Question Advice \ Recommendations on Potential System Upgrade

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Jordymid

Aug 11, 2025
3
3
15
Current Build:
CPU: AMD 3600
CPU cooler: Wraith Cooler that comes with CPU
Motherboard: B450 Tomahawk MAX BIOS Version - 3.K0
Ram: 16GB 3000MHz DDR4
SSD/HDD: 15GB SSD, 500GB M.2 NVME, 4GB HDD
GPU: AMD 6650XT
PSU: MSI MAG A850GL 850W, 80+ Gold bought June 14th 2025
Chassis: Zalman Z3 Plus bought in 2025
OS: Windows 11
Monitor: 2 x LG UltraGear 27GN800P-B 27" IPS QHD 144Hz 1ms Gaming Monitor

Approximate Purchase Date: If needed, before 12th September 25

Budget Range: £1500 for new build, the lower the better

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming 1st then mostly just Youtube and general browsing

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: If worth upgrading, CPU, MOBO, RAM, Potentially GPU and Case. Reusing PSU

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Usually Amazon, depends on delivery when looking at PCPartPicker

Location: UK

Parts Preferences: CPU Preferred is AMD other than that, not bothered

Overclocking: Maybe at end of life to try and squeeze more life out of a component, but not from the start

Multiple GPUs: No,

Your Monitor Resolution: Both 2560 x 1440 144Hz

Additional Comments: Mostly for gaming, mostly first person shooters, will happily plan games such as FM24 with mods. Just questioning if i need to do a full build, if its worth trying to save a bit of money and just not upgrade GPU, PSU and Case or just fork out for an AM4 CPU to try and keep my system going for a couple more years

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Looking at the Specs for Borderlands 4. Minimum CPU specs recommend 8 core CPU and mine only has 6. Problem i have noticed is top end AM4 CPUs are not much cheaper than AM5, but with that also will require me to upgrade MOBO and RAM bumping up the price, to the point i question if i just start all from scratch
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

My Current System is:
CPU - AMD 3600
MOBO - B450 Tomahawk MAX
RAM - 16GB 3000MHz DDR4
GPU - AMD 6650XT
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

This has mostly come to my attention more since the release of the Borderlands 4 specs.
https://www.corsair.com/us/en/explo...5a2pLZJcb60M_K0xRPrrfd3OfXiNqHIFxRpLLwBrSeCrx
You actually meet the minimum system requirements for the game(at the time of writing).

I also went looking on PCPartPicker with United Kingdom selected as the region, a 5800X3D(£679, as every other listing shows out of stock, apart from Amazon) is more expensive than a 9800X3D(£405). If you want to upgrade while retaining AM4's platform, you would need to hunt for deals on local marketplaces or Ebay, which I'd advise against. I would change the case in 2025, for a better ventilated front panel. Due to your ram, you've left some performance on the table. AM4 loved working with tight latencied dual channel, DDR4-3200MHz ram kits(Ryzen 3000 and above on B450 chipset) or tight latencied dual channel, DDR4-3600MHz ram kits(Ryzen 5000 on B550 chipset). Rectifying that wouldn't be a cost effective route if going brand new ram kit.

It's best if you stylized your thread with info asked of in this thread;

*How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice*

How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice First off, respect where respect is due - this is an adaptation of the Animal's *How To Ask For New Build Advice* Sticky. I created this because there's a lot of posts nowadays asking for upgrade advice both on here and on the CPU forums, and I feel...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
and the community would be offered more context to your predicament, and the community will chime in worthwhile suggestions.
 
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PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor (£228.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: *ASRock B850 Pro-A ATX AM5 Motherboard (£144.50 @ NeoComputers)
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£85.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: *Asus PRIME OC Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card (£562.99 @ Box Limited)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case (£48.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1100.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-08-11 14:24 BST+0100


Ryzen 7800x3D + 9070 XT + wifi / bluetooth

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£336.97 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: *MSI B850 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard (£169.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£85.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: *Asus PRIME OC Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB Video Card (£619.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case (£48.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1291.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-08-11 14:25 BST+0100
 
Last edited:
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Lutfij said:
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

My Current System is:
CPU - AMD 3600
MOBO - B450 Tomahawk MAX
RAM - 16GB 3000MHz DDR4
GPU - AMD 6650XT
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

This has mostly come to my attention more since the release of the Borderlands 4 specs.
https://www.corsair.com/us/en/explo...5a2pLZJcb60M_K0xRPrrfd3OfXiNqHIFxRpLLwBrSeCrx
You actually meet the minimum system requirements for the game(at the time of writing).

