Which is the better upgrade: Ryzen 9 5900X or 5900XT?

Before choosing, think about what you’re actually using your CPU for. If you’re gaming, the 5700X might still work fine for most titles unless you're hitting a specific bottleneck. Upgrading to the 5900X or 5900XT might not yield a noticeable improvement in gaming alone; those extra cores usually benefit productivity tasks more than gaming. You might want to consider what your actual workload demands.

Since you're already bottlenecked with your current CPU during heavy usage, upgrading to either the 5900X or 5900XT will help. The 5800X3D is also worth considering if you're focusing on gaming since it has an edge in gaming performance. However, if you’re planning to move to the AM5 platform soon, you might want to weigh if the investment in AM4 is worth it in the long run.

If you're hitting performance limits while streaming and gaming, then the Ryzen 9 5900X could be a good upgrade. It provides more cores and threads, which can help with multitasking like streaming while gaming. However, it might not be significantly better than a 5700X in most gaming scenarios, so just make sure you really need the upgrade for your specific use case.

Honestly, if you're all about gaming and streaming, the Ryzen 9 5900X is probably the better bang for your buck. The 5900XT has more cores, but for gaming, many titles don’t fully utilize that many threads. Consider if you need those extra cores or if you might get away with the 5900X. Plus, the prices for these chips are all over the place right now, so shop around for the best deal!