I need to upgrade my GPU and I could use some input

I am in a slightly odd upgrade situation
I have recently come to realize that my old Fury X simply isn’t cutting it anymore and now that GPU prices are slightly less awful, I think it is a good time to upgrade. However, with my setup (I am running an R7 1700X with an Aorus X370 Gaming 5) I am not really on the newest platform
I have been eyeing three GPUs: the RX 6600 non-XT (which an I can get for 269€), the RX 6650 XT (~349€ and the 6600 is gonna cost me at least the same or more), and the RX 6700 (399€).

My preferred choices would be to either get a 6600 and upgrade in 1-2 years or get the 6700 and run it until I have to build an all new computer.
I have several concerns about upgrading in the future (mainly future GPU prices/buying power and my platform becoming a bottleneck) so the 6700 seems good but I am worried about my CPU bottlenecking it (and obviously 400€ is a lot of money).

So my question would be: do I get the the 6600 and upgrade in 1-2 years or do I get the 6700? And if I get the 6700, is my 1700X even going to cut it (and could I run a 3000 or 5000 in my system))? Or do I take a completely different route (e.g. the 6650 XT or waiting for RDNA3)?

I should also mention, I am mainly gaming on Linux, so the added GPU overhead from Proton and co. may reduce a potential CPU bottleneck (but thats just speculation on my end) and I do have a 4K monitor, so some 4K capability would be great but 1080P is totally fine too

I’d seriously consider a cpu upgrade (if you can get one cheap enough). Even going from 2700x to 3300x (I.e. backwards in core count) benched better on lightly threaded GPU workload with reference Vega 64 (guessing somewhere between 6600xt and 6700xt performance) in both systems for me.

Zen2 and zen3 are big improvements for frame rate even on 2017 era GPUs.

You could definitely go to 3000 series without too much UEFI screwing around or risk and it’s a massive upgrade even vs zen plus as far as gaming performance goes.

Edit : I didn’t upgrade from 2700x to 3300x, had a secondary system and both with Vega 64 :joy:. The difference in performance was pretty shocking though considering half the core count. A 3600 or 5600 would be a solid and reasonably priced cpu upgrade to compliment your new GPU and would definitely make a difference.

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Ugh, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that since I really don’t want to upgrade the CPU :joy: (this not just about the money but also the work involved)
How urgent do you think the CPU would be? I am thinking I could get the GPU first and the upgrade the CPU once I find a good offer (probably by the end of the year) or would the gaming experience just be god awful?

Also how does the R7 3700x compare to my 1700x in terms of Power and Heat? I am currently running either a Noctua NH-U12s or NH-U14s (I think it’s the former), will that still be enough?

What constitutes a good offer for you?
Ryzen CPUs are just about half the price for the current gen and AMD is looking to get rid of as many as possible. There’s a 5800X3D for 450€. The lower spec ones are even cheaper.

I’m also in a precarious position, but I’m gonna absolutely have to upgrade the whole shebang since I’m running the og skylake.

I saw a used 3700X for ~100€ The other day, so that would definitely count, although I’m not sure about buying a used CPU. The 5800X3D is out of the question for me because it’s just too expensive for me (it is still more than any of the GPUs I am considering) and while my mainboard should theoretically support it, Ryzen 5000 on X370 is a bit of a waste IMHO. If I went that route, I’d probably just build a whole new computer but that’s simply not within my budget right now

I could settle for a 4500 for 109€ but a) I would be losing 2 cores which I would probably miss and b) I am not completely sure if my Mainboard actually supports it, since Gigabyte’s website only explicitly lists “4000 G-Series” but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Buying used is risky but a used 3700X for ~100€ seems like the best choice for me (a new one sold a in a tray would be about 235€)

You could certainly do GPU first. I did. But just know you’re leaving a lot on the table with the 2000 series cpu.

My point was mostly that I wouldn’t over capitalise on GPU without upgrading to a zen2 or zen3 based cpu.

