I'm planning a PC upgrade mainly for 1440p gaming at High or Ultra settings. My current system has a Ryzen 7 5700G, an MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI motherboard, 32 GB of mixed DDR4-3200 memory, an XPG Pylon 650W 80+ Bronze PSU, the stock AMD cooler, and a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive. I don't currently have a dedicated graphics card, and I'm using Bazzite as my operating system.
The RX 9060 XT 16 GB is the GPU I'm considering, and I also want to add an SSD. I have about 24,000 MXN saved, but DDR5 is unusually expensive where I live—around 11,000–12,000 MXN for 32 GB—so moving to AM5 would consume a large part of my budget. I could either wait and build a new system later, upgrade to AM5 now and finance the GPU, or stay on AM4, buy the graphics card and SSD, and upgrade the platform in the future.
Would the Ryzen 7 5700G be a serious limitation for an RX 9060 XT at 1440p, or would this be a sensible temporary combination? Should I prioritize an SSD and GPU now, or spend more on a new AM5 platform first?
5 Answers
The SSD should be the first immediate upgrade. A mechanical hard drive will make the system feel slow and can hurt the overall experience far more than staying on AM4. After that, the third option—buying the GPU now and moving to AM5 later—seems like the most sensible plan for this budget.
If you eventually need more CPU performance, AM4 still has worthwhile upgrade options such as a Ryzen 7 5700X3D or another compatible higher-end chip. Your current motherboard can handle the graphics card without a platform change. I’d also replace the uneven memory arrangement with a matched kit when practical rather than adding another random module; two identical sticks are generally preferable for stability and performance.
When you say matched memory, do you mean replacing my current modules with a proper 2×16 GB kit rather than adding another 16 GB stick?
You don’t need AM5 just to run a mainstream graphics card. Install the RX 9060 XT in your current B550 system first and see how it performs. At 1440p, the GPU will usually be the limiting component, so the 5700G should be a perfectly reasonable temporary pairing. Put the money toward the graphics card and SSD instead of replacing the platform prematurely.
That makes sense. I was mainly considering AM5 because I’d eventually like to upgrade the CPU too, but I wasn’t sure whether moving platforms now was necessary.
A lot of upgrade advice assumes a much more expensive graphics card than the one you’re actually considering. With an RX 9060 XT, spending heavily on AM5, 32 GB of costly DDR5, or a 1,000 W PSU would take money away from the upgrade that matters most: the GPU. Try AM4 first, use an SSD for the operating system and games, and only move to AM5 when you can afford a clearly stronger graphics card and platform together.
There’s no need for a 1,000 W power supply for this kind of setup. Your 650 W unit should be sufficient for an RX 9060 XT as long as it’s healthy and has the required connectors. A PSU upgrade would only become more relevant if you move to a significantly more power-hungry graphics card later.
Agreed. I’ll prioritize the SSD instead of trying to replace everything at once.