Why AMD's AM4 is Awesome & Why Intel Has to Change - $400 Build from 2018 with Upgrade Advice

I actually *love* this idea of showing how the "crappy" old yesteryear hardware actually turned out to be one of the best value builds. Budget builds matter, especially if you need to buy bulk for a non-profit. :)

The longevity of the AM4 platform is a key reason why I switched from using Intel for 15 years to AMD. If AMD can deliver a socket that lasts more than two generations, then I am sure Intel with their vast resources can too.

Your pragmatic outlook and willingness to explain your reasoning are why I absolutely love your videos. There is always more to the story than just benchmarks lol.
EDIT: You deserve at least twice the subscribers and your videos are always Jiffy(Badum bum tshh lol).

It's interesting how AM4 worked out for me. In 2018, when I was considering my first build, I was tossing up between an R5 2600X and i5 8400. At that stage the Zen+ CPU was the better value option, with thanks to yourself at that time, for pointing this out. Now in 2022 I'm looking to upgrade. Because I went with the AM4 based platform, a B450, I can save myself a lot of money and just grab a mid range Zen 3 CPU and drop it in (I've already upgraded the BIOS to Zen 3 compatibility). If I went with the 8400 at the time, I'd need to get a 12400 (or wait for 13400), and a new B600 motherboard, which are expensive.

Passing the part is exactly why myself and my kids are all on AM4. It's also a good opportunity to get the kids into building/upgrading pcs👍 Definitely not been using that as an excuse to upgrade my own pc, definitely not ...

AM4 is awesome, I got a really nice MB and CPU combo (zen 2) a few years ago, and now I’m planning on keeping the MB and get a 5900X. Having an interchangeable desktop is indeed the best deal. I won’t have 16 GB of RAM with my build though hahah 😉
By the way, I liked this video, it was informative

This is the techdeals we have grown to love. Much appreciated in depth analysis and possible upgrade options. Two gold stars right back at you!

Recently replaced my old 1700x with a 5600. Excellent performance boost despite dropping two cores and flawless stability despite the B350 board it's running on. Even managed to get 32 gigs of RAM running stable at 3200mhz, which wasn't always a given on B350 back in the day.
Changing a single part brought my system up to modern standards and cured my single-thread performance woes. Can't beat that value.

The thing with am4 that makes it hard to beat is that you can still build a top tier rig unless you need the latest and greatest. Any of the zen 3 chips with a 3080 or above is enough to play any game on 4k for a few years to come. Throw a 5800x3d in it and you’ve got 7600x like performance upgrade without needing a new cpu and mobo. For the average gamer both new amd and intel platforms could be considered overkill.

This video is absolutely on the money, and why I think AM5 will ultimately be considered a success with 3 to potentially 4 gens of CPU’s. I understand your point on multi pc family/Clip-Sharer resources makes this easy, however it is not uncommon to have 2 PC’s in a household I will soon have 3 and I could only afford to do this with AM4. Plus I have an extended network of family and friends and those on AM4 get to benefit from the upgrade merry-go-round, which is great. I built my first pc with a 3600x when I upgrade to a 5800x I built the family pc. Now my eldest wants his own pc as he plays more mature games that we wouldn’t want my youngest to see. So I’ve bought a 5800x3d for my PC (I have a 3090FE but plan to get a 4080/90) and put the 5800x in the family one (it has a 3080ti FE). I’ve sold the 3600x to a friend that had a 2600 for £75 (sell for about £85 on eBay and he knows it’s been looked after). A friend is looking upgrade his 5600x with the 5800x3d as he wants a 4080 so I’m having that for around £140 for my son’s build and he can have my 3090. Yes these are expensive parts, I accept that, but I would not be able to run 3 high spec PC’s without the ability to shift components around like this. AM4 is an awesome platform!

