While a CPU upgrade to a 5000 series model will, no doubt about it, bring a big improvement in performance to gtotheunit91's PC, it's worth keeping in mind that we don't know how tech savvy he is or how willing he is to update the BIOS of its motherboard. Heck, we don't even know if his motherboard was qualified to get Ryzen 5000 series support!

Getting a new system could be the easiest, but far more expensive, way to get the performance boost he wants.

THQNordic had a digital showcase where it showed off some games, including a new Alone in the Dark, Tempest Rising, Space for Sale, Gothic Remake, plus more.

https://www.ign.com/articles/everything-announced-at-the-thq-nordic-digital-showcase

EA has announced that some games will be removed from EA Play, there is a possibility that they will also be removed from sale on Steam.

https://www.ea.com/ea-play/terms/service-games-updates

Thanks for sharing, Rhonin.

Looks like they've decided to turn Wreckfest into Trackmania. I'm not sure if that's a wise move with a game based on real physics, but we'll see how it goes.

The new Alone in the Dark leans more into action than Survival Horror, clearly showing the influence of Resident Evil 4, which isn't exactly a new game...  In any case, it doesn't look great, but it doesn't look too bad either. A good example of an AA game, that seems to be THQNordic' specialty.

Other than that and Tempest Rising, only Jagged Alliance 3 caught my interest. Looks like it could be fun.

Well all 300 series motherboards should now be compatible with 5000 series so if he has a 300 series and he is comfortable enough updating the BIOS, it should be compatible. But arguably, even X570 motherboards should get pretty big discounts.

So in theory, lets say he has to upgrade his mobo as well:

$200 5800X3D + $120 for X570 vs $300 for 7700X + $300 for X670 + $200 for DDR5

So the difference will be $320 vs $800. And a lot of the X670 boards that are launching are coming out with Gen 4 PCI-E for GPU and not the Gen 5 because according to AMD, it's optional for X670. So most if not all of the launch motherboard manufacturers are leaving PCI-E Gen 5 for the more expensive X670E platform.

And while AM5 will be supported for longer if you want to upgrade the CPU, the difference in price seems silly if the performance upgrade is as minor as AMD themselves are claiming. Because you can save that and buy a 4080 and see 3-3.5x the performance increase compared to a 2080 vs 2-2.3x if you get a 4070. And of course, if later down the line, he does want to upgrade to AM5 platform, the mobo and ram will be much cheaper.

That Gothic teaser trailer looks nice, but I really hope they've changed the way they are developing Gothic Remake after the backlash from demo that was pure drek made for "modern day audiences".

They've only caught onto this 3 engine iterations later lol, just like their shopping cart and review system, always late. 

I'll somewhat forgive them for the UE4 stutter because of DX11 vs DX12 transition. UE4 stutters generally didn't happen with DX11 titles because the GPU manufacturers could go in and fix it through Driver updates. Even non UE games like Elden Ring has shader compilation stutters because of DX12. But Jedi the fallen order in 2019 for example was a UE4 game with DX11 and that did not have any shader compilation stutters. But with DX12 though, it was up to the game devs and we know what happens when its up to the game devs...

So since it's so late in UE4s life and UE5 was on the horizon, I can sorta say, alright fair enough. But if UE5 didn't have a solution, I would go full Karen.

Don't disagree with that at all.

Whenever an upgrade/system replacement gets undertaken, the appropriate assessments need to be made to weigh the positive/negatives of each approach.

But historically, upgrading just the CPU has been the most economical price/performance increase for AMD platforms due to socket longevity.

The 5800X3D is a viable choice too.

I guess I just like the sheer thread counts of the Ryzen 9 chips... But I am doing tasks other than gaming. - Plus if you have the proper cooling and power delivery, they can turbo to 5ghz.

I think the days of recommending higher core count chips for gaming over the long term has pretty much ended now... I.E. Core 2 Quad over Core 2 Duo, Core 980X 6 core over the quads. - Those systems got longer gaming shelf life because of the extra cores.

