This processor pairs well with various motherboards, offering strong performance and compatibility.
This processor pairs well with various motherboards, offering strong performance and compatibility.
You're considering a budget upgrade with a focus on affordability and compatibility. The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and the ASUS B450M-A/CSM Prime motherboard combo seems like a solid choice within your $300 limit. It’s great you’re leaning toward AMD, especially since you already have an AMD GPU and plan to keep it for now. The prebuilt Acer Predator setup is fine if it fits your needs, but upgrading to a newer CPU will likely require a new motherboard. Since you're planning to stick with AMD, the 2666MHz RAM you installed is a good start, though you might want to consider faster speeds once you upgrade. Just keep in mind that using slower RAM now won’t hurt long-term performance, but it could affect gaming and multitasking. If you’re unsure about the motherboard, checking forums or ASUS’s official site for compatibility with your Ryzen 5 3600 would be wise. Overall, this path looks reasonable—just plan for future upgrades and stay mindful of power delivery and cooling needs.
Yes, it's confirmed that a single 8GB stick is recognized as functional.
I bought two 8GB sticks with 2666 DDR4. Placing both in my system didn’t start up. Swapping one in for the original 8GB worked, but after a few months I’m not sure if I did it both. The stick missing now shows a slight curve, so I wasn’t certain about DOA or system limits. I’m stuck running RAM at 2144 because that’s what the first stick was set to.