I'm not very experienced with PC building and would appreciate some advice. My current system has a Ryzen 5 5600G, an Asus Prime A320M-K motherboard, a Radeon RX 6600, and 32GB of RAM. I mainly use it for 1080p gaming, streaming, office work, and some coding. I don't do video editing or rendering. Lately, I've noticed stuttering in some games when I have other programs like Excel and a web browser open, including Dead Space Remake. Because my budget is limited, I'd like to keep the graphics card, RAM, and other components while upgrading the CPU and motherboard for smoother gaming and multitasking. I'm considering a Ryzen 7 5700X with an ASRock B550M Pro4, since a 5700X3D is currently too expensive. I'd ideally like the upgrade to last for around five years. Is this a good combination, or would it make more sense to keep my current motherboard or choose a different processor?
2 Answers
Try updating the motherboard BIOS first and make sure your drivers and memory settings are configured correctly. A 5700X should work without changing the board as long as the BIOS supports it. Also keep expectations realistic: changing the CPU may help with background apps and minimum frame rates, but no AM4 upgrade can guarantee that the whole system will feel current for another five years.
For gaming, an X3D chip would generally provide a larger improvement than moving from the 5600G to a regular 5700X, especially in situations where you’re seeing frame-time stutters. If you can find a reasonably priced 5700X3D, it would likely be the more worthwhile AM4 upgrade. Otherwise, the 5700X is still a solid option for multitasking, but the RX 6600 may remain the main limit in many games.
The main reason I’m considering the upgrade is that some games stutter when I have a browser and Excel open, rather than because average frame rates are always low.