Who are the PC heads on here. I am stuck in a quandary that I don't know if I should upgrade my current PC or just start over.
Issues and loosely scattered thoughts though are this:
My PC is a B450 motherboard so had looked to go to a b650 and get the 7600x AMD as otherwise I only really have the 57003d AMD left as an upgrade on my current MOBO.
That I can't really have any downtime between builds (hence why I was considering building a new one outright) as about 70-120 people like to watch me play Championship Manager weekly, and because it's exam marking season that I use my PC for.
Other things
A) My PC has started to become a little bit slower with Premiere Pro than I like, with there most recent updates
B) I ideally wanted to keep it Windows 10 as had a few things on it and games I want to play on the future that don't seem to like Windows 11. So was considering a new W11 machine and keeping this old one (is that insane?)
C) I could just though get a better CPU than I currently have (5600) and kick on with what I have
I throw this rambling open to the floor…and your mercy.
I have 2 AM4 PCs, one with a 5600 and one with a 5800X3D. The latter is more performant, but I run it in a smallish case and it's a hot, power hungry chip that doesn't really offer a transformative leap over a 5600 (10-15% but you'd be hard pushed to see it in gaming, perhaps in productivity use). Even shifting to a 7800X3D is about another 10-15% uplift again, and after that you're entering silly money territory.
W10 is out of support soon. I would just bite the bullet and move to 11, I've not found anything that can't eventually be got running on 11, even older software run through compatibility layers. And 11, generally, is a lot better than 10 these days. I went back to a W10 PC the other day and it was a proper urgh moment.
The question is whether there's anything available that's massively better than a 5600/AM4 system that you could move to for a reasonable price. I ended up just putting a 5070 GPU in my 5800 machine and it's… fine? 2x framegen means it'll probably be like that for years (for gaming, anyway). So incremental is the progress in software over the last 5 years it's a bit like saying you really need an Samsung S25 phone rather than an S21 because the corners are a slightly different shape.
I decided in the end to just wait for the next transformative leap - and obviously with AI EVERYTHING happening, I suspect there'll be a block of tech out in the next year or two which really offers something more than just Mhz increases.
Appreciated that Cav. I am still on a 1660 super 6gb on my current build. I had been looking at getting an XT 7700 for the new build to keep costs down due to it being an older card and newer cards being insane prices and seemingly all having various issues to hope to avoid, but that is significantly better than my current graphics card, so I might just look at getting that and going 64gb ram for my current PC, and that would be about 450 worth of upgrades.
I put 64gb in my gaming laptop, not expecting it to make much difference (moving from 16) but I've been pleased with the performance uptick (in productivity software/AI stuff too).
The 7700XT isn't a bad card, I had been considering it for a build, I just think, even though they're massive bastards now, it's worth dropping a bit extra for an NVidia card. I visited their headquarters a while back for a guided tour, and everyone there was creepy as fuck. Even so, I just went for one of their products in the end, because I'm morally weak. I think the 3080 is still a brilliant card if you can find one, and it's worth looking at GPUsed (who I've used a few times for my kids' PCs) and seeing what they have. I'd even consider a 2080ti - which I got for 150 off Facebook Marketplace. It did only last about 2 months, but it was still performant in modern titles. Apart from Avowed, which just takes the piss.
Those XT 9600 16gb are probably where I go I reckon.
Spoiler - click to showInstall Linux
Spoiler - click to showI know, I know. Do what you want. But W11 sucks. I mean, Linux on PC is just a big version of the Steam Deck, and that's cool, right? Right? wink