Amazing video!! I totally agree with all your points. The fact that I have an X370 Board that can accept any CPU of my choosing with a bios update is a great prospect. Despite the fact that perhaps the 5950X may not be best suited. The fact that we have that option at all is great in and of itself. But with my 10700 system, I literally have only 2 options, upgrade to a 10850K or just sell the system off and build a whole new 12th Gen system. Not only that but I don't have access to both my M.2 Slots unless I get an 11th Gen 11700K or 11900K and be stuck on 8 Cores and 16 Threads (sigh)

This is an interesting video because it's the AM4 experience for many people since the launch. The fun we've had from upgrading repeatedly shows the flexibility of this platform. Unless you desire a computer with more power than available on AM4 it should keep people busy upgrading for a few years to come. You could buy a new motherboard to gain extra features like 2.5Gbe and faster NVMe.

Excellent video & I loved watching it till the end to know how this build progressed over the years. AMD really changed the way how tech youtubers/builders and us enthusiasts looked at computers.

You are opening my eyes to the possibilities I never thought Id given much thought before. I got 2 machines on the b450 board .One is office pc running 3600 and gtx 1060.and the other is my daily driver/gaming on 3700x with gtx 1070.Both running on sata ssd. Didnt realize theres plenty i can do to give em a new lease on life.that ranges from upgrade to the cpu, ssd, ram and gpu.Neat!

Great video to show people imo 🥰👍. Even the 5800X3D in a few years time would be an awesome upgrade on this (and be a cheaper cpu to upgrade to 💪💪). AM4 has given many users sone amazing upgrade paths. If Intel could do this for 3-cpu generations, they would gain some favour from pc gamers too 😱😎🤩. AMD definitely has a bigger influence for many in the DIY market than Intel. But both are deserving of credit in terms of recent years of innovation resulting in core increases, ipc improvements, cache tweaks etc with both cpu manufacturers pushing each other along 🥰💪😇

Started with a Ryzen 5 2600, upgraded to a 3700x and then to treat myself earlier this year when a deal came around, picked up a 5900x. It works wonders with my current B350 motherboard I'm using an Arctice A35 CO and temps on stock settings (with PBO) are actually really good!
Excessive for my use case? Yes.
Worth it? Also yes.

Just this week I'm building a very similar PC for my daughter's best friend. It's still easy to build a decent 5600g system for sub-$400.
In my case we went close to $500 but included more premium parts (seasonic 600w PSU, Samsung 850 pro, vengeance 3600 MT/s ram, b550 mobo)

You have made so many good points about the AM4 platform, I do hope the AM5 platform continues this trend

I did the same with my starter x470-F in 2018 and kept making improvements to build a powerful end-of-life Ryzen gamer. I must give you and other content creators credit for holding Ryzen and motherboard makers’ feet to the fire to keep the AMD promise. I recall the waffle and how it almost did not happen.

In 2019, I built nearly the same system. The difference is it was a 3400g on a B450M board for a cost of $380 since I already had a case and an old Raidmax 530w PSU handy. Still use it today, but it has been upgraded with a R5 5600x, a RX 6600 and greatly increased storage. The entire AM4 platform was just a huge win for AMD that saved the company from bankruptcy.

RAM was the 'graphics card' of 2018. I built a 2600X in late 2018 and paid $200 for 16G of Vengeance LPX. And another $200 for a 1TB NVME drive. 8G RX580 and it's still my daily gamer. I was checking out RAM prices the other day and found it a beautiful sight. 🙂

An important video for AMD 4 lovers. Thank you as always for your thorough, thoughtful presentation of options.

Great advice on the AM4 platform. Personally mine has gone from a 1600X to a 2700 to a 5700X, moved from a B350 Tuf board to a B450 MSi board. RX480, 1070ti to a 6700XT. Should last me a few more years until I upgrade to AM5. Had 16 GB ram all the time.

AM4 is really great. Went from a 1800x to a 5800x with a TUF B350M and it works perfeclly (4750 all cores + 5050 Boost). From 16 to 32GB faster modules, working fine too.

