After almost 11 years of making the most of my beloved, overclocked Sapphire R9 290 I’m finally looking into giving it its well deserved rest.
Last year, I was stoked to still play Elden Ring on my WQHD monitor and it was fun. This year I’m rocking Helldivers 2. Yeah it works (with workarounds) but graphics is tuned so much down, that it’s barely enjoyable (but hey, 60 FPS).
My Old Specs
Motherboard: Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming 5
CPU: AMD 1800X
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290 OC (@1135 Mhz)
RAM 2x8 G.Skill Ripjaws 3200 CL14
PSU: Lepa B750-MA
The Vision
I’m not a “best bang for the buck” kind of guy. When I buy hardware, my priority is on it lasting me as long as possible. That is my only excuse for buying something that expensive, and I live by it.
The R9 290 has been absolutely awesome in that regard. I see potential in continuing with the AM4 motherboard. But I do have some concerns I will lay out as questions below.
I am running linux (fedora) on this box, and I will stay at AMD as long as driver support on linux is so much beyond its competition.
The Plan
Keep the motherboard
CPU: R7 5800X3D or R9 5950X
GPU: RX 7900XT or RX 7900XTX
RAM: An additional set of 2x8GB G.Skill RipJaws to make it 4x8GB
Keep the PSU
The Questions
For the motherboard, I will have to update the BIOS for supporting the new CPU. I remember reading somewhere that newer AGESA versions drop support for older CPUs? Did I dream that? I fear not being able to make the direct jump from 1800X to 5XXX.
Is there any issue with mixing RAM sticks with different CAS latencies?
I understand my Motherboard does not support PCIe 4.0, but I can still use the newer GPU. Anyone with real-life experience on how that affects performance? I would probably still go for the GPU upgrade, to future-proof myself for the next MOBO upgrade.
Will my 6 year old 80plus bronze PSU handle all that?
I’m absolutely torn between the 5800X3D and R9 5950X. I am a software dev, and do not just game on this machine, but even for some non-gaming tasks, the 5800X3D perfoms crazy good. I’m still leaning towards the 5950X because I feel more cores == more future proof, but I would really like to hear your opinions on that.
Thanks for reading this far and I’m looking forward to your opinions and tips.
Update:
Updating the BIOS to the latest (F51) on the old CPU has worked out well.
The Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming 5 does support the 1800x according to :
Heres what i did to upgrade from a skylake i7:
asus tuf motherboard
5950x
some nvme drives
2x16 kit of 3600 ripjaws ram
Kept:
psu (mistake)
gtx1050ti
spinning rust 8Gb drive
The 12+yr old Psu died , took out :
mobo (asus warrentied it !)
spinning rust drive (WD warrentied it!)
1 nvme drive
the gtx1050ti
I picked up MSI meg unify board and the 5950 booted 3 times (it was unstable all three times, even with default settings) then it died ; also a rx580 for cheap.
I had to get another 5950X…
so i recommend a new PSU if you can fit it into the budget.
I have the asus board in another box with 2400G in it for other purposes.
The 5950X is $75 more and the 7900XT is $200 less, landing you in the ~$1100 budget range.
For your questions:
Motherboard, it should be fine. There was a point when they thought there was not enough storage to fit all CPU definitions; turns out they could compress that, so you should be good. If unsure, double check on the website and/or talk with one of their sales reps.
I would pay the extra $20-$30 for a x16 kit, myself. It isn’t that much extra compared to what you are buying.
Performance impact is pretty negligible at this stage; might be worse later on. It’s mostly a problem when going with x8 cards like the 7600 XT (or god forbid, the x4 cards like the 6500 XT).
The PSU should be good to go another couple of years, but, the CPU draws 200W and the GPU another 350W.
The X3D is not really worth the premium it takes for gaming. For $30 more it is a nice boost, for $100 more over the 5700X? No, just no.
The reason I say this is that the X3D is only good when your use case is CPU bound - as soon as the bottleneck switches over to a GPU, it is pretty much not worth much. Did you really want to run that 4090 in a 1080p resolution?
If you could settle for slightly less awesome, a Radeon 7900 GRE build with a Ryzen 7900 build could be argued, too. This would probably allow you to upgrade your CPU in 2026-2027 sometime and then ride that all the way into the 2030s. I am thinking something like this:
This means you pay roughly 15% more for a brand new computer. The best part about this is that you can sell your current computer for $300-$400 to a relative, friend or the local craigslist.
Your decision though, feel free to mix and match ideas that fit your use case!
A new video card and that cpu will still be fine for a few more years. After that you may very well find that cpu you are looking for a even better price.
I am frugal with upgrades and find cpus do hold there ground a lot more then people think!
Having gone from a 1700X to X3d on an MSi x370 board, I am more then content with the gaming performance paired with a GTX 1080 (at 1080p lol)
I was able to flash to latest beta bios and 1700x ran fine before swapping, assuming Gigabyte has done the same, …but don’t forget to set up two thumb drives, one with current bios version, and the latest for new cpu if you go that route.
Also picked up 4x8GB Flare X cause B Die, and on G.Skills list for X370s. Was a few dollars more, but didn’t want to worry about compatibility at all. Running 4x8 might require a little more juice as from my understanding it is a higher electrical load which is logical I suppose. Plug more stuff in, use more power. Have a 120mm fan directly above the sticks to insure temps are always good. If you go with another 2x8 set my suggestion is get one with the same chips as current to maximize compatibility, but either way, don’t expect to rely on XMP/Expo settings to automagically set clocks to something performative. Not that it matters with the monster L3 cache.
My x3d is also under a swiftech waterblock, and maintaining the 4450 allcore clocks might not be a thing once summer gets rolling. The extra cache adds a bit of heat, and it starts clocking down at 68 C iirc.
