Should I buy an RX 9060 XT for my AM4 PC or upgrade to AM5 first?
Asked by
MellowCedar42
I'm planning a major upgrade and would like to play modern games at 1440p with High or Ultra settings. My current system has a Ryzen 7 5700G, 32 GB of mismatched DDR4-3200 memory, an MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI motherboard, an XPG Pylon 650W 80+ Bronze power supply, no dedicated graphics card, the stock AMD cooler, and a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive. I'm running Bazzite and would prefer to stay with it.
The main graphics card I'm considering is an RX 9060 XT 16 GB, and I also need an SSD. I have about 24,000 MXN saved, but moving to AM5 would be expensive because 32 GB of DDR5 costs roughly 11,000–12,000 MXN where I live in Mexico. My options are to wait and build a new system later, sell my current parts and move to AM5 now, or keep AM4, buy the GPU and SSD, and upgrade the platform in the future.
Would the Ryzen 7 5700G be a serious limitation for an RX 9060 XT at 1440p, or would this be a sensible temporary setup? Should I prioritize an SSD, change the memory, upgrade the power supply, or move to AM5 first?
Answers
An SSD should be the first priority, even if prices aren’t ideal. A hard drive will make the operating system and game loading feel much slower. After that, option three makes the most sense: keep AM4, add the GPU, and revisit the platform later when DDR5 is more affordable.
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A 650W power supply should generally be enough for this level of graphics card, assuming it’s healthy and has the required connectors. There’s no reason to jump straight to a 1,000W unit for this build. Only replace the PSU if the specific card’s requirements, its condition, or a future higher-end upgrade justifies it.
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You don’t need AM5 just to run a mainstream graphics card. Install the RX 9060 XT in your current B550 system first. At 1440p, the GPU will usually be the limiting component, so the 5700G should make a perfectly reasonable temporary pairing. Put the money toward the graphics card and SSD instead of spending a large amount on DDR5 right now.
MellowCedar42: I’m still learning how the CPU and GPU balance works, so I mainly wanted to confirm that moving to AM5 isn’t required. I may want a stronger CPU eventually, but it sounds like I can wait.
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Your motherboard can handle the graphics card without a problem. If you later need more CPU performance, you could stay on AM4 and look for a better-matched memory kit or consider a Ryzen 7 5700X3D-class upgrade. For now, avoid adding another random memory stick if possible; a matched 2×16 GB kit would generally be preferable to mixing modules, even though your current capacity is usable.
MellowCedar42: I was wondering whether adding another 16 GB stick would be the best way to fill the remaining slot. I’ll compare that with replacing the current mismatched kit with a matched set.
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A platform upgrade would make more sense if you were buying a much faster card, such as an RX 9070-class or RTX 5070-class model. With an RX 9060 XT, the extra AM5 and DDR5 cost is likely better spent on the GPU, storage, or simply saved for a later upgrade. Try the AM4 setup first—you may find that it performs well enough that there’s no urgency to change platforms.
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MellowCedar42: That makes sense. I’ll prioritize replacing the hard drive before spending money on a platform change.