Upgrade CPU or GPU?

[Splinterdog]

With the Crosshair Hero VII bios updates, I've been considering upgrading to a Ryzen 3900X which will certainly improve video editing work, but for gaming I'm not so sure.
In the same price bracket, I could upgrade the humble RX580 , which is now beginning to strain a little at higher game settings, to an RTX 2060 Super. In truth, I probably use this machine 80% gaming and the rest is either video editing and everything else.
I suppose my question is, which upgrade will benefit gaming performance the most?
Unfortunately, where I live, the latest Ryzens won't be seen here for ages and the choice of AMD GPUs is sparse, to say the least, although an Asus RX5700XT is about the same price as the 2060 Super.

 

[Zach_01]

For gaming performance definately you must go for a better card. From RX580 to a 2060s/5700XT you will see something like +70/80% more FPS.
Keeping the 580 but going from 2600X to a 3900X will give you way less than half of the above improvement.

For multithreading its another story. The 3900X has more than double the process power of the 2600X.

 

[Devon68]

No question about it THE GPU. Not to what, that is the question. The 5700xt is faster than the 2060 super in 90% of the cases. Only slower in PUB G. It's all up to you.

 

[biffzinker]

If you could get away with swapping both the CPU, and GPU the Ryzen 5 3600 would be a nice step from the 2600X, and the RTX 2060S.

The Ryzen 5 3600 is faster than the 2700X.

 

[xman2007]

although an Asus RX5700XT is about the same price as the 2060 Super.

No brainer then, the 5700 XT is much better than the 2060s and considering you spend 80% of your time on the PC gaming a GPU upgrade would be a better investment than the CPU which you spend only 20% video editing and the likes

 

[Splinterdog]

If you could get away with swapping both the CPU, and GPU the Ryzen 5 3600 would be a nice step from the 2600X, and the RTX 2060S.

The Ryzen 5 3600 is faster than the 2700X.

In an ideal world, yes, that would be great, but a little expensive
The 5700 XT really is a performer, especially over the RX580 that I have now, so that's what it will be.
Thanks for all your replies!

 

[Sithaer]

In an ideal world, yes, that would be great, but a little expensive
The 5700 XT really is a performer, especially over the RX580 that I have now, so that's what it will be.
Thanks for all your replies!

I'm in a similar boat.
Well except that in my case its like 99% gaming on my system with a 1600x/RX 570.

I also decided to go with a new GPU in the ~330-350$ price range which leaves me with a 5600 XT/RTX 2060 or maybe a 5700 from the second hand market. 'I don't mind as long as it has 1-2 years retail warranty based in my country'

Tho I won't be able to buy anything till early 2021 January so prices could go down a bit till then but my budget is fixed so whatever that fits it at the time.
Either way, all of those cards are solid upgrades from my 570 so its all good with me.

Emergency plan/B is a 1660 Super in case something happens and I wont be able to save up as much as I expect to. 'I tested that card in my system sometime ago and it was alright'

CPU maybe late next year, really not in a hurry as I'm not playing competitive games and I have a 74 FPS global limit set in the AMD driver anyway. '40-75 freesync range'
Have no plans to upgrade my monitor either, bought this in 2019 so its staying with me for a good few years at least.

With that 5700 XT you should be good for a while I think.

 

[Devon68]

I also decided to go with a new GPU in the ~330-350$ price range which leaves me with a 5600 XT/RTX 2060 or maybe a 5700 from the second hand market. 'I don't mind as long as it has 1-2 years retail warranty based in my country'

In that range and if you want to buy used and dont mind not having warranty get a 1080 TI for 350$, it's even better than 500$ rtx 2070 super. Depending where you live.

 

[storm-chaser]

I echo everyone recommending the GPU change.
I would advise you go for the the MSI Gaming X 5700 XT. Its a bit pricey, but runs very cool and dramatically reduces in case temperatures relative to the RX 580. The RX 580 is a great performer, but runs very hot. You could literally fry an egg on the backplate during heavy gaming. The gaming x 5700 XT has a sick backplate that is raised a little more than 1 mm away from the PCB. This buffer zone is a great help in getting rid of the heat before it radiates outward through the backplate itself. Not to mention this card is able to spin the fans down to 0 % when under a light load. Making it a great choice if you are worried about noise. MSI did something amazing with this card, because not only is it quiet under light load, it is also tied for the quietest card under full load. Quite difficult to achieve both of those things in one offering.

Not to mention, that backplate is only a few inches away from the CPU in most cases. All this extra heat right under the CPU can reduce stability and may limit your max overclock, especially if your case suffers from lack of airflow. This is the primary reason I got rid of my RX 580. I didn't need a 185 w heater nestled in the heart of my rig. lol. And while the 5700 XT has a higher TDP, it is much more effective and much faster in dissipating heat, leading to a cooler running GPU and lower case temps, and in my case, even reducing my CPU temps by a few degrees.

