Please help me upgrade old pc
Posted by Euphoric-Ferret-2783@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 9 comments
Hey everyone, looking to upgrade my 7 year old pc to maximise the life of the pc.
PC hasn't been upgraded since I bought it 5 years ago for $500.
Current Specs:
CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600
CPU Cooler - AMD Wraith Stealth stock cooler
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming X
Motherboard - ASUS ROG STRIX X570-I GAMING
RAM - Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3200 CL16 16GB (2x8GB)
Storage - Crucial MX500 1TB
PSU - Cooler Master V850
Cooling/Fans - 2 front intake fans, 1 rear exhaust fan
I'm planning on upgrading GPU first, I'm considering ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5070 OC Edition Graphics Card for $ 929 AUD from CentreCom.
I also plan to upgrade CPU and RAM later on.
Please give me your expertise and suggestions on brands, parts and what to upgrade and order to upgrade for someone who has no clue what they are doing. I am hoping to get some good deals during the EOFY sales coming up.
Thank you :)
ChloeAftershockPC@reddit
The 5070 is overkill for a 3600. I’d get the used 4070 Ti Super instead if the price is right, it's still a massive jump either way. Your PSU is fine for either card.
Just check your case clearance first, can be tight for big dual-fan cards :)
When you get to the CPU upgrade, a Ryzen 5 7600 or 7700 on a B650 board with DDR5 would be ideal but that's a whole new platform so it's practically a fresh build by then. IMO just do the GPU cheaply now during EOFY.
9okm@reddit
Update the BIOS now while the 3600 is still installed. This will be necessary for a new CPU.
As for CPU, come back closer to when you intend to buy. Prices change frequently. You'll likely be looking at a 6 or 8 core 5000 series. Possibly X3D if it's re-released soon, and the price is reasonable.
content_longevity@reddit
gpu will be your next bottleneck so grab a 4070 super or 4080 when you upgrade the cpu and youll be sorted for ages
Euphoric-Ferret-2783@reddit (OP)
Thank you! I didn't consider upgrading the BIOS, will definately do that. What are your thoughts on the GPU upgrade?
9okm@reddit
5070 sounds good to me.
GonstroCZ@reddit
Do you need Nvidia? You could get RX 9070xt (equivalent to RTX 5070Ti) for a lower price:
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/product/Bvjv6h/sapphire-pulse-radeon-rx-9070-xt-16-gb-video-card-11348-03-20g
If you want to upgrade right now, you could consider Ryzen 5600 / 5700x / 5800x / 5800xt for an upgrade. However, in a few weeks, AMD is rumored to bring back Ryzen 7 5800x3D, which is the best CPU you can get on the AM4 platform, so it might be worth waiting a bit. You might also want get a better cooler than the stock one. This one could be great for example:
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/product/hYxRsY/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-se-d3
Either way, do not forget to update your motherboard's BIOS for the new CPU, and I also recommend using the DDU tool to properly uninstall your old GPU drivers and fresh install new ones.
Euphoric-Ferret-2783@reddit (OP)
Thank you! I will need to look into the 9070xt, i have just been trying to chatgpt and they just recommended the 5070. how does the 9070xt differ from Nvidia?
GonstroCZ@reddit
RTX 5070 is made by Nvidia (the chip itself, you were just looking at the model from Asus, which took the chip from Nvidia and just finished the rest of the card). The chip of RX 9070xt is made by AMD. So the short answer would be a different architecture/manufacturer.
Overall, Nvidia is the way to go for productivity tasks. Some specific software programs also require Nvidia. On the other hand, if you plan to game on the PC and just some other basic usage, the AMD is a great pick too, often offering a better price/performance GPUs.
Nvidia's software is also a bit better, for example, better Ray Tracing or DLLS 4.5. AMD is a bit behind Nvidia here, but still, their RX 9000 series GPUs are really capable of doing RT as well, and AMDs FSR 4.0 / 4.1 (their equivalent to DLLS) is comparable to DLLS 4.0, so not bad.
As I said, the raw performance of RX 9070xt is almost identical to RTX 5070Ti while being much cheaper. Here is a video, just a few days old, from Hardware Unboxed. You can see both of the GPUs are trading blows pretty much, depending on the game.
https://youtu.be/IBNwDg9WkT8?si=h5cj-uleJo9J4NkE&t=1355
Separate-Ad9638@reddit
try chatgpt? the answer is satisfactory imo