Gaming won’t be god awful by any stretch with a 2700x (I did it with a 6900xt for a bit) but there’s definitely performance left on the table. You’ll likely notice the improvement in consistency and less stutters with the more recent processors. Just generally smoother.

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Ah I see. it’s actually a 1000 series btw (so probably a tiny bit slower but not by much). If you did somewhat fine with the 6900XT, it shouldn’t be too bad with a much slower GPU
Now a 6700 will cost me about the same as a 6600+new CPU (either a 3600/4500 or a used 3700X). What do you think would make more sense here? A 6600 used to its full potential or a potentially bottlenecked 6700?

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Update: the 6700 has risen to 429€ which is okay-ish but IMHO not a good price. I’m a bit afraid prices may go up for the other cards as well so I’m contemplating just pulling the trigger on a 6600 non-XT or a 6650XT. In case of the 6600 the CPU bottleneck will probably also be minimal, so that’s a bonus

Edit: One thing I just saw with the 6600 that I forgot to mention is that the spec sheet says it uses “PCIe 4.0 x16 (x8)”. What exactly does this mean? Is it x8 bandwidth on an x16 slot? And does this negatively affect me if I put in a PCIe3 x16 slot (which theoretically has enough bandwidth)?

I’ve got an R9 FuryX on my RYZEN 9 5900X system.
Your biggest problem is your RYZEN 7 1700X is bottlenecking your GPU massively. The problem will only be more pronounced with a better GPU.

It’s not that your CPU lacks power but that it’s like a motorcycle with a 12 Litre 3000HP diesel engine, not very fast or agile.

I would guess you’d get a 50% bump in overall gaming performance by going RYZEN 5000 series and keeping your R9. Check if there is a BIOS for 5000 series for your motherboard. If not get a 3700X.

Once you have your CPU sorted out if you still need a GPU then at least you have a system that can take advantage of it.

Tech Deals actually did a video last week showing a RX 6600 to be faster than a RTX 3080. The 3080 was struggling on a RYZEN 1700X system like yours. Yes he was using an Intel CPU as a comparison but you can simply upgrade your CPU. Amaze yourself and fit a 5800X3D.

The move from Zen, to say Zen 2 alone, can be great breathing room
Plenty of 3000 series chips at avail, including say 3700x [which would run cooler]
Zen 3, would be icing up a cake [*Look at 5600/5600G, on the low end of pricing]

6700, is such a weird GPU wedge, between 66__XT and 6700XT
Its specs are all over the place, with coming to corner cutting tactics
The few times I spotted them, I didn’t find worth while [add ~$10, gets an XT]
… I’d look at the 66__XTs, if wanting to keep budget [relatively] tame

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Hmm I see… Unfortunately I got impatient and ordered an RX 6600 non-XT (at 259€ it was kind of a bargain by today’s standards). I’m gonna see how it performs in the games I actually play and then I’ll see if I end up upgrading my CPU. I may try to pick up a 3700X but the 5800X3D just isn’t an option for me at 430€.

Get off of Zen1. The 3700X will delight you.

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It physically requires an x16 slot, but only has 8 lanes electrically wired. PCIe connections don’t negotiate for bandwidth, they negotiate for highest common lane count and rate, so yes it will run at PCIe3 x8 and have half the designed bandwidth available.

This scenario was frequently talked about when these cards came out, so you can find various comparison articles like this and this. (Spoiler: not a big deal for most workloads.)

I would be interested to find out which is the faster card in @HimTortons system out of the Fury and the 6600. And then if the Fury with 3700x is faster than 6600 with 1700x.
PCIe Bandwidth of the new 6600 card is half that of the old Fury in this configuration.

This comparison does show fitting a 6600 has the edge over fitting a 5800X3D
https://www.gpucheck.com/en-usd/compare/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-vs-amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d-vs-amd-ryzen-7-1700x/high/high/-vs-

However fitting a 3700X improves the Fury average performance by 14%.
It improves 6600 perfoemance by 18%

The degradation of the 6600 performance could be a lot worse because I’m not showing the fact it’s half the bandwidth.

