I'm upgrading a 2019 system with a Ryzen 5 2600X, RX 590 8GB, 16GB DDR4-3000, a B450 motherboard, several NVMe and hard drives, and what I believe is a 650W Bronze power supply. I'm planning to move to 32GB of DDR4 and a Ryzen 5 5600X, 5700X, 5800X, or possibly another compatible Ryzen 5000-series chip without replacing the motherboard.
For graphics, I'm deciding between an Arc B580 12GB priced around $430–450 CAD and a Sapphire Nitro RX 9060 XT 16GB for about $700 CAD. I'm also buying a 1440p monitor with a 144–200Hz refresh rate, while keeping two 1080p monitors and a 1080p TV connected. Eventually, I may add a 4K TV and another desk with one or two displays, potentially running five screens in total.
Would the B580 be significantly limited by my motherboard's PCIe 3.0 support? Since it uses an x8 connection, would PCIe 3.0 reduce its performance noticeably? Could I keep the RX 590 installed as a secondary card for additional displays, or would that force both GPUs to run at reduced bandwidth? Would an MST hub or monitor daisy-chaining be a better solution?
Is the RX 9060 XT 16GB capable of reasonable 4K gaming for the next few years, or would the cheaper B580 make more sense as a temporary upgrade until I rebuild the entire system in three to five years?
4 Answers
For your use case, the RX 9060 XT 16GB is the stronger choice if the extra cost is manageable. It should handle 1440p very well and can manage 4K in many games, especially with upscaling, although newer demanding titles will eventually require reduced settings. I would avoid the 8GB model for this kind of long-term use.
You may be able to keep the RX 590 in the secondary slot for extra displays, but check your motherboard’s lane layout first. Depending on the slot configuration and installed M.2 drives, the main card could be reduced from x16 to x8. For simply adding monitors, an MST hub or displays with DisplayPort daisy-chaining would usually be cleaner and more efficient than running an older, power-hungry GPU just for extra outputs.
Any Ryzen 5000-series processor is compatible with your current platform after a BIOS update, but a Ryzen 7 7700X is not—it requires a different motherboard and DDR5 memory. Update the BIOS before removing the 2600X, since some BIOS versions may drop support for older processors. The 5600X and 5700X are sensible upgrades, while a 5800X3D or 5500X3D-class chip would be especially useful for gaming if you can find one at a reasonable price.
The B580 is attractive at its lower price, but the RX 9060 XT is a much better fit for high-refresh 1440p, future 4K use, and keeping the system relevant for a few more years. Intel’s graphics driver and desktop GPU roadmap also carries more uncertainty, so the cheaper card makes the most sense mainly if you want an inexpensive stopgap and plan to replace it during a future full rebuild.
My concern is that the CPU has 24 total PCIe lanes: 16 for graphics, 4 for the chipset, and 4 for an NVMe drive. If both graphics slots split the 16 graphics lanes, could one card run at x16 while the other uses x4, or would the primary card be limited to x8?