I'm looking to improve gaming performance with a budget of around £400–£500. My current prebuilt system is about two years old and has a Ryzen 5 5500, 16GB of DDR4-2667 memory in two 8GB sticks, an RTX 3060 Ti, an MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX motherboard, and a 650W power supply. I mostly play at 1080p. The RTX 3060 Ti seems fine in graphically demanding games, but in more CPU-heavy games my GPU usage can stay below 40%, so I suspect the processor may be holding things back. What would be the best upgrade to make first?
3 Answers
Your motherboard can support a strong AM4 gaming upgrade, although you may need to update the BIOS first. A Ryzen 7 5700X3D would usually be the best value option for this platform and can make a noticeable difference in CPU-limited games. The 5800X3D is also compatible, but it is often harder to justify unless you find one at a good price. Keep the 3060 Ti and put the remaining budget toward 32GB of faster DDR4, ideally 3200MHz or 3600MHz with a suitable motherboard profile enabled.
A new motherboard would mainly let you move to a newer CPU platform and features such as DDR5 or newer connectivity. It isn’t necessary for a 5700X3D, so keeping your current board would leave more of the budget for the processor and memory.
I’d avoid replacing the GPU unless you also replace the CPU or move to a much faster graphics card. For your stated games and resolution, a sensible plan is a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, 32GB of DDR4-3200 or 3600, and possibly a decent tower cooler if your current one is basic. You could also sell the old CPU and memory to offset the cost. Before buying, confirm the power supply is a reputable model and check the motherboard’s BIOS support for the new processor.
Check your CPU and GPU usage while playing the specific games you care about. If the GPU is sitting well below full usage while one or more CPU cores are maxed out, a CPU upgrade should give you better frame rates and smoother lows. Since your graphics card is still quite capable at 1080p, upgrading it first probably won’t help much in those CPU-heavy titles.
That seems to be what I’m seeing. In CPU-heavy games the GPU often stays under 40%, while it performs normally in more GPU-intensive games.
What would changing the motherboard improve if I upgraded that as well?