PC Upgrade Advice (very old build)

[u/RefrigeratorHeavy395]

I keep hearing from lots of people that PC part prices aren't expected to go down anytime soon. Lately my favorite newest release games are really struggling to run on my PC which I haven't upgraded since the first time I built it with my uncle over 10 years ago.

I wanted to see what people's advice would be on what to upgrade first in this current market. Here's my parts below

• GPU: RTX 2060
• CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X
• RAM: 32 GB DDR4
• Motherboard: MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI
• Monitor: MSI G27C5 (1080p 144hz)

Before I get the "why didn't you upgrade sooner" comments, I don't come from a particularly well off family and previously the only games I really played were sandbox games or shooters with friends which weren't very intensive on my pc. Lately my favorite games have been soulslike and graphically intense single player games which is why I'm looking to upgrade now that I have some income.

[u/AdstaOCE]

I'd go GPU first, and go to a B580 / 9060XT 16GB / 9070 GRE / 9070 / 9070XT depending on budget, Nvidia isn't really competitive right now due to their pricing.

Then for CPU you can go to Ryzen 5000, for gaming X3D is great so go 5700X3D or 5800X3D if possible, if not the 5700X(T) or 5800X(T) will still be a good upgrade.

[u/Watcher_of_Stars → u/AdstaOCE]

Btw is it worth it to upgrade from r5 5600x to r5 5800x? For work and games 50:50

[u/RefrigeratorHeavy395 → u/Watcher_of_Stars]

Hm I didn't mention it in my post but I am also an engineer/photographer so I have to use programs like Solidworks and Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom often not sure how impactful that is to the build, I figured any upgrade would be better than what I have right now for those and it's not like those programs particularly struggle either with my current build.

[u/Subject2Change → u/Watcher_of_Stars]

No.

If you're gonna upgrade from a 5600X, go 5700X3D or ideally 5800X3D.

[u/Watcher_of_Stars → u/Subject2Change]

It hurts my feelings to pay for 5800x3d the price of 7800x3d / ultra 250k plus, or sometimes 9800x3d/ ultra 270k plus (not joking. Need to double check, but something like that). But ddr5 is even more expensive

[u/Subject2Change → u/Watcher_of_Stars]

I mean you're maxing out your CPU socket and that system will be viable for a few years at least. Helps you hang onto DDR4 longer. On a budget, it's the way to go.

[u/AdstaOCE → u/Watcher_of_Stars]

For games probably not, most don't improve by all that much with the extra 2 cores. For work? That depends on what exactly you do and if your software would benefit substantially from it or not. It can pay for itself if everything you're doing is a lot faster.

[u/catfsh]

You should really be ok, upgrade your 3600x to maybe a 5800x3d or 5700x3d, maybe a new graphics card it will all work with that motherboard. Might need a new cpu cooler as well.

[u/wolfhuntra]

Well you can jump to a Ryzen 5600 cpu and a B580 12gb Arc GPU relatively affordably....$500 for both and cheaper during the Cyber Monday weekend online (US).

[u/VariationDry]

Nothing wrong with waiting on upgrades. Luckily for you you bought a platform that still has new CPUs being made and a great used market.  I would aim for a 5000 series ryzen, x3d if you can. For GPU amd has some solid options or the Intel arc.  Step one is update your bios before installing new cpu. 

[u/RefrigeratorHeavy395 → u/VariationDry]

Does that mean I don't need a new motherboard to upgrade my GPU/CPU? One of my friends was saying that I might need a new motherboard but I know he's only built 2 PCs so I wasn't sure how much he actually knows

[u/VariationDry → u/RefrigeratorHeavy395]

Exactly what that means. You can keep your motherboard, ram and very likely your psu.  All you need is cpu and gpu

[u/misspelled_magnitude → u/RefrigeratorHeavy395]

The DDR4 and CPU socket you have just limits your CPU options is all. That's probably what your friend is talking about.

Like most motherboards for current CPUs only support DDR5 and have a different socket than you have, so you would need new RAM and motherboard. If you keep to the CPU socket you have you don't have to upgrade your motherboard or RAM.

[u/Coretrayn]

I’m impressed you snagged a 2060 ten years ago honestly

[u/RefrigeratorHeavy395 → u/Coretrayn]

I think in hindsight it was more like 7 years ago, I remember building it around 2018-2019 when I was just starting highschool/graduating middle school

[u/Coretrayn → u/RefrigeratorHeavy395]

Lol yeah 2019 sounds right I was just playin. As others mentioned gpu and cpu are first up. You can get a substantial upgrade on those without messing with too much else. Might need more power though, you don’t have PSU listed but a new GPU probably means more watts.