I recently upgraded my graphics card, but I put off upgrading the rest of my system. Now, my old i5-3450 is really struggling with modern games, and I've realized waiting to upgrade isn't the best plan. I'm considering two options: I can either go with a Ryzen 5 5600 on a B550M motherboard (using DDR4), which will cost around $200, or I can choose the Ryzen 5 7500F on a B850M motherboard (using DDR5) for roughly $250. When I factor in RAM costs, new DDR4 is about $150, but I could find used for under $70. New DDR5 starts at $430 and used options are hard to come by below $160, with a decent budget choice around $200. Ultimately, the total for the DDR4 build would be around $270, while the DDR5 setup would hit about $450. What should I do?
1 Answer
Going with the Ryzen 5 5600 would be a huge step up from what you have now. Just make sure the DDR4 RAM you’re looking at is 2x8GB, right?
Yeah, I'm definitely considering two sticks for better performance. But with AM5, there's future-proofing since I could upgrade the CPU later and get better RAM as prices drop. AM4 feels outdated already, so won't I risk overpaying in the long run?