Question Upgradeability

[Charlie226]

So I recently bought a prebuilt pc from AWD-IT and one thing I didn't think about is upgradeability. I am currently rocking a Ryzen 5 5500, an RTX 4060, 32GB of RAM and a terabyte ssd.
(Don't remember the motherboard) Is there anything that I can upgrade the CPU to without having to practically buy a whole new system?

Thanks in advance

 

[Lutfij]

If you have a B550 chipset motherboard with a good VRM design, you can drop in something higher in pedigree to your Ryzen 5 5500, something like a Ryzen 7 5700X3D or a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. You will need aftermarket cooling and that might be impeded by the make and model of your case. If you have DDR4-3600MHz then you're going to extract the most out of your AM4 platform.

You will need to verify the make and model of your motherboard as well as it's BIOS version. Perhaps you could pass on a link to the prebuilt you purchased it off of?

I recently bought a prebuilt pc from AWD-IT
You're located in the UK? How recent is recent ?

 

[Charlie226]

If you have a B550 chipset motherboard with a good VRM design, you can drop in something higher in pedigree to your Ryzen 5 5500, something like a Ryzen 7 5700X3D or a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. You will need aftermarket cooling and that might be impeded by the make and model of your case. If you have DDR4-3600MHz then you're going to extract the most out of your AM4 platform.

You will need to verify the make and model of your motherboard as well as it's BIOS version. Perhaps you could pass on a link to the prebuilt you purchased it off of?

I recently bought a prebuilt pc from AWD-IT
You're located in the UK? How recent is recent ?

I am indeed in the UK and recent is about a month ago. If it helps here is the link to the build - https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-it-mes...vidia-rtx-4060-8gb-desktop-pc-for-gaming.html

 

[Lutfij]

That build is basically put together with sub quality parts. If I had to pick parts for the build, it'd have been with a B550 chipset motherboard with a beefy VRM design, a dual channel DDR4-3600MHz tight latency ram kit and perhaps a higher end processor with an RTX4070 while picking a reliably built PSU, so you didn't need to perform an upgrade soon after buying into a build.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That build link shows a FEW of the components that come with this build, but for the motherboard it only states what the upgrade options are from what I can see. What you need to do is pull the side panel, look on the board itself and find the actual model which should be printed somewhere along one of the edges of the board or along the center of the board somewhere usually between two of the PCIe slots. Then we can definitively determine what your upgrade options for CPU are because some chipset boards and in fact, some board models regardless of chipset, won't support some of the higher end CPUs. And in some cases even if support is listed it may be a bad idea if that board lacks a good power delivery (VRM) configuration, or has no VRM heatsinks, or is simply a very poor model of board which would be VERY common on a lot of prebuilt machines.

 

[geofelt]

In general, pre-builts are not designed to be upgraded.
One particular place is the power supply which is usually of minimal quality and capacity.
For most users, it is the graphics card that needs to be upgraded, and the initial psu size is a limiter.

In this case, a R5-5500 can likely be upgraded to R7-58xx or r9-59xx processors.
You get more processing threads, but only a minimal upgrade in single thread performance.
The X3D processors might be a good upgrade for gaming, but not much good for batch apps.

In practice, most seeking a boost in cpu power will find it better to go to the next gen.

 

[Charlie226]

That build link shows a FEW of the components that come with this build, but for the motherboard it only states what the upgrade options are from what I can see. What you need to do is pull the side panel, look on the board itself and find the actual model which should be printed somewhere along one of the edges of the board or along the center of the board somewhere usually between two of the PCIe slots. Then we can definitively determine what your upgrade options for CPU are because some chipset boards and in fact, some board models regardless of chipset, won't support some of the higher end CPUs. And in some cases even if support is listed it may be a bad idea if that board lacks a good power delivery (VRM) configuration, or has no VRM heatsinks, or is simply a very poor model of board which would be VERY common on a lot of prebuilt machines.

What does the name normally look like, as in what words should I be looking for/ along the lines of?

 

[Darkbreeze]

In general, pre-builts are not designed to be upgraded.
One particular place is the power supply which is usually of minimal quality and capacity.
For most users, it is the graphics card that needs to be upgraded, and the initial psu size is a limiter.

In this case, a R5-5500 can likely be upgraded to R7-58xx or r9-59xx processors.
You get more processing threads, but only a minimal upgrade in single thread performance.
The X3D processors might be a good upgrade for gaming, but not much good for batch apps.

