I’ve had this pc for 5 years and its starting to slow down and I’m ready to upgrade it. I’d like to definitely change the case and motherboard but only if I have to. Any help is appreciated thanks in advance!
There is only one thing slowing down your PC and that’s the RYZEN 7 2700X.
Your GPU is perhaps getting 180fps max in Unigine Valley but will immediately bump to 300fps with a 5700X.
However if you only need to upgrade the CPU you may as well go all out and chose from 5800X3D, 5900X or 5950X. Any of those will transform your computer but the best compromise is the RYZEN 9 5900X because it makes everything faster.
A reason for a new motherboard would only be that you want USB-C or PCIe gen4 and that only makes sense if you change your storage to gen4.
Once you have a decent CPU then a GPU upgrade is a worth while option. Do the CPU first or there will be no difference.
It’s worth having 32GB RAM, you might notice that. Swap out your two sticks for larger ones, don’t try to add sticks. If you upgrade to 64GB RAM it makes things like running VMs better.
The big question is: what do you want this computer to do that it can’t already, and what’s your budget to make that happen? I’ll assume this is a gaming PC and you play a bit of everything for now.
According to the NXZT website you should be able to fit:
CPU heatsinks up to 165 mm tall (most tower heatsinks with 120 mm fans should fit, just double check or buy from somewhere you can return).
Dual 120 mm or 140 mm AIO liquid coolers as long as the radiator + fan thickness is <60 mm
That will be plenty of cooling for any CPU you’re likely to want to buy. You don’t need a new case unless you want one for fun, or want to keep this system running and replace it instead. I would hold off on getting a CPU cooler until you know what CPU, RAM and motherboard combo you’ll wind up with.
Like @wayland said, your motherboard supports Ryzen 5000 CPUs with a BIOS update, and so it would be very economical to get a Ryzen 5000 series CPU and avoid a motherboard upgrade. If you’re gaming, a Ryzen 5600, 5700X or 5800X3D are probably the best bang-for-buck CPU upgrade options. For gaming alone, I don’t think the 5900X or 5950X are meaningfully faster than a 5700X or even 5600 in many cases.
If you’re happy with 16GB RAM, it’s probably not worth the money to replace/add RAM. For gaming, you’re probably going to be happy with 16GB RAM running at those speeds. Just make sure XMP is enabled in the BIOS so it’s actually running at 3200 MHz (rather than <3200 MHz, which is a typical default if you haven’t enabled XMP).
If you’re upgrading your CPU, you should also budget for a GPU upgrade to get a meaningful upgrade. The mid to low end GPU market is a bit of a mess right now because we’re overdue for a new generation of GPUs but only the high end ones have been released. Once you establish your budget, it will be easier to find a GPU+CPU pairing that makes sense for you.
You didn’t mention what monitor you have. Do you know the resolution (e.g. 1920x1080) and refresh rate (e.g. 60Hz)? Do you want to keep it? The monitor resolution and refresh rate affects what CPUs and GPUs you’re likely to be happy with.
The NZXT H510 looks OK. It looks like an AIO would fit. Or AMD Ryzen Wraith Prism RGB cooler as long as you still have the plastic hooks you took off when fitting the Wraith Spire cooler. Generally if you’re cooling a 2700X ok then that will work for a 5700X. A 5900X may benefit from something better.
Like others here have already said, upgrade to a 5800X3D, 5900X or 5950X depending on what your budget allows. HOWEVER…
16 GB of RAM is no longer enough. You will need at least 32 GB, preferably 64 GB by the end of 2024. There are games today that make use of 32 GB+ of memory, and the trend will only continue.
So, if you want your PC upgrades to last, do consider a 2x32 GB DDR4 3600@CL18 kit. Those are priced at $120+. With the 5900X, that lands you in a budget of around $500 for upgrades, more if you want a better cooler.
Buying a 5900X and a 64 GB kit should carry you to the AM6 platform from AMD, due out around 2027.
The other two options - 13600k or 7900 build - cost more, and will only deliver marginally better performance than your upgrade - but if you go AM5 you will be able to buy only a new CPU in 2027 instead of a whole new platform.
