My current system has a Ryzen 9 3900X on an ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero X570 motherboard, 32GB of DDR4 memory, an EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra, a 2TB NVMe drive, a 516GB SSD, a 1TB hard drive, and a 1000W power supply. I use 1440p monitors and mainly play Escape from Tarkov, Assetto Corsa, War Dogs, and Star Citizen. Performance is generally good, but I sometimes experience stuttering and load into games later than other players. I was considering replacing the CPU, motherboard, and RAM with a newer Ryzen X3D processor, an ASUS B850E board, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory. However, I realized the CPU models I was looking at may not actually exist, and DDR5 prices are high. Would it make more sense to stay on AM4 with a 5800X3D, or should I move to AM5? Is DDR5-6000 CL30 worth the extra cost over CL36?
4 Answers
If you decide to move to AM5, a Ryzen 7 7800X3D would be a much more sensible gaming choice than trying to build around those nonexistent models. That said, at 1440p with an RTX 3080, a complete platform upgrade may not provide enough improvement to justify the motherboard and memory cost. A 5800X3D is likely the better value unless you also want a newer platform for future upgrades.
Before buying anything, check that your current BIOS supports the 5800X3D and update it while the 3900X is installed. Also check temperatures, storage health, and whether the stutters are caused by shader compilation or game servers. Loading later than other players isn't always a CPU issue, so a platform upgrade may not fix every problem.
If you do choose AM5, DDR5-6000 is generally the target speed, but CL30 isn't mandatory. DDR5-6000 CL36 should work perfectly well and the real-world gaming difference is small, especially with an RTX 3080 at 1440p. Don't overpay just to get CL30 if the price difference is large. Also, 32GB is still adequate for gaming, though 64GB could help if you run lots of background applications or heavily modded games.
The Ryzen 9 3950X3D and 3900X3D aren't real retail CPUs. Since you already have an AM4 system, the simplest gaming upgrade is a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Update the motherboard BIOS first, then swap the processor in. Your motherboard, DDR4 memory, RTX 3080, and power supply can all remain in place. The extra 3D cache should be particularly helpful in Escape from Tarkov and may reduce CPU-related stutter.
For a gaming-focused build, you probably don't need 12 or 16 cores. The 5800X3D's cache matters more than the extra core count in games like Tarkov.