Upgrading PC

[Frisky Dingo]

Hello, I'd like to upgrade my PC. I mainly use it for digital art and streaming, gaming too of course. I am having trouble understanding the difference between a Ryzen 5 3600 and a Ryzen 7 5800x. Here is the current PC, what parts could I get to upgrade for a reasonable price? Maybe like $400-600 budget? Thank you for the help.

ASUS ROG STRIX B550 F MOBO

16 GB DDR4 VEGENCE

1TB NVME SSD

NVIDIA GTX 1660 TI

RYZEN 5 3600

ASUS 144GHZ MONITOR

[andreasaspenberg575]

depending on how demanding games you are running, the 1660 ti may be strong enough. wether you need to upgrade your ram depends on how much your system is using. i upgraded my ram but, my system was using a lot of ram. if your system is not, you do not need to upgrade. the Ryzen 7 5800x have 2 more cores and 4 more threads than the ryzen 5 cpu you have and it runs slightly faster. here is what you should consider: is your system good enough as it is? if it is, you can wait and save up some money.

[BurakZG]

For gaming, 1660 Ti is absolutely the weakest element.
I don't know any game that works on GTX 1660 Ti and requires more than 16GB RAM.

I have RX 6600 XT, my son has 3060. These cards have equal performance. One or other is a matter of taste and the price. With specified budget you can go higher.

Upgrading CPU has only sense if the requirements are different than gaming. Forget about CPU, unless you have very clear indication that you need better. If you don't know, it means you don't need upgrade. You will not find any game that works with 1660Ti and needs faster processor than Ryzen 3600.

[Meatflaps]

Firstly I would like to STRONGLY suggest you re-post this in an actual technical forum where actual hardware experts participate. This is one of the better ones: https://forum.level1techs.com/

And you probably want to completely avoid any advice, suggestions, or comments from anyone on Steam. At the very least get "a second opinion" from another source before you spend any money by using another forum.

[Andrius227]

Gpu is really much more important than the cpu.

I still have an old pc with a 13yr old i7-2600 and an ~8yr old gtx 1080ti (which is MUCH faster than the 1660 ti). Runs most games fine but guess what is usually the bottleneck? Thats right, its the gpu…

[[-iD-]]

the only thing you need to know is ones faster and ones not :) cores are not super important for 90% of games. also pick a processor that has fast single core speed, and don't fret the cores unless you wanna play UE5 games. oh and just read the mobo manual. it will tell you if its fits the one you want and also, check the QVL in the manual. if you aren't experienced with it, memory is rough to pick.

[[-iD-]]

Messaggio originale di Meatflaps:

...

no real need, hes met one. at least you know people here are kinda loopy and like to say things they think are right. specially you so far. and i barely know you. several of you stand out like a elephant in a bandwagon clown car.

[andreasaspenberg575]

the motherboard manual can only take you so far. it can only contain hardware that have been released but, the motherboard might work with newer hardware. an example is my videocamera`s manual. it includes information on support for up to 64 gigabytes SD cards but, the camera can run bigger memorycard.

[[-iD-]]

Messaggio originale di andreasaspenberg575:

the motherboard manual can only take you so far. it can only contain hardware that have been released but, the motherboard might work with newer hardware. an example is my videocamera`s manual. it includes information on support for up to 64 gigabytes SD cards but, the camera can run bigger memorycard.

no, it gives all info you need to understand your mobo. its meant for people like op.
so they don't have to go instant learning everything about it. its ez mode for noobs. and he seems like some one who wont be able to delve deeper yet.
yes it might, but you may never figure out which ones.

oh and the QVL list in on the website, if they want they could change it for newer stuff.

[_I_]

64g may have been the biggest card when the cameras manual was printed
if it can take 64g sd card, then its sdxc (32gb-2tb) or maybe sduc (2tb-128tb) reader slot
but all sd(<2gb), schc (2gb-32gb), sdxc, sduc devices are all backward compatible with smaller capacity cards

[andreasaspenberg575]

that might very well be but, finding so large SD cards is not as easy. elkjøp for example is only selling up to 128 gigabytes.

[[-iD-]]

plus a camera manual, is not the same as a motherboard manual. a mobo manual is like a light schematic. and its written to full spec ability.
the qvl is what the engineers write up after they test a bunch of ram to see if its compatible.

