I'm planning to upgrade my PC so I can play newer games at 1440p around 50–60 FPS on high or ultra settings. My current system has a Ryzen 5 5500, Radeon RX 6600, and 16 GB of RAM. It still performs reasonably well at 1080p and can handle some 1440p gaming with reduced settings and FSR.
I have roughly $900 to spend and was considering a Ryzen 5 5600 along with a 16 GB Radeon RX 9060 XT or a similar graphics card. I'm unsure whether upgrading from the Ryzen 5 5500 to a 5600 would provide enough of a performance boost to be worthwhile, or whether I should focus almost entirely on the GPU. My motherboard is an ASUS Prime B550M-A AC, my power supply is 650 W, and I'm not interested in competitive gaming. I mainly want higher resolution and stable 1440p performance around 60 FPS.
3 Answers
I’d skip the Ryzen 5 5600 upgrade. The difference from your 5500 usually isn’t large enough to justify spending money on it, especially for 1440p gaming where the graphics card is likely to be the limiting factor. Put most of the budget toward the strongest GPU you can reasonably fit in the system.
If you want a meaningful AM4 CPU upgrade, look for a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, assuming you can find one at a sensible price. It offers a much larger improvement in CPU-heavy games than a regular 5600. A used Ryzen 7 5700X could also be worth considering, but I’d still prioritize the GPU for your 1440p target.
Before buying anything, confirm the exact model and power requirements of the graphics card, along with the specifications of the LG display you use for gaming. A quality 650 W power supply should be sufficient for many midrange cards, but higher-end models may need more capacity. Since you have about $900, a sensible plan would be to keep the 5500 for now, upgrade the GPU, and replace the CPU later only if testing shows it is holding you back.
The 5700X3D is the better long-term option for gaming, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the graphics card. At 1440p, the GPU upgrade will usually be more noticeable.