Is upgrading from a Ryzen 5 5600 to a Ryzen 5 7500F worth losing 32GB of RAM for $100?
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MellowPine47
My current gaming PC has a Ryzen 5 5600, RTX 3070, 32GB of DDR4-3200, and a B450M motherboard connected to a 1440p 200Hz display. I mainly play Dota 2 and Valorant, where I currently get around 180–200 FPS and 300–400 FPS respectively.
A local shop offered to trade my 5600, B450M, and 32GB of DDR4 for a Ryzen 5 7500F, Colorful B650M motherboard, and 16GB of DDR5-5600 using a single 16GB stick. The upgrade would cost me about $100 extra.
The 7500F and AM5 platform are faster and offer a better future upgrade path, but I would be giving up half my memory and probably couldn't afford a second DDR5 stick soon. Since my current system runs everything I play without problems, I'm unsure whether I would actually notice the CPU upgrade. Would you make the swap, or keep the current setup until it starts struggling?
Answers
I’d keep the current system. You aren’t having performance problems, and moving from 32GB to 16GB—especially a single stick—could introduce limitations or inconsistent frame times. The 7500F is faster, but it isn’t such a dramatic upgrade that it makes sense to accept a memory downgrade just for the platform change.
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The best upgrade depends on what you’re trying to fix. In Dota 2 and Valorant, your 5600 already delivers very high frame rates. In newer AAA games, the RTX 3070 is more likely to be the limiting component, so a CPU and platform swap probably won’t improve the settings or experience much. I’d wait and upgrade when you can make a more meaningful CPU-and-memory jump, or when your graphics card becomes the bottleneck you actually want to solve.
MellowPine47: I was considering a stronger graphics card for newer games, but I recently bought a 650W power supply and many of the cards I’m looking at recommend 750W or more.
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There are two separate reasons not to take this deal: you’re paying to lose 16GB of RAM, and the single-stick configuration isn’t ideal for a new gaming build. The AM5 upgrade path is useful when you’re buying a clearly stronger setup, but the 7500F alone doesn’t justify the downgrade here. Keep the 5600 and 32GB for now, then move to AM5 later with 32GB of dual-channel memory and a more substantial CPU upgrade.
PixelCedar52: If you eventually want more performance in competitive games, an X3D processor would be a more noticeable target than switching platforms just to get a 7500F.
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MellowPine47: That’s my main concern too. I can run all my regular games comfortably, so I’m not sure the extra $100 would make a noticeable difference.