[_I_]

mobo qvl is pointless
there are so many dimms and mobo combos they cannot possibly test them all
99%+ of the combos work with no problems, worst case is run ram at a slightly lower freq or higher timings than its best jdec profile

as for the pci and usb and other slots or headers, those are standard any device that uses that slot or usb port of gen/type is standard and it will work
it may need drivers to operate, but the communication on the ports hardware will work

the only real oddball is the rgb 12v header,
some boards and strips swap around the +12v,-r,-g,-b to +12v,-g,-r,-b
but bios or rgb software can change the order for that

[[-iD-]]

Messaggio originale di _I_:

mobo qvl is pointless
there are so many dimms and mobo combos they cannot possibly test them all
99%+ of the combos work with no problems, worst case is run ram at a slightly lower freq or higher timings than its best jdec profile

as for the pci and usb and other slots or headers, those are standard any device that uses that slot or usb port of gen/type is standard and it will work
it may need drivers to operate, but the communication on the ports hardware will work

the only real oddball is the rgb 12v header,
some boards and strips swap around the +12v,-r,-g,-b to +12v,-g,-r,-b
but bios or rgb software can change the order for that

nonono, its the best way to guarantee you got at least one ram that works since there are so many out there.
i tried that once. i bought a stick of ram b-die that everyone said was the best. my mobo worked with the "type" of ram it is. however- the ram vendor needed timings that my mobo didn't like. and i couldn't dial it in.
lost a lot of money that time, resold the ram... never looked back
now i start with cheaper qvl ram at first and if it starts to get out of date i upgrade to high quality bdie so i have sticks of ram to use in case the b-die disagrees with msi bios tuning.

[Tonepoet]

Messaggio originale di Andrius227:

Gpu is really much more important than the cpu.

I still have an old pc with a 13yr old i7-2600 and an ~8yr old gtx 1080ti (which is MUCH faster than the 1660 ti). Runs most games fine but guess what is usually the bottleneck? Thats right, its the gpu…

That's true for games, so an upgrade would preferably be G.P.U. heavy if gaming is the primary impetus for the upgrade. However, it is not true to an unlimited extent. Eventually you reach the point wherein the C.P.U. is too weak for the system to take full advantage of the G.P.U., creating a bottleneck, and graphics cards haven't entirely stood still since the release of the 1080 ti.

I estimate the strongest still-on-the-market G.P.U. a 3600 might be able to take full advantage of, assuming 1080p resolution, is an RX 6700 xt. This is on the assumed basis that a 6700 xt is about as strong as a 2080 ti, and a 3600 is about as strong as an 8700k.

Wouldn't make sense to spend all $600 on an RTX 4070 Super as such (best card you can get for that cash, I think), unless maybe Quack was trying to play at a higher resolution, Naturally a 7700 xt is stronger than a 6700 xt, so a C.P.U. upgrade is somewhat necessary if you want to go above that, and it's also reasonable to assume an uplift is wanted in other areas.

Messaggio originale di -iD-:

the only thing you need to know is ones faster and ones not :) cores are not super important for 90% of games. also pick a processor that has fast single core speed, and don't fret the cores unless you wanna play UE5 games. oh and just read the mobo manual. it will tell you if its fits the one you want and also, check the QVL in the manual. if you aren't experienced with it, memory is rough to pick.

Quack does art so it's reasonable to assume photoshop work is being done. An extra core or two might also be useful for streaming since that's a task that can be assigned to underutilized cores to try and avoid impacting perf.

Messaggio originale di Meatflaps:

Firstly I would like to STRONGLY suggest you re-post this in an actual technical forum where actual hardware experts participate. This is one of the better ones: https://forum.level1techs.com/

And you probably want to completely avoid any advice, suggestions, or comments from anyone on Steam. At the very least get "a second opinion" from another source before you spend any money by using another forum.

You're a steam user too, so I suppose that means your advice/suggestion may be disregarded. :-P But yeah, it never hurts to get a second opinion.

[[-iD-]]

Messaggio originale di Tonepoet:

Quack does art so it's reasonable to assume photoshop work is being done. An extra core or two might also be useful for streaming since that's a task that can be assigned to underutilized cores to try and avoid impacting perf.
.

not necessary.
from the source
"Photoshop can efficiently utilise multiple processor cores, but efficiency drops off after two cores, with the four-core processor only being around 25% faster than the two-core at the same clock speed. The six-core processor is approximately 8% faster than a four-core."

the one thing that multi core would be great for him with is rendering big 3d projects.