I have a bit of a noob question. I'm helping my parents upgrade their PC since Windows 10 will no longer be supported on their old Sandy Bridge setup. I noticed that the Ryzen 7 5800XT comes with a good 1TB NVMe drive and that AM4 motherboards and DDR4 RAM are pretty affordable right now, making it a solid choice. My concern is that since the 5800XT was released much later than the original AM4 platform, I'm worried that it won't work with older motherboards without needing a BIOS update. I'm not sure how to handle that since they'll be out of state and I need to assist them with the upgrade.
5 Answers
I just want to throw out there that the Intel i5-14600K is also a good option. It costs a bit more, but it comes bundled with an SSD and even two games, which could be a bonus.
I totally get wanting to keep the current PC case for that Blu-ray drive! It makes sense, especially if they watch movies on it regularly.
I just installed a Ryzen 7 5800XT in an MSI B550m last week, and it booted up perfectly with the latest BIOS from a couple of months ago. Since the 5800XT is basically a tweaked 5800X, it doesn't require much of an update at all.
Honestly, instead of upgrading, maybe consider getting them a mini PC. They can be compact and come ready to use.
If you choose a motherboard with BIOS flashback, flashing it is super easy! Just load the latest BIOS onto a USB stick and press a button on the motherboard. It's a pretty common feature now.
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