AMD’s AM4 socket and platform are incredibly tough and are backed by four generations of new product lines. With the same motherboard you bought for a Ryzen 3 1200 machine in 2017, you can squeeze in a brand new Ryzen 9 5950X (and probably enjoy it). But with the AM5 upgrade on the horizon, should you upgrade or wait? PCWorld’s Gordon Ung is here to break it down for you in PCWorld’s latest YouTube video.
Simply put, the longer you last, the more you’ll benefit from upgrading to a modern Ryzen 5000-series processor. Upgrading from the Ryzen 7 1800X to the comparable Ryzen 7 5800X3D improves just about everything your PC can do, from simple browsing to media-intensive applications, sometimes up to 50% gains over older hardware. Even games, which you might think depend almost entirely on your graphics card, can see impressive gains. Depending on the title you’re playing, this upgrade can again essentially double your performance. That’s especially true if you’re not gaming at a massive 4K resolution.
Gordon Mah Ung/IDG
Returns dwindle if you’re coming from newer Ryzen 2000 or 3000 processors, especially on the high end. Ditto if you start with a high-end processor and move up to something mid-range or budget in the new series. On the other hand, if you recently upgraded your GPU and left the CPU in place, removing that bottleneck could give you a lot more performance than you think.
Watch the full video for an exhaustive set of benchmarks to help you make your decision to upgrade now or wait for what’s next. And if you like this kind of deep dive into cheesy hardware comparisons, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld’s YouTube channel!
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