My current PC has a Ryzen 5 2600, Radeon RX 580, 32 GB of DDR4-2133 memory, a B450M DS3H motherboard, two SSDs, and a Corsair CX500 power supply and case that are both about 14 years old. I mainly play games, but newer titles are becoming difficult or impossible to run, and I would like to keep up with friends who play more demanding games. My budget is roughly €1,500–1,800, and I live in France. Ideally, I want very high settings initially, then I'm happy to reduce settings over the next few years as games become more demanding. Would it make more sense to replace the case, power supply, CPU, and graphics card while staying on AM4, or should I build a completely new AM5 system? I'm especially concerned about getting good 1440p performance without wasting money on a platform that has little upgrade potential.
2 Answers
With a €1,500–1,800 budget, I’d lean toward a new AM5 build. It gives you a current platform and a better upgrade path, and you could potentially pair it with a Radeon RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT depending on how much is spent on the other components. A used PC, or a used CPU, motherboard, and memory bundle, could also help you fit better graphics hardware into the budget.
DDR5 can take a substantial part of the budget in Europe, especially without discounted bundle deals. Staying on AM4 and investing more in the graphics card may offer better gaming performance for the money right now.
You can get a lot more life out of the existing platform. Replace the old case and power supply, update the BIOS if necessary, and move to at least a Ryzen 5 5600. Put the majority of the remaining budget toward the strongest graphics card you can reasonably afford. That should make a major difference for 1440p gaming without requiring a complete rebuild.
Would the B450M DS3H support a faster processor, or is the Ryzen 5 5600 about the practical limit for this board?
The existing DDR4 memory can’t be reused on AM5, since AM5 systems require DDR5. That extra memory cost makes a complete rebuild harder to fit within the budget.