I’d lose the white theme.
 
I’ve got about a £450 budget at the moment. As I have a white case, I was thinking of keeping the white theme and going with the Asus x570-Pro and Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB in white. Think that should be do-able with that budget. Thought about the Tomahawk Max to save £150 but I’d lose the white theme.
That's a lot of cash to spend on a colour scheme when the budget is tight. Could get a couple of extra cores for less than that.
 
Are there other ways of achieving the white theme without having to sacrifice so much cost/performance?

Maybe a white cooler, or fans or white LEDs?

Same CPU/Mem will perform pretty much the same regardless of £70 Mobo or £170 Mobo - and that kind of difference could get you way more performance spent somewhere else!
 
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Don't waste crazy amounts of money for aesthetic purposes when you are hard budget limited, that makes no sense. I mean RGB ram isn't too bad but spending most of on your budget on a motherboard just because it's white is daft when your budget is limited to begin with.

If you have £450, that's more or less enough for a full system overhaul.

B450M + Ryzen 3600 + 16GB 3200Mhz + 5500XT is an absolutely massive upgrade on what you have in every possible respect and would cost about £500.

Or else just bite the bullet and go whole hog on it, B450M + 3600 + 3200mhz Ram + 5700XT, I mean you will need it for 1440P 144Hz ideally.

But when your budget is so limited it doesn't make much sense to me to blow it all on a fancy motherboard, especially when a GTX960 isn't exactly going to carry you very well in the meantime on a 1440p 144hz monitor.

Like even playing something like Warzone which isn't the most demanding game going, a GTX960 has to run at 720P low settings to have stable 60fps. That would look like utter puke on a 1440p monitor.
 
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