Considering his DDR4 memory is likely sub-3600mhz and potentially not dual-ranked, I wouldn't considering getting a new x570 board. Older systems are just about doing a single upgrade to get a performance boost, once we start replacing more than one component, it's better to do a whole platform change.

Because if his board isn't compatible with the 5000 series, it should be compatible with something like the Ryzen 3950X which will double performance in mult-threaded scenarios and upowards or 20-30% in single threaded... And they can be had fairly cheap these days.

It's all about weighing up options, obviously he isn't afraid to keep his system for several years if it's still doing a good job.

Well one of the great characteristics of 5800X3D and Vcache is the need for fast ram as it makes very little difference because the CPU doesn't need to go to RAM as often.

Techspot did a good review on this by comparing DDR4-3800 Mhz vs DDR4-3200 Mhz:

https://www.techspot.com/review/2449-amd-ryzen-5800x3D/

So unless he has really bad ram, I don't think it will matter too much. Personally I don't agree with the statement "once we start replacing more than one component, it's better to do a whole platform change" because it depends on the situation. Spending $320 on a CPU + Mobo upgrade is a lot less than spending $800 on a CPU + Mobo + Ram upgrade when it's very likely the $800 system upgrade will offer at best 10-15% more performance than $320 upgrade. And if we take AMDs own word for it with the current information we have, it will either tie or Zen 4 will be 5-10% ahead of 5800X3D. That's a lot of money to throw away instead of upgrading to a higher tier 4000 series GPU which he indicated that he wanted to do.

I also don't fully agree with going with Ryzen 3950X but I get where you are coming from. DF showed us that between a 3600 and a 12900K in the spiderman RT game, the 3600 ran at 70 fps whole 12900K ran at 130fps. That's a huge gap and a 5800X3D is pretty close to a 12900K in terms of gaming performance. And a 3600 can't keep it above 60fps when you really max it out. And don't forget that 3950X is more sensitive to RAM speeds than 5800X3D. I agree it's about weighing options but imo, Ryzen 3000 and below shouldn't be a consideration because how quickly prices come down on CPUs.

It will still matter later on when the cache is no longer sufficient and has to access DRAM. Although definitely less likely.

That benchmark also didn't differentiate between single/dual ranked DRAM which can have a pretty tangible effect on Ryzen, sometimes more than the frequency.

A platform change will give him component longevity for the next generation of parts.
Where-as any CPU he gets now, will probably not carry forwards... And won't have better options later.
Doesn't make sense to replace the board with another board that still limits him to the same class/generation of hardware.

So if you are going to swap the motherboard and CPU, I always believe it's better to spend a little extra and jump to the next socket. If it's just the CPU? Sure, that's a great bang for buck option.

But keep in mind that there is probably a 100% performance jump between the Ryzen 7 1800x and Ryzen 7 5800X3D, what's to say the next socket won't have the same kind of performance leap over the long term?

So yes, there is only a 10-15% performance improvement with the new platform change, but you need to look at the bigger picture and the longer term.

I am talking from the perspective that he is CPU limited and the current board doesn't support the 5800X3D.

You have three options.

Get the best CPU you can (I.E. 3950X), CPU+Motherboard upgrade (5800X3D+x570), new platform. (Ryzen 7000+X670).

If I was board limited I would drop in the 3950X, it would give it years worth of extra life... And unlike the 3600, has the threads and frequency to be a fairly big step up.
Plus the 3950X -will- outperform the 5800X3D in heavily threaded scenarios.
https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2666?vs=2907

Gaming performance is where the 5800X3D takes a front and center role, with a few instances of 50% performance lead, but most games are closer.

The Ryzen 3000 series can be found cheaply second hand these days too. Win win.

You seem pretty smitten with the 5800X3D, it's all about the price/performance, what if his usage scenarios extends past just gaming? The 3950X might be the better buy if he is doing a lot of transcoding/encoding/modelling/art stuff that can use every core you can throw at it.

My point is, there are CPU's that might be a better fit for someones current financial predicament, long-term plans or usage scenarios that makes the 5800X3D an absolute terrible buy, keep your options open.