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Is this a bad time to upgrade?

JFreak21

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Hi guys

Hope everyone is well!

Just need some upgrade advice?
I currently have a Ryzen 2600X with an MSI B450m pro VDH and I've been saving up to upgrade throughout the year to a 5600X and a new Mobo. R8-10K budget for a new CPU and Mobo.
With the new gen intel out and the 12600K outperforming the 5600X around the same price point, Im just wondering if the 5600X prices will drop soon?
And if the last gen intel 11700k will also be an option if those prices drop

It took me a while to save and now that I am ready to purchase I'm a little bit in a dilemma. I also dont upgrade allot so Im not sure what the price trends are when new gen comes out.
I wont afford any mobo for a 12600K so do I get a 5600X now, only for the prices to drastically drop soon?
Or will the previous gen intel price drop soon and should I consider an 11700k over a 5600X?
 
In a south african context it's difficult to say if prices will drop and if so by how much. In the US the 5800x recently had a price drop to be the same price as the usual price for the 5600x, but we havent seen such a large drop locally.

You should keep the current mobo, get the 5600x, and then save for upgrading other stuff or a complete upgrade when the 5600x doesn't cut it anymore.
 
New AMD stuff is next quarter, so if you can hang a bit more you could find better prices.
But it all depends on you and how urgent it is to upgrade
 
What is your use case? Are you just gaming, and if so, what GPU and screen resolution/Hz are you using? Overall you may not see a very big increase in gaming performance from a 2600X to a 5600X especially if you don't have a current-gen high-spec GPU, or if you are running at 1440p or 4k - in that case a new GPU will make a bigger improvement to your frame rates, and the 2600X won't bottleneck you massively. So in that case my advice would be to save a bit more and get a new GPU, then upgrade your CPU and mobo together with "6000 series" Ryzen or "13th gen" Intel or whichever is available a year or two from now.

What is your RAM size, speed, and latency? If your RAM is slower than 3200 - 3600Mhz, or if you are running only one stick of RAM, then upgrading your RAM will also improve your experience for maybe less than the price of a 5600X. Second-hand RAM is pretty cheap nowadays and most have a "limited lifetime warranty" in case something goes wrong.

If you're dead set on getting a new CPU: as @Switch says your motherboard is compatible with a 5600X, it may just require a BIOS update. So unless there is another specific reason to upgrade the board as well, I would save that cash for a future upgrade rather and just do a straight drop-in replacement with a 5600X.

If you want to definitely upgrade CPU and mobo, then I would wait for LGA1700 motherboard prices to drop to normal levels and then re-evaluate. By that time the 5600X might be discounted again and might make a more compelling case.
 
My vote from the above is to wait for the 5000 series update AMD will release beginning next year. The price will be the same, but overall a 5%+ improvement in performance. Or that is at least what the leaks say, so take it with a grain of salt.
If local prices don't match international, just import, a CPU is light in weight, so it will probably be cheaper to import a CPU.
 
Pretty much what @goldfritter said. It's hard to give you advice without knowing what your use case is.

Can you tell us your GPU and memory specs?

Also, is this for gaming or work?
 
Forgive me for being out of topic, but I'm curious what do you guys do with your computers that R5 2600X is considered not good enough?
Is it just for the thrill of benchmarking, or is there a real tangible feeling of improved processing?
 
You should consider importing from Amazon, Ryzen 5800x is currently on sale for R6567 (all fees included) and is compatible with your motherboard (with bios update).

You can get a 5800x and a MSI B550 Tomahawk for R10231 if you want to upgrade your mobo too.
 
Forgive me for being out of topic, but I'm curious what do you guys do with your computers that R5 2600X is considered not good enough?
Is it just for the thrill of benchmarking, or is there a real tangible feeling of improved processing?
In productivity workloads the 5600X will do better than a 2600X in some cases. In gaming, at 1080p with a high-end GPU, your FPS will also increase. But in that situation it's usually something like it will increase from 95 to 115 FPS, or 250 FPS to 300 FPS, which isn't really a big impact on one's experience unless you're super into eSports - i.e. it doesn't really push you up into the next "level" of FPS like a new GPU can do. At 1440p or 4k though the difference will be pretty minimal.
 
What is your use case? Are you just gaming, and if so, what GPU and screen resolution/Hz are you using? Overall you may not see a very big increase in gaming performance from a 2600X to a 5600X especially if you don't have a current-gen high-spec GPU, or if you are running at 1440p or 4k - in that case a new GPU will make a bigger improvement to your frame rates, and the 2600X won't bottleneck you massively. So in that case my advice would be to save a bit more and get a new GPU, then upgrade your CPU and mobo together with "6000 series" Ryzen or "13th gen" Intel or whichever is available a year or two from now.

What is your RAM size, speed, and latency? If your RAM is slower than 3200 - 3600Mhz, or if you are running only one stick of RAM, then upgrading your RAM will also improve your experience for maybe less than the price of a 5600X. Second-hand RAM is pretty cheap nowadays and most have a "limited lifetime warranty" in case something goes wrong.

If you're dead set on getting a new CPU: as @Switch says your motherboard is compatible with a 5600X, it may just require a BIOS update. So unless there is another specific reason to upgrade the board as well, I would save that cash for a future upgrade rather and just do a straight drop-in replacement with a 5600X.

