I recently upgraded my processor from a Ryzen 7 3700X to a Ryzen 9 5900XT and now I'm experiencing hard crashes whenever I try to launch games. The system runs fine for basic tasks, but launching any game causes a total crash that leaves me with a black screen and requires a power cycle to recover. The motherboard is an MSI B450 Tomahawk with the latest BIOS, and my power supply is a Cooler Master Gold 750W. I've troubleshooted by resetting BIOS, reseating hardware, and even putting my old processor back in, which lets me play games just fine. I'm trying to figure out whether it's a power supply issue or if the new processor is faulty. I have a Corsair RM850W PSU on order, but is there a way to check if the current PSU is the issue?
1 Answer
Have you checked how much power your whole setup uses? You can use PCPartPicker to estimate the total power draw, including everything from case fans to peripherals. While switching CPUs shouldn't drastically increase power usage, you want to be sure you're not maxing out your current PSU with all your components.
I checked PCPartPicker, and it estimates around 700-800 watts for my setup. That makes me wonder about my PSU, but it seems like the 5900XT shouldn't be pulling that much more than the 3700X without overclocking.