I'm looking for some advice on upgrading my PC, which I built back in 2018. The specs are Ryzen 7 1700X, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a GTX 1070 Ti. I haven't kept up with the latest hardware news, so I'm uncertain whether I should make the jump to DDR5 and upgrade everything or just focus on upgrading the CPU and GPU for now. My budget for upgrades is between $600 and $900. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
3 Answers
I think you'd be best off sticking with your DDR4 RAM for now and just upgrading to a Ryzen 5600, 5600X, 5700X, or 5800X. After that, consider getting a GPU like the Radeon RX 6900 XT. Just a heads up, you might need to replace your power supply too.
What's the best setup for gaming and streaming, since that's mostly what I plan to use it for?
First thing you'll want to do is check for a BIOS update that allows your motherboard to support the Ryzen 5000 series. If it doesn’t, you might need a new motherboard as part of your upgrade.
I’ll check my motherboard specs once I get off work. I bought it as part of a bundle at Micro Center, so hopefully that helps!
You're in a great position to take advantage of AM4's upgrade capability. If your motherboard supports it with a BIOS update, upgrading to a 5700X or 5800X along with a new GPU would make a huge difference. Plus, DDR5 is way too pricey right now; I’d avoid that for now.
I upgraded my power supply last time since the old one died, so I'm good there. But what do you think about Nvidia GPUs? I've always been more of a fan of those than AMD.