Here's the comparability list for your motherboard. Upgrade the bios if you haven't yet
https://www.asrock.com/mb/amd/fatal1ty%20b450%20gaming%20k4/index.asp#CPU
I searched on ebay and ๐ there's a big jump in price between a 5700x/5800x to 5700x3d/5800x3d. ~$150 to $350-400
Thanks! I didn't consider checking that, I'd just been relying on PC part picker compatibility.
Thank you, appreciate the links.
You'll have to make sure your BIOS is updated to be compatible with a new CPU. It's a PITA, but you'll need to go to Asrock's site and scroll through the different versions and figure out what your board can support. I also have a cheap old Asrock B450M board. Started with a 2600, now running a 5700x. So Asrock can be good about updates.
Thank you. The motherboard is one of the oldest bits of this Frankenstein PC.
Upgrading your CPU to anything from the last 3 generations is going to require a motherboard and memory also. It'll be very hard to do that under $300.
My advice at this point is to keep saving up until RAM prices drop. Then you'll have more money and things will be cheaper. You'll be able to get something on AM5 then.
He could upgrade to the ryzen 5000 series with that setup and do just fine. AM4 has long legs. With the RAM crisis, AM5 is out of reach and, I think, will be for years.
On a whim recently I upgraded the ram to this 32GB actually, from 16GB. Paid $115 and as of today it's still climbing, at $300.
Thanks for the advice, the CPU upgrade is more of a want than a need anyhow.
If you want something right now, you can swap that CPU out with a ryzen 7 5600x. It lolls like Amazon has it listed for $220. According to User Benchmarks you could see a 30-40% performance increase over what you have. Unfortunately with the smaller board you can't really add more ram. Any upgrade to DDR5 is going to be way too expensive.
You could save and wait for things to cool down but who knows when that will be. Once it does happen you should swap the processor, board, and ram. You can also keep an eye on the secondhand market to see if something pops up at a decent price.
Cool, thanks for the tips. For secondhand is there anything other than eBay to watch? My locale doesn't have much for used PC parts.
Looks like you can get a Ryzen 5800XT with a cpu cooler and fit in your budget.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YGhv8Q
Thats probably fine and you dont NEED to upgrade. But if you want to you could upgrade your cpu to either a 5600 or 5600x. They're pretty cheap these days.