I bought a 2600 on a b450 rog strix motherboard in 2018 and I’m going to try to upgrade to the 5600. I’m a little worried as to be heard that it could be unstable, but it’s the plan I had in 2018 when I built it. Back then I wanted to wait until the last supported CPU on AM4 so I could get an updated PC without having to replace my case, motherboard, or power supply. Hope it goes well.

Love the am4 platform, started with R5 1600, now on 5600g, it is really nice

Great practical and value oriented information as always. Thank you.

I had the pleasure of upgrading my 3700X to a 5800X3D, with a 3070 I really don't regret it. The only thing is that with such processors, the air cooling is a bit limited... so I installed an Arctic freezer II 420 and there my temperatures dropped incredibly, especially for the price!

Outside of the most recent build, all our computers can trace components from some other previous incarnation due to AM4. It's been great. Thanks Tech.

I am glad I started with AM4 in 2020. B550 boards were cheap and the 3600x was a solid deal at the time. It served me well the past two years. Once I felt the performance wasnt up to par, it was a simple drop in upgrade with a 5700x that is breathing even more life into it. This will be my last cpu on AM4 and I will wait until the 3DVcache cpus release on AM5. I hope AM5 matches the longevity of AM4!

Thanks for the video. Thanks for bring this style of videos back.
My upgrade was FX 8350 / R9 280X ($80 CAD used) to Intel 10700F / same R9 280X. Friend needed a new PC did not have the funds, and the RX 6750 XT dropped to $700 CAD got two one for me and one for my friend, gave him the 10700F. My current PC is a Ryzen 5800X wanted at 5700X, but the 5800X was $15 more to go from 5700X to 5800X / RX 6750XT only 16 gig of 3200 ram, will purchase the other 16 gigs some time soon. The 5800X is nice, but the 10700F was easy put it together click all core and xmp on the motherboard and done.
The 5800X is more fiddling, but I like that sort of thing, have an under volt and ram xmp. Playing with the undervolt just to play with and see what I get.
Thanks to this channel for helping me decide on what parts to go with and why. I have made my last 4 PCs, but finding a youtube channel that gives you good info. Take this video start with $400 USD in 2018 and today you can do this to that PC to make it last longer. Thanks Tech for videos like this.
Still what to see a video about, you have $400 PC and you can play all these older games like Fallout New Vegas, and other games of this era, and you can play these games and have a great time. Would like to find older games like this that for little money will give you a great game. After 3000 - 4000 hrs of Fallout NV need something else to play that is new.

We've had 5 AM4 computers in the house that I've built/upgrades, and I have been constantly moving parts around. I love having a platform that's spanned so many generations with interchangeable parts. It's an entire ecosystem, really. When one machine gets an upgrade, they all get an upgrade.
I doubt they'll do this with AM5 (I've heard only 2 gens) , but I wish they would. It's really a great way for them to build brand loyalty.

I went with 1700 -> 5950x and it's been fantastic. Once I get a completely new rig I can turn this into a game/VM server, given the core count.

I built an AMD computer in 2018 but with a 1700 CPU, 16gb memory, Samsung 256gb sad, on a b350 motherboard. IT COST $800. Since then I have not built an AMD computer as my main machine. I did build a Ryzen 3950x in 2019 as a virtualization server with all of those cores. I am going to build a 7950x as another virtualization server as soon as they are available. As my main machine I built an Intel Alter Lake i9 12900k. The p cores and e cores don’t lend themselves to a virtualization server, need all full cores for that. I just wish the 7950x had 24 cores, not just 16.

