What is the best way to add a processor for my graphics card?
What is the best way to add a processor for my graphics card?
I need some help deciding how to upgrade my PC. Currently, I'm running an older Ryzen 5 5600X overclocked to 4.5GHz. I have 32GB of DDR4 RAM at 3200MHz, a motherboard called NZXT N7 B550 for the AM4 platform, and a Kraken cooler. My power supply is rated for 850W, and my hard drive has an M.2 SSD, so I don't need to worry about electricity or storage capacity right now. Last year, I got an RTX 4070 Founders Edition, and I want to finish building the rest of my rig around it. Since I already put a good GPU in, I'd like everything else to keep up with its speed. Mostly, I play Counter-Strike: Global Online. I'm not sure if it's better to stick with AM4 and upgrade to a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D, or to change platforms completely and get brand new parts like a CPU, motherboard, and faster DDR5 RAM—maybe a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or the newer 9800X3D. I hope some smart people here can guide me on which path is best!
My power supply is rated for 850 watts, but I don't know its make or model or how old it is. How much money are you willing to spend on an upgrade? Where do you live and what does the RTX 3060 cost there? If you only play CS:GO 2, just swapping your CPU will help. But if your PC needs a roof over your head or food on the table, switch to an AMD Ryzen processor made in the last generation. One final tip: make sure to get two sticks of 16 gigabytes of RAM that run at high speed, and this will help your B550 board work better.
Thanks so much! My power supply is an NZXT C-Series Gold C850, and I bought it back about four years ago. As far as money goes, I don't care much, I just want to build something that works well with my RTX 4070 card. If the difference between a used 5800X3D and a brand new 9800X3D setup (for CPU, RAM, and motherboard) is pretty small for what I need, I'd probably just stick with the 5800X3D. But I'm mostly trying to figure out which one makes sense in my situation. Where I live, a used 5800X3D costs around $375.
CS2 really benefits from the extra cache, so a 5800X3D will do pretty well: https://www.techspot.com/review/2965-amd...9-9950x3d/ and https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-r...3d/18.html It depends on what else you use your computer for. The 5800X3D might be slow in everyday tasks and won't beat Intel's 13th or 14th generation chips, or AMD's 7000-series (non-X3D) in some games. But if CS2 is most of what you do, it probably doesn't matter as much. On the platform front: all these options are better than your current setup. I don't think AMD will change things on AM5 until after Zen 6 because chipsets like 600 and 800 are basically the same. LGA 1700 is a bit better in some ways, like getting PCIe 4.0 x8 instead of x4, but worse in others, like not being able to use fast SSDs without losing power on main slots. So it's pretty much an even trade-off between AMD and Intel. Intel has the best player platform with LGA 1851, but I would never recommend it just for gaming. Overall, if moving platforms doesn't change how you game or do other stuff in a big way, then maybe it isn't worth it.
The RTX 4090 can keep things pretty smooth in CS2 with 1% lows around 78 or under. That's a really good mark for this game, especially when you think about how fast the CPU needs to be to make sure the graphics stay responsive. Anything weaker than that won't help. But if your main use is just playing CS2 and doing some light stuff like editing photos or watching videos on top of gaming, then the RTX 4090 is a bit overkill. You'd rather grab a cheaper card with a lower clock speed, like one running at 3600MHz with CL16 timing. That setup will be your best value for money right now. If you're okay paying more just to get better performance in games, then looking into the AM5 platform might make sense.