In practice, most seeking a boost in cpu power will find it better to go to the next gen.

Except that in this case there is almost a 10% single core increase in performance just going from the R5-5500 to an R7-5700x, and a nearly 30% increase in multithreaded performance. So going to something significantly better like the Ryzen 9 5900 offers more like a 12% increase in single core performance and close to a 45-50% increase in multithreaded performance. For gaming, one of the X3D models would be a significant upgrade, but as mentioned, not terrible helpful if gaming isn't your primary consideration. But all of this depends on what board you have.

As well, with only 3200MT/s memory, that is almost certainly going to be a very high latency model, probably CL18 or higher, you could gain a modest increase in "snappiness" to the system by selling the memory it came with and upgrading to a 3600MT/s kit with low CL14 or CL16 latency.

 

[Darkbreeze]

What does the name normally look like, as in what words should I be looking for/ along the lines of?

Something like this, or similar, depending on the board model. And if that is the board model you have, you definitely don't want to upgrade to anything bigger than the Ryzen 5 lower TDP models without also upgrading the motherboard as well since it lacks heat sinks and has a lower end VRM configuration.

 

[geofelt]

CPU-Z will display the motherboard model info.

The motherboard displayed above is a good example of a cheap motherboard to be avoided.
It has no vrm heat sinks and only a single 8 pin ATX connector.

 

[--SID--]

The PSU is trash. 230vO input, group regulated, lack of protections. Replace asap!

 

[Charlie226]

Something like this, or similar, depending on the board model. And if that is the board model you have, you definitely don't want to upgrade to anything bigger than the Ryzen 5 lower TDP models without also upgrading the motherboard as well since it lacks heat sinks and has a lower end VRM configuration.

I believe it is A520M-A pro

 

[Moonstick2]

That build is basically put together with sub quality parts. If I had to pick parts for the build, it'd have been with a B550 chipset motherboard with a beefy VRM design, a dual channel DDR4-3600MHz tight latency ram kit and perhaps a higher end processor with an RTX4070 while picking a reliably built PSU, so you didn't need to perform an upgrade soon after buying into a build.

It should be noted though that this is a pre-build to a budget. It's being sold for £700, and currently a 5700X3D and an RTX 4070 alone would be around £650+.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You should replace the PSU like SID has suggested, and I wouldn't recommend upgrading on that board to any CPU beyond the Ryzen 7 5700x which is only a 65w part. You might get away with one of the 105w models but I don't think I'd try to push it on that board. Or, get a better board if you want a higher end CPU.

 

[samuel13098]

Is there anything that I can upgrade the CPU to without having to practically buy a whole new system?

Yes. I had a similar motherboard on my old PC setup and i upgraded from a Ryzen 7 3800x-, to a ryzen 9 5900x. The 5000 series Ryzen's have fell to a nice affordable price so you could even max out the AM4 socket capabililties with the ryzen 9 5950x. This (from, my understanding) is the top of the line for the AM4 socket.

With a 600w power supply i don't think you would have any issues.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes. I had a similar motherboard on my old PC setup and i upgraded from a Ryzen 7 3800x-, to a ryzen 9 5900x. The 5000 series Ryzen's have fell to a nice affordable price so you could even max out the AM4 socket capabililties with the ryzen 9 5950x. This (from, my understanding) is the top of the line for the AM4 socket.

With a 600w power supply i don't think you would have any issues.

Nonsense. You run a 5900x on that low end of a board, with a very weak VRM configuration and no heatsinks, and I promise, you're just about guaranteed to see some kind of thermal throttling and likely other issues as well. Plenty of motherboards out there with CPUs on their compatibility lists that have no business, at all, being run on them. All you need to look at for confirmation of this, even far back, are the FX 9000 series CPUs that were on just about every compatible list for AM3+ motherboards and in reality there were only a very small handful that could "handle" them, if you even want to call it that, because even with the absolute best top three boards those CPUs still never worked properly, but they were certainly on the lists even for low end 970 chipset boards.

While this is probably not AS bad as all that, it's also certainly not a very good idea, at all, ever.

 

[USAFRet]

With a 600w power supply i don't think you would have any issues.

I wouldn't use that PSU to run a desklamp.

 

[logainofhades]

Your PSU is a fire hazard and your board cannot handle a 5900x. A 5700x3d maybe, as they really aren't all that power hungry.