I have a number of AM4 based builds.
I started with ASRock B450 HDV R4 and Athlon 200ge.
Later upgraded to R3-1200
Then changed the mobo to a Gigabyte gaming board. Still B450, but better passive cooling and a spiffy red color scheme. It was sold at ½ price, so it was a good deal.
Later looked around and then found a R7-1700x 2nd hand. But with an Asus ROG Crosshair VI mobo.
Very sweet deal for that combo and it's currently the one sitting at my father's place.
The r3-1200 was retired for a bit, because I was sitting on an i7-6700k, but increased electricity prices, made me build a slightly more power-efficient build. )Which was then forgotten about until recently... I'll get back to that.)
I then found an R5-2600 2nd hand. Good deal. Bought it.
Placed it in the Gigabyte board, retired the R3-1200.
And not long ago, I found a good priced fully functional Asus Prime B450 board.
And given that I am an Asus fan-boy, I had to have it, at said price.
Now both my gaming rigs have Asus base and Sapphire GPUs.
And the whole deal with power-efficiency? Welp... as I wrote... Sapphire GPUs.
And now with the coming winter and massively increasing power-prices, I am considering drossling down to the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050ti I have lying around.
My main (Actually, my big one) has run an RX 590 for the longest time, but it only runs, when I visit my father.
My secondary, (actually, my main machine in terms of usage) ran with a GTX 960 4 GB for the longest time. Until I got a GTX 1050ti. And then I found an RX 480 for a very competitive price, considering we are still in post-crypto prices in Denmark.
The strength I found in the AM4 platform has been, besides it's versatility, but it's affordability, that made it very ubiquitous in the 2nd hand market.
In most places, when I look at CPU and mobo sales, AMD based sales are more often sold as a combo, whereas intel based sales are usually CPU or mobo on it's own.

Great video! I built a majority of my families computers. As newer parts came out I would shuffle older parts into the younger cousins computers. Most recent was a 1600x to my used 3900x. Cousin said he started streaming and his streams were too choppy when gaming. So I upgraded my 3900x to a 5950x and he got a sweet upgrade too. 😁

RX 6600 is amazing indeed. The only annoyances I've ran into coming back from 5 years of team green are that Wattman resets my OC every boot/wake and that ReLive is still unusable trash (thankfully OBS exists). I have the dual-fan AsRock one and was able to squeeze a full 10% more fps out of it for only 20W more power usage. I have no idea how I'll be able to go back to the noise and heat of a GPU that uses 300-400W after this.

I bought the R5 1600 AF (85.00 at the time) on your recommendations in 2019, it took me another year to actually build the computer, due in part to shortages and crypto driving up prices, I was finally able to build the computer by buying it in pieces as i found them at low enough prices. eventually got it all together in early 2021 due in part to all the stimulus we got in the year since getting the CPU, I did recycle the PS (EVGA 450w BT) from the Optiplex (also got on your recommendations) and GTX 1060 3gb that resided in it. it has remained unchanged since then, but i am planning to upgrade within the next year

I built my first Ryzen system with the Asus Crosshair Hero VI motherboard and the 1800x and 5700xt. That system now has a 5900x and a 6800xt. The AM4 compatibility is amazing.

great video showing how good the AM4 socket actually is, just wish Careyholzman watched your channel for your unbiased and informative channel

Nice to see good software like Macrium Reflect in a video. I really wish they were more well known.

Great video! Haven't built a Intel PC yet but I love my AMD build!

I do hope AM5 goes by at least Zen 6 provided DDR5 doesn't get replaced too soon. My next PC upgrade will definitely be another AMD again given their platform commitment.

Great video. I really miss you and Rouge livestreaming. Thanks for all of the great info over the years!

It must have been AWESOME for mobo makers - some amazing product runs for; longevity, volume & profitability?
The MSI Tomahawk B450 sure springs to mind.

Totally 👍 for knowing that you can upgrade your AMD machine without throwing away your motherboard to have a new CPU in the blue 🔵 team. Priority now is for surviving and do get the cash for medical situation and financially issues. Thx for the video.

I think the Ryzen 5700x is also a great choice as a budget AM4 build upgrade.
It's very power efficient and runs cool (unlike the 5800x), and is probably the most powerful AM4 CPU that can still be run on a stock cooler (doesn't come included though, so using an old stock cooler).

One thing regarding replacing the rear case fan: Make sure it blows out the back, and not into the case.