If you want to definitely upgrade CPU and mobo, then I would wait for LGA1700 motherboard prices to drop to normal levels and then re-evaluate. By that time the 5600X might be discounted again and might make a more compelling case.
Thank you so much for the in depth response @goldfritter
I use my PC for 90% single player gaming. I currently have an Asus TUF RTX 3070 GPU with 16G 3200Mhz dual channel RAM, my monitor is a 144hz 1440p Acer predator and I do game at 1440p. My CPU and Mobo, were the last 2 components I left to upgrade over the past few years but looking at your advice you mentioned that there will hardly be a jump in gaming performance between my current 2600X vs a 5600X. In that case I would rather wait hold out for an upgrade that will be worth while.
 
Thank you so much for the in depth response @goldfritter
I use my PC for 90% single player gaming. I currently have an Asus TUF RTX 3070 GPU with 16G 3200Mhz dual channel RAM, my monitor is a 144hz 1440p Acer predator and I do game at 1440p. My CPU and Mobo, were the last 2 components I left to upgrade over the past few years but looking at your advice you mentioned that there will hardly be a jump in gaming performance between my current 2600X vs a 5600X. In that case I would rather wait hold out for an upgrade that will be worth while.
Ok good. Yeah see here, at 1440p with a 2080Ti (very similar performance to a 3070) going from a 2600X to a 5600X gives you only 6.5% better performance on average : AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review

It will be more than 6.5% in some games and less in others, so if there is a specific game that you really want better FPS in where the 5600X really shines, then take a look. But overall at 1440p I'd wait another gen or two before upgrading CPU. You may even want to hold out until DDR5 has matured and get a full new platform including RAM at that time.

The rist of your system seems pretty well balanced otherwise.
 
Thank you so much for the in depth response @goldfritter
I use my PC for 90% single player gaming. I currently have an Asus TUF RTX 3070 GPU with 16G 3200Mhz dual channel RAM, my monitor is a 144hz 1440p Acer predator and I do game at 1440p. My CPU and Mobo, were the last 2 components I left to upgrade over the past few years but looking at your advice you mentioned that there will hardly be a jump in gaming performance between my current 2600X vs a 5600X. In that case I would rather wait hold out for an upgrade that will be worth while.
My honest opinion based on the above would be simply this:

If you PC is handling everything you're throwing at it now without issue, simply keep what you have, save up and maybe go 12th gen Intel or the new AMD processors when they release.

I have a 3070 as well, running a 3700X. I also considered upgrading, but at 1440p with a 3070 there isn't going to be much improvement - not enough to justify the expense anyway.
 
Ok good. Yeah see here, at 1440p with a 2080Ti (very similar performance to a 3070) going from a 2600X to a 5600X gives you only 6.5% better performance on average : AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review

It will be more than 6.5% in some games and less in others, so if there is a specific game that you really want better FPS in where the 5600X really shines, then take a look. But overall at 1440p I'd wait another gen or two before upgrading CPU. You may even want to hold out until DDR5 has matured and get a full new platform including RAM at that time.

The rist of your system seems pretty well balanced otherwise.
Thanks allot man, probably saved me around 10K for +- 6% performance increase.
 
Forgive me for being out of topic, but I'm curious what do you guys do with your computers that R5 2600X is considered not good enough?
WFH. I use my own as the company issued machine is way too slow (I even get mouse lockups). So it is built to have the most cores I could get with the highest clock I could get at the time (the 5950X is a higher bin than the rest).

Some of the things I do require virtualization and thus love cores & RAMs.

The GPU is purely for gaming though.
 
My honest opinion based on the above would be simply this:

If you PC is handling everything you're throwing at it now without issue, simply keep what you have, save up and maybe go 12th gen Intel or the new AMD processors when they release.

I have a 3070 as well, running a 3700X. I also considered upgrading, but at 1440p with a 3070 there isn't going to be much improvement - not enough to justify the expense anyway.
Thanks @Johannes Kerkorrel , yeah makes sense. I would rather not spend roughly 10K for such a minimal performance increase for my current setup. I will definitely hold out. I just thought I skipped R3000 gen so I will see a big jump going from R2000 to R5000. Appreciate your help.
 
What is your current graphics card?

Is your 2600x overclocked?

Which cpu cooler do you have?

If you're gpu bottlenecked then get a better GPU if you're cpu bottlenecked then consider overclocking and especially consider your ram timings as there can be some good gains for gaming.

Wait for black Friday and see what is offered locally vs Amazon
 
Wait for the new AM5 socket from AMD which will provide PCIe 5.0 as well as DDR5 memory. Then you are more future proof. I won't spend money on old architectures now.
 
Wait for the new AM5 socket from AMD which will provide PCIe 5.0 as well as DDR5 memory. Then you are more future proof. I won't spend money on old architectures now.

DDR 5 is very very expensive and DDR4 is only slightly slower.

PCI-e Gen 5 is also very expensive to implement.

If you’re willing to spend the extra £300 / R6000 (or more) to adopt early versions of the tech, go ahead.

I also see that some motherboards support very slow speeds for DDR5 and only the expensive boards support the much faster speeds that DDR5 can achieve (6000+).

I think buying DDR5 and a relevant motherboard makes sense in about 2 years time when prices have come down a little.

2 years is the time period when some people will upgrade anyway so it’s an odd time to upgrade right now.

I’d be happy with an upgrade to a 5800X and a 3070ti
 

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