I also went looking on PCPartPicker with United Kingdom selected as the region, a 5800X3D(£679, as every other listing shows out of stock, apart from Amazon) is more expensive than a 9800X3D(£405). If you want to upgrade while retaining AM4's platform, you would need to hunt for deals on local marketplaces or Ebay, which I'd advise against. I would change the case in 2025, for a better ventilated front panel. Due to your ram, you've left some performance on the table. AM4 loved working with tight latencied dual channel, DDR4-3200MHz ram kits(Ryzen 3000 and above on B450 chipset) or tight latencied dual channel, DDR4-3600MHz ram kits(Ryzen 5000 on B550 chipset). Rectifying that wouldn't be a cost effective route if going brand new ram kit.

It's best if you stylized your thread with info asked of in this thread;

*How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice*

How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice First off, respect where respect is due - this is an adaptation of the Animal's *How To Ask For New Build Advice* Sticky. I created this because there's a lot of posts nowadays asking for upgrade advice both on here and on the CPU forums, and I feel...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
and the community would be offered more context to your predicament, and the community will chime in worthwhile suggestions.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that, I didn't know there was a template, should be looking better now.

I ran my build through systemrequirementslab.com. The main thing that it failed on minimum was the fact that my CPU only has 6 cores and the game recommends 8 as minimum, which is why i was considering just upgrading my CPU.

As you said, i may be best to try and improve my ram, but yeah if im buying new sticks anyway, i might as well just go DDR5 probably.
 
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PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£336.97 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£29.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2 ATX AM5 Motherboard (£133.95 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£85.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card (£499.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case (£54.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1140.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-08-11 14:48 BST+0100
 
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logainofhades said:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£336.97 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£29.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2 ATX AM5 Motherboard (£133.95 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£85.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card (£499.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case (£54.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1140.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-08-11 14:48 BST+0100
Click to expand...
I don't think that board supports PCIe 5.0 for that gpu that does.
 
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Your r5-3600 has 6 cores, but 12 processing threads which should be sufficient.
The question is, are you cpu limited, or graphics limited?
Try this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

You might be able to simply change the cpu to something like a 5800X which gives you more threads, and a modest boost to single thread performance.
 
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geofelt said:
Your r5-3600 has 6 cores, but 12 processing threads which should be sufficient.
The question is, are you cpu limited, or graphics limited?
Try this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

You might be able to simply change the cpu to something like a 5800X which gives you more threads, and a modest boost to single thread performance.
Click to expand...


Min requirements are an 8 core chip for Borderlands 4.

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/explo...lBpGDSADCTpWZ9UY7RHEtBFqN7XSHrcBJ4ZhnQHehuQMk

Borderlands 4 Minimum Specs​

  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit or newer
  • CPU: Intel Core i7 9700 / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 CPU cores minimum)
  • RAM: 16 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB VRAM required)
  • Storage: 100 GB (SSD required)
Click to expand...

  • Borderlands 4 Recommended Specs​

    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit or newer
    • CPU: Intel Core i7 12700 / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (8 CPU cores minimum)
    • RAM: 32 GB
    • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (8 GB VRAM required)
    • Storage: 100 GB (SSD required)
Click to expand...

​


OP: Easy/Cheap upgrade would be a 5800x, CPU side. It meets the recommended CPU requirements. You will still be roughly min requirement, GPU side though.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor (£123.99 @ Box Limited)
Total: £123.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-08-11 17:26 BST+0100

You could pair it with a 9070/9070xt. It might lose some performance, being in a 3.0 x16 slot, but I wouldn't expect it to lose much, given how a 5090 only loses about 4%
 
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Thank you all for the advice. Think i am going to look at the 5800x just to keep this system running for that bit longer than look at just a full rebuild when more games start requiring a better CPU.

Luckily at the minute, it just seems to be the one game thats being awkward, when games like BF6 are releasing with much more achievable specs
 
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