I’m planning to upgrade my aging i7 4790 setup and need some solid recommendations for a new CPU, Ram and Motherboard. My budget is around 30-40K (or less if possible). I’m currently running a GTX 1080 which I’ll keep for now and upgrade later. Rest of the parts are pretty much new and sorted.
My use case:
Design work (lots and lots of Figma and Illustrator)
Motion Graphics in (After Effects)
3D modeling (Blender)
Coding
AAA Gaming
Haven’t kept up with the last 4-5 years of releases from AMD or Intel so feeling lost in terms of what to go for and at what price especially in the used market.
Looking for suggestions on what parts to track in the used marketplace that would give me good performance and a platform for further upgrades/expansion now and for my future workloads without being too expensive.
Slightly over 40k, but this will serve as a great upgrade + future-proof you, to a reasonable extent. You just have to get the GPU sorted. You can go for a cheaper motherboard, but not ideal.
Thanks, it seems pretty unanimous that for a new chip, R5 7600 it is. I wonder if there are any 1-2 gen old chips that I can also keep a track of on the marketplace either Intel or AMD?
AM4 AMD 5600 or 5700x3d
5700x3d is equivalent to AM5 7600 in terms of gaming performance
LGA 1700 12400f or 14400f
(F means without iGP)
LGA 1700 12400 or 14400
Probably yes, but its only short term savings, in future when you’ll want to upgrade to a better cpu (eg: 7900x) you will need to spend another 15k for a new mobo and ram.
It’s better to go with the am5 platform instead because of mainly upgradablity. It will come handy later on when you’ll want to upgrade .
Yes
It’s better to go with AM5 platform now as this will around for another 3+4 years at least until AM6 comes in 2029. So you can keep reusing the same AM5 mobo for all next upcoming processors.
Even as AMD released new AM4 processors in 2025 also I think AMD will be releasing AM5 processors even in 2029 I hope.
That’s why I also upgraded to AM5 since my AM4 setup was giving problems due to non availability of updates from Microsoft.
I would add for an extra 1k, you can get an AG620 cpu cooler, which is a dual tower cooler. Should run quieter, and they last forever so it should stay with you through quite a few upgrades.
Swap its RAM with 6000MHz CL30 one, that Trident Z Neo is CL36. It is just 1-2% performance difference at max but costs same, so why not.
5700X3D & R5 7600 have almost similar performance but R5 7600 can keep up because of better single core performance, which will help in some productivity tasks as well.
Not much point even considering AM4. AM5 is the way to go as mentioned earlier.
Cheapest AM5 combo I took are:
AMD Ryzen 5 7600 -17k
MSI B650M Gaming Wifi -10k
Team group T-Create Expert 32GB(16GBx2) 6000Mhz CL30 kit -9k
Total -36k
While AM4 setup costs:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D -19k
MSI B550M Pro VDH Wifi -9.4k
G.Skill SniperX 32GB(16GBx2) 3600Mhz CL18 -7.6
Total -36k
So as recommended or suggested by other members of TE I bought the AM5 combo.
So far, my mixed build will look something like this. Motherboard, I’ll put in a bit more research and see what I can find and ask for specific recommendations.
As far as the CPU and RAM is concerned it’s the perfect fit while for mobo if you can sacrifice the USB type c header for front type c then there isn’t much difference between MSI B650M Gaming Wifi Vs. Gaming Plus Wifi. Also Gigabyte B650M DS3H and Gaming X AX are same boards regarding VRMs except for wifi. Asrock B650M HDV/M.2 does not have any onboard ARGB or RGB headers on the mobo but it’s VRMs are rock solid and it also has Gen5 M.2 slot but no wifi. Asrock B650M PG Lightning Wifi is a board where you need to connect the pigtails of the M.2 wifi card to the rear end connectors yourself and that’s why it’s only 12.5k Asrock B650M Pro RS wifi also has rock solid VRMs setup but comes for 15k.
While MSI, Gigabyte and Asrock wifi versions without M.2 wifi keys comes for 15k and non wifi ones for 10k and 11.5k respectively.
Thanks for the heads-up would never compromise with PSU brand or quality. Out of these brands which one is good in terms of after sales (especially RMA). I remember my Seasonic one was acting up at the end of its warranty life and getting it replaced without any hassle.