The Fury may in fact be faster than the 6600 if you’d chosen the CPU upgrade.

It’s definitely the 6600. I only did a few runs of 3Dmark Timespy and Firestrike but the 6600 was faster; my gaming experiences confirm this. Pretty much every game runs noticably more smoothly, especially under Linux (which was important to me!). There were even some games that were completely unplayable with the fury x but completely fine with the 6600.

We will probably never know. However, getting rid of the Fury was a good choice either way: I didn’t like being stuck without driver support and DP 1.2 limited my to 4K@60Hz (I don’t often get more than 60Hz at 4K with either card but in some older games it does happen, so it’s nice to make use of that). The having a lower powerdraw and a quieter card is also a plus.

The CPU bottleneck is something I will be investigating in the near future. However I’m not sure I’ll necessarily be upgrading to a 3700X. The cheapest (new) 3700X I can get my hands on would be one sold in a tray for ~240€. Not a bad price, but a 5700X will cost the same and I didn’t want to spend more than 400-420€ on this upgrade in the first place.
What about some of the Ryzen 5’s? I can get a 3600 for as cheap as 120€, a 5500 for 115€, and a 4500 for 100€. I’ve just got some questions here: 1. How would any of those compare to the 3700X in gaming? 2. Is there any difference between these and their x600 counterparts (other than clockspeed 3. How much multithread performance would I be losing compared to my 1700X (if any)? I don’t really need a crazy number of cores anymore, but I still expect not to lose too much performance due to the faster cores

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From what I’ve seen and from what @Quension has posted, the difference seems to be quite small. I think if I’m already bottlenecked by my CPU, the PCIe bandwidth probably won’t make much a difference.
Nonetheless, I think using PCIe 4.0 x8 was a ridiculous decision by AMD. I get that they probably did it because they want to use that chip in laptops as well but I feel like a lot of the people interested in the 6600 are on older boards without PCIe 4.0 (especially since a lot of older boards still support new ryzen CPUs). I feel like these people are getting screwed over (at least a little)

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Thank you for the update. I agree the Display Port on the FuryX is out of date and affects your refresh rate even on 1440p won’t do 144Hz.

It’s interesting that the lower PCIe bandwidth is not affecting it. Interesting that the new card is a lot faster.

I said 3700x in case your motherboard does not take 5000 series. A 5700x would be a good choice.

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Gigabyte says it will support the 5000 series, even the 5800X3D. Nonetheless, 500€ in total is just more than I am willing to spend on upgrading this PC on what is effectively a dead platform now. It just needs to last me through Uni. As long as there are no huge disadvantages, I may go Ryzen 5

Also, funny little story: I just went into my BIOS and for some reason, CPU-boost was turned off (I never did this); I didnt notice that until messing around with the benchmarks

It’s not a dead platform until you don’t have an upgrade path to the level you need. Since you can’t afford 5800X3D you also can’t afford anything AM5.
Things seem very expensive for you in the EU, this CPU is a bit less in the UK at £428, maybe within your budget at below €500.

£166 for a RYZEN 5 5600 which will do a very good job and solve your Zen1 problem. I expect CCL can still ship to the EU.

Oh no, I meant 500€ for the CPU+GPU combo and thats where the 5700X would have brought me. The 5800x3d is only 420€ in Germany, which is a completely reasonable price (just not for me).

If I do spring for the 5600, I won’t need CCL. Mindfactory has it for 149€ as well, so I may go for it. I’m just wondering how much would I actually benefit from it compared to the 5500, 4500, or 3600 (which are 30-50€ cheaper) in my scenario. Gamers Nexus has shown it to be a bit faster, yes, but that was with a 3080. As far as I’m concerned, the big downside with the 5500 would be the smaller cache (since my mainboard doesnt do PCIe4.0 anyway)