Would this be suitable for improvements?
Would this be suitable for improvements?
The initial two boards (AM4/LGA-1700) provide PCIe 4.0 for GPUs that support PCIe 5.0. The AM5 models deliver PCIe 5.0.
Additionally, the Intel builds I shared will surpass the AM4 models in performance.
I’d note that the b350 board you have is likely to run at 5700x or 5700x3d after a BIOS update. I believe it’s better to skip the 5800x and higher models since they tend to heat up more and consume more power. Even with 5700x or 5700x3d, you’d still get roughly 90% of the performance from higher-end chips but with less efficiency. I’m not convinced about choosing a b550 board either. Some here might think PCIe 3 limits your options, but from what I remember about older AsRock b350s, later updates added a resizable bar and as long as the GPU used a PCIe x16 port, performance loss would be minimal—perhaps just 1-3%.
I align with the intel configurations mentioned. If you plan to use DDR4 memory, I’d recommend a 14th-gen Intel processor paired with a DDR4 board. I recently assembled a similar build using an MSI B760, though I have the micro version available which lacks VRM heatsinks (since it wouldn’t be in stock at that time). In my setup, I used an i7-14700 and 32GB DDR4, which performed well enough. Based on that, I’d estimate around a Ryzen 7 7700/7700x level of performance—should suffice for GPUs like the 9070xt, 5070ti, or even the 5080.
If you prefer to keep RAM, the Intel board above combined with a new 14th-gen CPU would be safer, as microcode fixes are likely in newer chips. If you’re buying used, sticking to a 12th-gen processor seems more reliable.
If you're running a 9060xt, 9070xt or a 5070ti, I believe those are all x16 and you won't lose much performance there. If you have faster NVMe drives, that would help, but I think sticking with the same RAM and upgrading the board and CPU is better—go with Intel.