 

[Sithaer]

In that range and if you want to buy used and dont mind not having warranty get a 1080 TI for 350$, it's even better than 500$ rtx 2070 super. Depending where you live.

No warranty is a dealbreaker for me, did that once and ended up with a fancy paperweight 1 year after buying the card.
Not doing that again/can't afford that risk.

That pretty much puts the 10 serie cards out of the question, that and 1080 ti go for ~450-500$ where I live. 'only blower FE models under that'

Second hand but brand new 5600 XT with 3 years warranty go for ~333$, 2060 around the same with 1-2 years warranty.

Ideally a non XT 5700 would be perfect for me but that card is rarely being sold for some reason.

Well I still have ~2 and half months before buying anything so things could change. 'I hope for the better'.

 

[Splinterdog]

Incoming Friday or Saturday, if all goes well.

 

[Splinterdog]

Ordered and picking up the beast tomorrow.

 

[Splinterdog]

These results speak for themselves!

 

[Splinterdog]

I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Unless you can get a 3900X/XT for pretty cheap I'd wait for a 5900X.

 

[Splinterdog]

Unless you can get a 3900X/XT for pretty cheap I'd wait for a 5900X.

It's (5900X) also compatible with my Asus CHVII with the new BIOS and also not that much more expensive than 3900X down here which is a surprise.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I wouldn't know anything about pricing but according to the cpu support list on your board as of bios version 4007 it's supported.

 

[milewski1015]

I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.

Good stuff with the upgrades! I went from a 580 to a 5700 XT, and would love to dump my 2600 for a 5600X/5800X. Enjoy the new GPU!

 

[Chrispy_]

I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.

Don't buy the 3600X, I have an XT (not that I paid for it) and it's exactly the same as a 3600 in real-world use. If you were going to hit a CPU bottleneck with the vanilla 3600, you'll still hit the same bottleneck with the X variant.

I have a 3900X, no real difference to speak of for gaming but CPU encodes are faster. This 3900X was pilfered from work, the chip I normally run in this board is a 3700X but I've needed more cores and 128GB RAM in this new working-from-home era; Not everything works great over VPN or remote sessions :\

It depends what you're encoding in and how often too. Premiere/Adobe Media Encoder appear to be inefficient, barely-coded pieces of shit. You will not get the performance scaling you hope by doubling up on cores. IMO a good upgrade on a budget from the 2600X is probably the 3700X. For gaming I wouldn't recommend an overclock, but if you do enough all-core load, stick it on a 4.2 or 4.3GHz all-core OC and you'll be miles ahead of the 2600X.

 

[milewski1015]

Don't buy the 3600X, I have an XT (not that I paid for it) and it's exactly the same as a 3600 in real-world use. If you were going to hit a CPU bottleneck with the vanilla 3600, you'll still hit the same bottleneck with the X variant.

This. The 3600X is at best 3% better-performing when compared to the 3600. Not worth any significant price difference. Would be one thing if they were within $5-10 of each other, but I haven't seen them that close in quite a while. Aside from the performance difference, the 3600X does come with the Wraith Spire instead of the smaller Wraith Stealth that comes with the 3600, but given that OP is doing what sounds like heavy video editing, I'd imagine they already have a cooler better than both in-box offerings, which makes the better cooler the 3600X provides a moot point.

 

[Splinterdog]

I'm now thinking more towards the 5000 series Ryzen and for the price, the 5600X is looking good. Although I may be able to stretch a little further.

 

[milewski1015]

I'm now thinking more towards the 5000 series Ryzen and for the price, the 5600X is looking good. Although I may be able to stretch a little further.

Unless your video editing software really loves more cores, the 5800X is barely better than the 5600X when it comes to gaming. The 5800X really only makes sense if you can't afford the extra 100USD for the 5900X. Even then, you mention gaming 80% of the time, so I'd be hesitant to conclude that the extra money spent on a 5900X would be worth it.

 

[Splinterdog]

Unless your video editing software really loves more cores, the 5800X is barely better than the 5600X when it comes to gaming. The 5800X really only makes sense if you can't afford the extra 100USD for the 5900X. Even then, you mention gaming 80% of the time, so I'd be hesitant to conclude that the extra money spent on a 5900X would be worth it.

I'm leaning towards 5600X, mainly for the price point and, as you point out, the 5800X shows no significant advantages in gaming. Bragging rights, yes
A significant upgrade from a 2600X, though and not a bad price where I live, depending on the exchange rate (a complicated issue in itself).
Edit:
I use a Corsair AIO by the way.

 

[Durvelle27]

With gaming in mind, the best move is to upgrade the GPU. You’ll see a bigger improvement vs the CPU

not to mention you can always upgrade the CPU later down the line and prices will be even lower

 

[oxrufiioxo]

With gaming in mind, the best move is to upgrade the GPU. You’ll see a bigger improvement vs the CPU

not to mention you can always upgrade the CPU later down the line and prices will be even lower

He already upgraded the gpu and now wants more cpu power.