Macrium Reflect is *INCREDIBLE* software. I was having a terrible time cloning an SATA Evo SSD to an M.2 Evo SSD because of the partitions and size difference, as there were already 3 partitions and the cloning software was leaving the last TB blacked out. Samsung's software, which I normally love, would not let me make it an active 4rth. It also would not let me combine it with the other partitions. Windows would not let me do either as well. I was at my wits end when I tried Reflect, and 25 minutes later the 1TB was copied to the 2 TB M.2 with the entire space (well 1.97TB) ready to go.
Love the software. It's now my go to when working with different size drives and/or different brands of drives. It's free. I found it easy a few years ago and now it's just a breeze. So...no money out of pocket. Easy to use and can do things Samsung's own software can't do even when using 2 Samsung Evo drives? That's an A+ from me.

My situation is probably unusual yet another way in which this versatility of AM4 can come into play. I bought my R1700 with an RX580 back in 2018 and used it for about a year to a year and a half. I then found myself with no time to use it and it's literally been collecting dust all this time. Now I am considering dusting it off and upgrading it and I can replace the CPU and GPU and with the 16 Gigs of ram I have can still get quite a bit more life out of it before needing to step up to AM5. At todays prices this would be a killer value from a lifespan perspective. I had maybe about $1000 into it with an SSD upgrade back then. The only reason for even upgrading it today is because I want to fly sims like DCS and MSFS which are demanding especially if I choose to go to VR.

I watched a benchmark video, the other day.
An older one, about the Ryzen 4000 & 5000 series.
The R5-4500 was actually about on par with the R7-2700x in terms of general gaming performance.
For someone sitting on Zen1 and Zen+ R3/R5 builds could deffo consider the R5-4500 or even the R5-5500 as you suggested.

Thanks for this video. I've got a Ryzen 5 1600 on a B450 motherboard paired with a Gtx 1660 that I built back in 2019. It runs fine, but won't upgrade to Windows 11. Your suggestion for the Ryzen 5 5500 is something I might have to look into.

Spent $100 on a B350 motherboard when it came out, paired with an R5 1400. I eventually upgraded to a 3600X, and this week I just dropped an R9 5900X in it, which should be more than enough for a very long time. Honestly, I might get close to 10 years out of this PC in total, with just incremental CPU and GPU upgrades.

Replaced my 4 year old 2700X with a 5600X in my gaming pc and am happy with the results, however also replaced my old pentium gold CPU from my media PC with a cheap 2nd hand i5 8400 and I'd consider it a very good option, cheaper than the 9 series cpus, goes in the same boards, has almost the same performance, and stacks up surprisingly well to the 5600x. Intel may not be compatible between generations, but the performance difference hasn't typically changed as much between recent generations as AMD has either.

Hi, i was wondering what is the biggest cpu in terms of performance that you would pair a b450 aorus m motherboard with? Is 5800x or 5800x3d the limit to not suffer vrm bottlenecks? This is not something i could find online. Thank you!

Not bad for back then. Even WoW is suggesting minimum of 16 gb ram for next xpac. Have been on 32 gb DDR4 since 2020, one thing I know I did listen to properly building ;) (Also was into multiboxing games a bit so figured the ram would not go to waste.)

Great follow up video! Im one of those that watched the original back in 2018. I remember spending $95 on 8gb ram for my r5-1600 build that year. I was able to get 2 more sticks of that same ram a year later for $55 and Im still using that machine today with a new rx6600. Love this gpu for the price.
Im due for an upgrade and trying to decide which cpu to drop in there. The 3700x is tempting as well as the 5500 and 5600. But i will definitely need to update the bios on my b350 and afraid to brick the thing

i personally have still been rocking the amd fx-6300 since it came out.... but i have to admit the ryzen 5600 (non x) is looking very sweet

I had the first crosshair mobo from asus, it didn't have a number at the end. upgraded it till phenom 2 940 x4 deneb using a hacked bios from different motherboard.
so yes, AMD is superb with long life of their platform

I am glad you made this video. I have multiple PCs at home, all B450 motherboard - R5 3600, R5 1600AF and R3 1200. I plan to buy a 5600x or 5800x when the new 7000 series launches, so I will play the 'musical parts' and upgrade all 3 PCs at the same time. I can still sell the 1200 for 50 eur here, believe it or not. I hope to buy 5600x for 150 eur, so it will make the entire upgrade cost around 100 eur. Not too bad for three PCs :)

I know a lovely use case for it because someone gave me the parts for a very similar spec PC: install HoloISO and throw in a RX 570 with it and it does really good for a console-style gaming PC. Nice SSD upgrade for the bulk of storage and it becomes a blast.

