Bang for Buck Upgade Recommendation Please

[Turtle Shed]

Hello all.

My PC is used for photo and video editing. I built it myself a while back. I'd like to see some all round speed improvements, specifically Lightroom noise reduction and Premier timeline performance and rendering.

Motherboard is an Asus Prime B450-PLUS
CPU is Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
GFX Card GTX 1050i

Drives are all solid state, with the OS (Win10) on an NVMe thing.

Budget is £500.00 which I think goes on either a new motherboard, CPU and GFX card (with about £150-£170 spend on each) or just keep the motherboard and spend around £200 on a supported CPU leaving twice the budget for a GFX card.

Gaming not a consideration, PSU is a decent unit and will cope with higher power requirements.

Comments very welcome.

Cheers

[130R]

4060 or 4060 Ti + 5700X would be doable in that budget. Motherboard should be ok but update the BIOS first.

[Silverbullet767]

As your doing photo and video editing, if be tempted to go with a better processor.

5800X for around £165 with a Gigabyte Radeon 7600XT for about £300

Or for £30 over budget. The 5900X for a lot more editing headroom with the same graphics card.

As those processors are 105W TDP, just make sure your CPU cooling solution is up to the job. And not a standard in the box cooler. A decent CPU air cooler can be had for around £30

Edited by Silverbullet767 on Saturday 31st August 13:13

[Turtle Shed]

Thanks both.

Seems that sticking with the motherboard would be fine, and of course a simpler option.

[Sporky]

Turtle Shed said:

Gaming not a consideration

Then the big win is probably a processor upgrade.

[mikef]

I recently decided to skip a generation and max out my AM4 set-up; a range-topping 5950X was well within your budget, including adding a Noctua NH-D15 cooler

I do also use for flight sim, so have a decent GPU, but most of what I do is CPU-bound

[xeny]

Turtle Shed said:

My PC is used for photo and video editing. I built it myself a while back. I'd like to see some all round speed improvements, specifically Lightroom noise reduction and Premier timeline performance and rendering.

Open task manager and keep an eye on it while you do these - do you spend more time with the CPU or GPU maxed out? That tells you which way to bias your spend.

WRT GPU, check what Adobe's support is for Nvidia vs AMD GPUs before spending money.

CPU wise, 5700X or 5800X. Do not be tempted by a 5700 - although the model no is similar it is significantly different.

One thing to possibly consider - if you just do a GPU upgrade, it would transfer to a new build - spending money on the CPU won't carry forwards to a new machine in the same way.