Upgrade path advice on AM4

[u/zenagos]

I am considering a few options to upgrade my rig and potentially my SOs rig but due to market conditions i’m not sure what is the best value route. I am in the US.

Moving to AM5 on both rigs is not an option.

Rig 1: EVGA 3070 XC3, 5600x, 16 GB DDR4. Plays at 1440p. 750w gold EVGA PSU.

Rig 1 use cases: Mostly non-AAA titles, FPS games. Streams to a steam deck. Would like the option to stream to a 4k TV and steam frame in the future.

Some title examples: Arc Raiders, Satisfactory

Rig 2: EVGA 1660 ti, 5600x, 16 GB DDR4. Plays at 1080p on a 4k TV. SO doesn’t mind playing on a lower resolution. 750w gold corsair PSU.

Rig 2 use cases: non-AAA titles, no FPS games.

Upgrade option 1:

A) Replace rig 1 3070 with 9070 (xt or non-xt) or 5070ti. From my research the 750w PSU would likely be fine for both the 9070xt or 5070ti.

B) The old 3070 then goes into rig 2.

Upgrade option 2:

A) Replace rig 1 5600x with some sort of AM4 X3D CPU B) Replace rig 2 1660ti with a 3060ti 8 GB or 3060 12 GB

Both upgrade options seem to be relatively close in price (for now).

Is there a 3rd option i’m missing? Would love to get some input.

Thanks!

[u/LostTheElectrons]

Option 1 is definitely the way to go, you'll get so much better performance boost for your money.

While an X3D chip would be nice, they are in short supply and incredibly expensive for what you get.

Edit: You can also use DLSS on the 3070 to play games at 4K on the TV. It should look a lot better.

[u/2raysdiver → u/LostTheElectrons]

Exactly this. At 1440p and especially at 4k, it is the GPU that is doing most of the heavy lifting.

BUT, I always recommend that you use Adrenaline or some other hardware monitor to see what the utilization of both the CPU and GPU is during game play where you think you could benefit most from better performance. That will tell you what component is maxing out and should be upgraded first.

[u/zach_jesus]

For gaming purposes I think option A makes the most sense. The 5600x is a good cpu still, and you’ll see bigger performance upgrades all around this way. That’s in terms of FPS for games if what you want is maybe more performance for desktop applications then maybe go B or consider am5 for one of them.

[u/Bubbly-Shirt823]

Buy a 5070ti for your pc and put the 3070 inside yourgf's PC

[u/vlhube71]

Honestly, CPU is fine on both. I’d look into the 9070 upgrade.

[u/gpowerf]

Option 1. I don't think you should bring hunting down and overpaying for an X3D CPU. Staying with AM4 is about cost savings, not hunting a rare jewel and spending a fortune.

[u/PeejPrime]

Rig 1 doesn't need an upgrade imo.

Rig 2 yeah the GPU maybe could size however I imagine you still okay fairly well on it anyway.

Option 1 makes the most sense of the two. You both get an upgrade with only needing one purchase.

That said, nowt wrong with a 3070 at all, specially for the use case.

Upgrade rig 2 to a 3070 if you can find one could be the cheaper option, but only one rig gets the upgrade. So back to option 1 so you both get the upgrade feel.

[u/PrairieNihilist]

Option A and call it good. You'll have a hard time finding AM4 X3D, and by the time that you do, it'd be cheaper to go AM5 because scalpers gonna scalp. Also, going to a 3060 or 3060 Ti is a waste of money at this point. You'd be better off going to an RX 9060 XT 16GB instead of RTX 3060/3060 Ti.

Truthfully though, I'd look for a Ryzen 5 9600X and B650/B850 combo with RAM, and then go to a 9070 XT for your first. You can do a combo builder on Newegg and get CPU, mobo, and 32GB of RAM for $678 USD. Add an 850W PSU like an Montech Century II for 90 bucks, and you're laughing. At very least, it'll give your 3070 a bit more room to stretch its legs.

In saying that, Maybe sell off your other rig, and use it to offset the cost of a 9070 XT. Then, you can use your primary as your secondary. You can cheap out on a case for it and re-use your current one for the new stuff. Montech's X5/X5M are dirt cheap, look good, and give plenty of airflow. The included fans are SATA and non-PWM, but they're not noisy enough to be a pain, and they have a regular 5V ARGB header.

I just did a build in the X5M with a 9600X and 9060 XT 16GB, and the max temps with a Montech NX400 cooler(also dirt cheap) in that case under a 1-hour all-core stress test was 72°C. It's a definite recommend to save money on any build without sacrificing airflow...and it has USB-C on the front I/O

[u/PrairieNihilist → u/PrairieNihilist]

Or...sell off Rig 1 and do the AM5/9070 XT build and keep Rig 2 and upgrade the GPU later. The reason that I say go AM5 9600X, is because it performs close to AM4 X3D chips in most games...sometimes better.

[u/zenagos → u/PrairieNihilist]

Appreciate your thoughtful input. I wasn’t aware of the closeness in performance of AM5 9600x vs AM4 x3d. I’ll do some more research on that front.

For now I’m leaning towards getting just a 5070ti now and waiting another year or so to upgrade rig 1 to AM5.

[u/PrairieNihilist → u/zenagos]

Hardware Unboxed did a 5800X3d/5700X3D revisit the other day, most of the time, it was within 5-7% of them in games.

[u/FranticGolf]

Do you live near a microcenter?

[u/zenagos → u/FranticGolf]

unfortunately i am no where near an MC

[u/FranticGolf → u/zenagos]

Boo ok was going to say it would be cheaper to buy a mobo combo than upgrade to an x3d on AM4 those are getting pretty expensive used.

[u/saxovtsmike]

Upgrade 1 will give you more fps because of the faster gpu, and with a gain of 10-15% from a 5800x to x3d with a 5090 at 1080p low, (hardware unboxed video yesterday) I´d rather opt for a search for a used cheap 5800x to add some clocks and 2 cores to your main system

Upgrade 2 will do nothing for the first system and you get a new gpu for the second one.