Can't wait to see how peanut butter fits into the build.

Very well done, perfectly timed, and just excellent content! Does the R5 5500 support DDR4 4400 like the 5600G?

Pretty cool machine. If by suggestions you meant future video suggestions; I've found the issue you mentioned of VRM-caused limits on CPU performance to be perhaps the most opaque, with motherboard manufacturers often not specifying what they have, let alone what that actually allows for in practice. It also seems to be under-explored by reviewers(or maybe I just wasn't looking right), so a video with advice on it might be very helpful.

Have been really happy with AM4. My original build was a 1600x with a GTX 1050 graphics card and now it's a 3700x with a GTX 1070. Same motherboard, RAM, and case. It's not the fastest system out there but I don't need it to be.

When I upgraded from my Gen 4 Intel build in Nov 2019 it was a no brainer to go AM4, by the time I cleared out the old parts my net cost was the £100 for the MSi B450 Tomahawk max PCB I bought, I gave away my old 2 120GB SATA SSD drives (one M2 and one 2.5, I got them years earlier on flash deals for £17 each delivered while the standard price was £80, so a fair time ago) to a couple of friends still booting from HDDs and bought a mid-tier Samsung 970 NVMe drive for £60 and a 1TB Crucial SSD (the silvery white one) for £60. I could do this because I expected my platform swap to cost me more than £200 so had budgeted accordingly. 2 months ago I swapped out the 1700 CPU with a 5500 I got delivered new for £111 inc VAT (about $111USish pre-tax) to freshen it up, reinstalled it all in a cheap mesh case I got for £40 and slapped the Wraith Spire cooler from my 1700 on it (them Stealth coolers are so damn skinny I couldn't bring myself to use the one in the box) and so far my temp LEDs only go red during synthetic torture tests. AM4 is awesome because you can literally build any type of desktop in absolute bargain versions for no money then upgrade the nuts out of the platform. AM5 will be my friend soon enough, when ZEN3 chips are cheap used I'll stick an 8 or 12 core in it.

Great Video.
Currently running a 3700x and a Radeon 6700xt
Don't plan on upgrading to Am5 for a bit, not ready to do a new build from scratch. Thinking of buying an 5900x, and then seeing what the Radeon 7800xt or RTX 4800's look like when they come out. Curious if my Noctua NH-U12S would be able to handle a 5900x

You've been guiding my computer build path for years. I've been very happy Thanks

great video tech 👍 always appreciate the content you put out, especially the ones on byte size tech

i still have the 2600x that you recommended on a black friday deal a few years ago i think it was $119 or something and for what i use it for, it works just fine, with that been said, i do want to upgrade to a high end build this december and so far the budget is $1400, any recommendations?

“If your old cooler is not in good condition it does come with a cooler in the box…which is pretty cool.” I caught that Mr. Deals, and I loved it.
I think I speak for all us, we have missed your ‘old style’ of videos, like this one, and it is great to see.
Keep up the great work!
Side note: I had no idea of the magnitude of price changes of Ram in the past 4 years, 8gb = 32gb is insane, and amazing! “And that’s a good deal!” 😎

I deliberately went with just 500gigs in my 2nd rig some time ago because I wanted to maximise on other things that are more expensive to upgrade.
Quite limiting certainly, but I have Unopened External HDD purchased couple of years ago.
If I didn't have it , I would still pull the trigger on that 500gigs Samsung 980non-Pro.
RTX3080 GAMING Z Trio and Corsair RM1000X took massive chunk of budget and make sure I have airflow that would make Steve Nexus😆 proud.
I had to go with placeholder stuff regarding CPU and motherboard,but if Inflation goes much higher they might become my very long-term friends.
Ah well when I someday get 4K display it won't matter anyway what CPU is inside.