Here is an AM5 recommended build in case you are interested, for comparison purposes. Prices in USD:
I would definitely just get the 5700X and another 16gb kit of ram in your position, very cheap upgrade that will carry you for the next few years, at least if gaming is what you are primarily doing with your pc. Once the midrange RDNA 3 gpu’s come around you can see if any of them will offer a decent performance boost (roughly 2x) with more vram, for a reasonable price.
There are benefits in moving to X570 or B550 platforms and RDNA 2(+) gpu’s along with a zen3 cpu for reBAR and faster ram support (up to ddr4 4000) etc. but that comes with a fairly steep price for not that much gain in most situations. If you wanted to max out the AM4 platform, that would be a way to go along with a gen4 nvme, but l think that money would be better spent going to a late gen AM5 platform or whatever intel has out in another 5 years or so.
AM4 was really amazing, for me it still is. I could upgrade my computer without having to build a new computer. However if he starts high enough up the CPU stack he can probably sit on that for another 5 years. Think about it, he’s on AM4 and never went past a 2700X. He was standing on the greatest CPU upgrade path the PC business has ever seen yet just sat there on the same CPU all these years haha.
I think he will get something more modern and pretty good and sit on that for 5 years. Upgrade path is irrelevant to him. What ever he chooses is going to last.
while it would be nice to step up to a 7*** cpu
the best option for bang for buck would be a 57** or better and go with the kit you already have…
if your gaming go with the 5800x3d
if your doing productivity then 5900
At this point in the am4 life cycle I’d upgrade to a 5000 series ryzen (maybe a 5800x3d if you can stretch to that but seriously any 5000 series or even 3000 series ryzen will be a significant jump), add some more ram and call it a day.
I did the same and went to a 5900x (as above) , depends if you care more about games or threads for productivity.
The 5900 still games pretty well. Is not like it’s bad at it.
He will get a very meaningful upgrade with just the CPU going to RYZEN 5000 because the RYZEN 2700X is severely holding back his current GPU. The 5900X is a significant upgrade over the 5800X in gaming, I think because of the greater cache. The 5800X3D is better still for gaming but loses significant CPU performance to the 5900X.
Saying it’s not an upgrade without the GPU too misses the point by a mile. He could upgrade to an RTX 4090 but with the 2700X would see no improvement at 1080p. Simply upgrading the CPU to a 5700X and do nothing else would be the upgrade with the most improvement plus it’s very cheap.
Can confirm this. 3000 series or 5000 series vs a 2700x is chalk and cheese for gaming.
I have a 2700x, 3300x and 5900x and the 3300x actually beats the 2700x with the same GPU on some (things vega64 in both), never mind something 3600x or up. The 5900x destroys it (with 6900xt as comparison).
This has been said ever since the RYZEN 3000 series came out and even before that when RYZEN was compared to Intel. Yes the ZEN 1 and 1+ have more grunt than you actually need for gaming, when monitoring CPU usage you can see it’s only say 40% so you think you’re fine. You’re not fine, the early RYZEN is bottlenecking your GPU.
That RX 5700XT @gobbyboy is running is perhaps a bit more powerful than a VEGA 64 yet even an RX 580 is bottlenecked by a ZEN 1+ CPU. In Unigine Valley an RX 580 + RYZEN 5600 beats a VEGA 56 + RYZEN 2600X.
The secret is latency. The original ZEN architechure has a latency problem which was solved in ZEN 2. By ZEN 3 it’s perfect.
It does depend but let’s just say that zen and zen+ cap frame rate and make 1% lows worse.
If you’re pushing your GPU it is less of a thing but if you have, as mentioned anything say Vega or 1080 or above and aren’t focused on high res high detail gaming, getting onto ryzen 3k or ideally 5k should be a priority.
The single compute die zen2 and zen3 architecture is just plain better for latency especially the 6 and 8 core parts due to the single CCX.
The higher core counts are also good too due to the huge and fast caches.
I was shocked at just how good even the 3300x was as that system was an experiment during Covid to build the cheapest b550 shit box zen2 machine I could buy. It was much closer to my 2700x former high end zen+ machine than it had any right to be and even beat it at low thread workloads. As a 4 core.
Definitely do not underestimate the improvement that zen2 and zen3 bring. Better ipc, higher clocks and less cross ccx latency all make a real difference.
The RYZEN 3 3300X was briefly very popular due to it’s excellent gaming performance and price, until they vanished from the market. I wanted on but they were as much as a RYZEN 5 3600 when I was looking.