With all that said I agree with wertigon, an entire new system might serve you better in the long run considering you want to run it for as long as possible.
Thank you all for the answers. The old Zen 1 CPUs still working on the new BIOS calms me down a lot.
Also thanks for the link for PCIe performance Necrosaro!
I will go with 32GB of RAM in a 4x8 config. Adding more cooling here is a good tipp.
I think I will put my budget towards the GPU though. Maybe I’m biased there by my good experience with my R9 290. But if games in the next 10 years evolve similar to the last 10, the GPU will bottleneck long before the CPU and then CPU doesn’t matter that much. With that in mind I’m leaning towards the 5950X right now. It might bottleneck me slightly right now, but I believe it will be less of a problem in a couple of years when my GPU can’t do high FPS in the latest games anyways.
As you asked wertigon: I do game on 1440p ultrawide, but I’m thinking about a monitor upgrade later this year, mainly for higher Hz.
Sure, I was also happy running on a 4 core 3400G until I upgraded to a 12 core 5900X too
You only know the experience of one CPU and for most of us consumers, that will always be the case. You will never really know the difference between a 5600, a 5700X, a 5800XX3D or a 5950X unless you actually daily drive each of them for a month or two. And this is completely fine and the way it should be.
Talking to people that actually have done that, though, the X3D is not really worth sacrificing more cores over. AMD current pricing strategy is, you pay x for the regular chip and then $100 more for either the next level or the X3D variant. If it was $25 or $50 more for the X3D, then I would have a lot less of a problem with it.
This is not to say the 5800X3D is a bad chip, just a bit overpriced. Then again, that price could be worth it to you, it is an open market after all and the only one that can say “worth it” and hit that pay button is you in the end.
Im not sure 4 x 8GB would be an optimal configuration for your system. You will lose some performance for some capacity which could still be fine in the long run.
The reason for this is that you run the risk of making your system unstable because it is not recommended to use different kits to fill in the RAM - even the same kits from the same batch may not have the same RAM components. RAM kits are tested together for compatibility and that is important if you will go the overclocked route (XMP). It’s sort of ok to mix kits but a mixed configuration will need, nay demand, that you run only on JEDEC speed - you have to explicitly tell your machine to not overclocked the ram or not to use the XMP profile, further decreasing your overall performance. Again, this might still be ok vs keep hitting the swap on your disk because you ran out of RAM.
Also using all 4 memory channels may not be the fastest configuration depending on the CPU and motherboard combinations: Get a deep dive in the AHOC Channel for more info:
IIRC most configurations favor a 2 x 16GB setup but if keeping costs down is an objective it should be fine.
Just FYI, I still have a AMD 8350 (my whole system is overclocked though) and can play games like baldur’s gate 3 and many others no problem with a Nvidia 3070 with 4k with the cpu.
It’s super old cpu and your cpu will still be fine. Looks like you have decided on the upgrade anyways.
Yes, I mean you’re right. I have thought about going slow with this upgrade, i.e. just buying the GPU at first.
I will probably put more thought into what I actually want to do regarding CPU, but the input here has been very helpful so far. Might even go with something comparatively cheap like a 5800x to ease my mind into doing a socket upgrade rather sooner than later.
For CPU, here are your upgrade options laid out on the floor:
5700X
5800X
5800X3D
5900X
5950X
Cores
8
8
8
12
16
Threads
16
16
16
24
32
L1 Cache
512 kB
512 kB
512 kB
768 kB
1024 kB
L2 Cache
4 MB
4 MB
4 MB
6 MB
8 MB
L3 Cache
32 MB
32 MB
96 MB
64 MB
64 MB
Base Clock
3.4 GHz
3.8 GHz
3.4 GHz
3.7 GHz
3.4 GHz
Boost Clock
4.6 GHz
4.7 GHz
4.5 GHz
4.8 GHz
4.9 GHz
TDP
65W
105W
105W
105W
105W
Avg. Power Draw (load)
76W
148W
143W
133W
141W
Price
$161
$201
$299
$290
$375
If you go with a 5700X and the 7900 GRE or 7800 XT then yes, you will save some money and make the jump to AM5 that much sooner. However, you could also just sit AM5 out and be the first to knock on the door for AM6. Your call!
Well for gaming on your particular am4 platform the 5800X3D is pretty much,
the best cpu you could buy.
On the other hand since you are also want to upgrade the gpu and also the ram.
given you are currently on a X370 board it might be more interesting to just jump on am5.
The 7800X3D is not that much more expensive than the 5800X3D i imagine.
At least up here the 7800X3D got a decent price drop to like €350,- ish.
And that makes it only a €50,- more expensive than the 5800X3D.
Memory kits DDR5 has also come down in price significantly.
And in regards to motherboards there are already pretty good B650 boards.
This will give you upgrade ability for the upcoming years for cpu´s, memory and nvme.
If you currently were on a X570 board than i would have said just stick to am4,
and put in the 5800X3D.
I think that with a 5950X combined with such kind of high end gpu´s you probably gonna leave,
a bit of gaming performance on the table in regards to certain games.
So the 5800X3D would than be a better pick imo with a 7900XT, 7900XTX etc.
However you are on X370 and although it might work with a bios update.
I still think that you would leave a bit on table platform wise with that particular board.
But of course that is all a matter of personal needs really.
If you are totally happy with your current board and what it has to offer,
in regards to features and connectivity.
Than of course just upgrading the cpu will always be the cheaper option.
But all in all i cannot look into your wallet but if you could than i´d would advice to,
consider jumping on am5 right now.
And than maybe the 7800X3D or eventually if you need more cores,
there are also more options.
And yeah the psu i definitely recommend to upgrade.
; also a rx580 for cheap.