I had that board way back in 2017 it lasted me a while I had a 1500X and a 2600 cpu in it, I even had my current 5600 in in for a few days until I upgraded.

With Intel, my experience is that every time I upgraded to a new cpu, I was forced to buy a new motherboard.

I was considering upgrading my 3100 to a 5600 on my B550 motherboard, but I want the price a bit closer to the 5500's without the things the 5500 lack. No hurry.

I love these types of vids Mr. Deals so commenting and liking for the Algo Gods... Myself being a PC hobbyist Dad and with 3 kids.. The AM4 platform has been fantastic. Every time I upgrade something on my PC the kid's get the pass down cpu or ram or gpu and so on. Right now we have 4 AM4 PCs in the house from 2 B450s one B550 and one X570. These PCs will get all the kids through High School easily and I'll get 10 years at least out of the oldest AM4 board barring any failures. Value for days!

Smiling!
Yes I like AM4 for all the reasons you stated. I bought a Asus Tuff Gaming motherboard for the R7-3700X and thinking about putting a R9-XXXX in it for an upgrade. Can't do that with Intel Mb. Also looking at a AMD GPU for the first time in years. Would like something as good as the NVidia 3070 or so. Got to research it more, pretty sure you got something that covers that.

I still rock up until this day my Ryzen 3 2200g + RX 570 4gb + 16gb 3200mhz that was inspired by bitwit's $500 Xbox one PC build equivalent. It was a 1080p 60fps beast from way back 2019 up to now. Not on the latest games but overall it still do it's job. Probably i'll upgrade to Ryzen 7 5700X and just update to latest bios for my AORUS B450M. For the GPU I'm eyeing the RX 6700XT or RTX 3070 for 1440p gaming

I have a gaming pc thats aways getting some of the best stuff. Ive been passing down parts as i upgrade it to 4 other desktops. Kept them all above what they needed to be. Glad i went amd this round, plays well with windows and Linux. allmost didnt after the fx toasters. Hope i can do the same as they get migrated to am5 .

chances are, if you're planning on keeping AM5 in the long run, buy the nicer motherboards to further improve the odds

My first budget AM4 build was a Gigabyte AB350 Gaming ITX in a Tt Suppressor F1 cube case (massive 200mm fan on front).
It ran a 2200G with 8G (dual channel) 3000 RAM, 120G SSD.
This machine sits on my toolbox in an auto repair shop. While it's not subjected to the elements, it does get hot in the shop.
It has never gone over 60C and is used daily, as is, since it was built.
A couple of browser tabs, music running in background, connected to a 42" TV with a soundbar.
I could NOT be happier....

I really really would love to replace my first gen threadripper. I don't know if replacing the CPU is worth it if I do not build another PC or change the motherboard

Low-end AM5 has to support 125w right away so that is probably good news for platform longevity.

I followed Tech's advice last year and upgraded My PC with Ryzen 9 5900x and 32gb ram. Totally worth it!. Thanks ;)

My first custom build was on the X570 platform in 2020, paired a Ryzen 5 3600 with a GTX 1650 Super.
After the 5800X3D came out, I...got a used 5950X. I'm more of a "jack of all trades" user than a hardcore gamer, and I had fun going ham on the best CPU my motherboard would support. I may not "need" it, but it's awesome and should keep me going a while. The thing compresses/decompresses whatever I ask it to pretty much instantly.
In anticipation of the CPU upgrade, I upped the RAM from 16GB to 48. That made a surprising difference even when I was still on the 3600; Windows Photo Viewer cycled through images much more smoothly, especially noticeable in reverse.
The GPU is now a 3070 I found last summer (Gigabyte Gaming OC). I wasn't confident my PSU could handle a 3080, and even if it did, stretching the budget that far meant buying fewer games.

i recently upgraded my 1600af to 4500 (bought it for ~85$), and 1600af is still going for 60$ so it was ~25$ upgrade.
Now it's finally time for graphic card, my rx470 4gb is struggling a lot these days.

I was an early adopter of zen 1, bought a 1800X the day it came out paired with MSI X370 Carbon (I remember struggling for nearly one month cause there was no motherboard to be found) which ended up paying scalper price but everything turned out very good... I skipped 2000, 3000 series (I was very close for rare 3600XT cpu auction on ebay tho) then I bought my 5800X in the end of 2020 with a X570 Tomahawk, the story very similar but this time my cpu was the hardest to be found, ended up paying another scalper price for the glorious 5800X cpu like $60 more from $450 retail price, 5000 series was the real game changer, a truly killer cpu you wouldn't have any idea how much I have enjoyed this cpu since then, I even bought a 5800X3D with a Strix B550 XE for that reason... love them both and I am very excited for the upcoming 7000 series, I don't need it but I want it, cheers!

Im on AM4. i think i built my pc late 2018 early 2019. i originally went with a R5 2600x, b450 motherboard and GTX950 i got for free. After a few months i went with a GTX 1060. As of 2 months ago, i went with a R5 5600. A week later i found a GTX 1080 for real cheap until i could get a newer graphics card. The flexibility of AM4 is pretty cool.

What's your take on the Nvidia launch bud? The secondary 4080 being a 104 die with 192 bit bus for $900, sounds like a 4070 but priced higher. Maybe AMD will come out swinging?

The reason why the Vega GPU was the only one integrated into AM4 is that DDR4 bandwidth is too low to feed a better integrated graphics chip. Vega 11 on the Ryzen 5 2400G couldn’t get the bandwidth it needed. The 3400G just made the situation worse. Vega 7 & 8 were better matched to the available bandwidth. With the AM5 platform and DDR5, newer and more powerful GPUs can be integrated because they will now have the bandwidth to feed them. This will allow RDNA2 integrated graphics. Still a generation behind but better than intel has. Think a 6600XT on a processor.

I would rate this video ⭐⭐⭐
In our house hold we have three Ryzen computers (I did that!) - 2x 3600x and 1x 2700x. All an B450 boards (1x MSI Tomahawk Max and 2x Tomahawk II Max). My board went bonkers so I had to upgrade from Tomahawk Max to Tomahawk II Max. Costed me 74€ - that's a deal IMHO.
I am waiting to see what Ryzen 7000 brings and how much a total system will cost. If the price/performance is too bad then I will upgrade my 2700x to a 5800x3d - how nice to know that I can do that without changing anything but the CPU.

I have migrated a fleet of family computers from R5 1600 all the way to R9 5900X. I kept my two kids on 3600 my wife on a 3800X and recently purchased a 5900X for myself. During this time I sold the older B350 or B450 motherboards with the CPUs and RAM to make money for the upgrades. Just the other day I sold a PC with a R5 1600x b450 16Gb of 3200Mhz and an old r9 290x. These systems have been very stable. In that time I have only once come across a bad CPU from AMD. It was a 3700X and it was replaced very quickly. Imagine a world without AMD. Intel only innovates when they are forced to through market pressure.

I build my Am4 under 200 Euro , r5 1600, 16gb DDR4, 256SSD, 2T Sata HDD, Gtx 980 and a 550Watt psu, in an older Zalman case. With a 200 euro buget trying to budget an Intel Pc I will never get same performance that I get from this am4 build. AMD does a great job on low budget builds. (the gtx 980 it's not included in the budget I already own the gpu and the 2tb sata hdd)

What blows my mind is the insane amount of wasted products Intel produce, all those unused motherboards etc.

Thanks for all the tech comparison and news and for the Paul Young vibes

My B450 board has used a R5-1600/RX480 to 3700x/5700XT to currently a 5800X3D/6900XTXH. I explained to my financial advisor (GF) that by saving $449 per motherboard upgrade it has covered the cost of my new Alienware OLED. ;-) Thanks AMD!