# Upgrade CPU or GPU?



## Splinterdog (Oct 27, 2020)

With the Crosshair Hero VII bios updates, I've been considering upgrading to a Ryzen 3900X which will certainly improve video editing work, but for gaming I'm not so sure.
In the same price bracket, I could upgrade the humble RX580 , which is now beginning to strain a little at higher game settings, to an RTX 2060 Super. In truth, I probably use this machine 80% gaming and the rest is either video editing and everything else.
I suppose my question is, which upgrade will benefit gaming performance the most? 
Unfortunately, where I live, the latest Ryzens won't be seen here for ages and the choice of AMD GPUs is sparse, to say the least, although an Asus RX5700XT is about the same price as the 2060 Super.


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## Zach_01 (Oct 27, 2020)

For gaming performance definately you must go for a better card. From RX580 to a 2060s/5700XT you will see something like +70/80% more FPS.
Keeping the 580 but going from 2600X to a 3900X will give you way less than half of the above improvement.

For multithreading its another story. The 3900X has more than double the process power of the 2600X.


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## Devon68 (Oct 27, 2020)

No question about it THE GPU. Not to what, that is the question. The 5700xt is faster than the 2060 super in 90% of the cases. Only slower in PUB G. It's all up to you.


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## biffzinker (Oct 27, 2020)

If you could get away with swapping both the CPU, and GPU the Ryzen 5 3600 would be a nice step from the 2600X, and the RTX 2060S.

The Ryzen 5 3600 is faster than the 2700X.


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## xman2007 (Oct 27, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> although an Asus RX5700XT is about the same price as the 2060 Super.


No brainer then, the 5700 XT is much better than the 2060s and considering you spend 80% of your time on the PC gaming a GPU upgrade would be a better investment than the CPU which you spend only 20% video editing and the likes


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## Splinterdog (Oct 28, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> If you could get away with swapping both the CPU, and GPU the Ryzen 5 3600 would be a nice step from the 2600X, and the RTX 2060S.
> 
> The Ryzen 5 3600 is faster than the 2700X.


In an ideal world, yes, that would be great, but a little expensive 
The 5700 XT really is a performer, especially over the RX580 that I have now, so that's what it will be.
Thanks for all your replies!


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## Sithaer (Oct 28, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> In an ideal world, yes, that would be great, but a little expensive
> The 5700 XT really is a performer, especially over the RX580 that I have now, so that's what it will be.
> Thanks for all your replies!



I'm in a similar boat.
Well except that in my case its like 99% gaming on my system with a 1600x/RX 570.

I also decided to go with a new GPU in the ~330-350$ price range which leaves me with a 5600 XT/RTX 2060 or maybe a 5700 from the second hand market._ 'I don't mind as long as it has 1-2 years retail warranty based in my country'_

Tho I won't be able to buy anything till early 2021 January so prices could go down a bit till then but my budget is fixed so whatever that fits it at the time.
Either way, all of those cards are solid upgrades from my 570 so its all good with me.

Emergency plan/B is a 1660 Super in case something happens and I wont be able to save up as much as I expect to. _'I tested that card in my system sometime ago and it was alright'_

CPU maybe late next year, really not in a hurry as I'm not playing competitive games and I have a 74 FPS global limit set in the AMD driver anyway. _'40-75 freesync range'_
Have no plans to upgrade my monitor either, bought this in 2019 so its staying with me for a good few years at least.

With that 5700 XT you should be good for a while I think.


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## Devon68 (Oct 28, 2020)

> I also decided to go with a new GPU in the ~330-350$ price range which leaves me with a 5600 XT/RTX 2060 or maybe a 5700 from the second hand market._ 'I don't mind as long as it has 1-2 years retail warranty based in my country'_


In that range and if you want to buy used and dont mind not having warranty get a 1080 TI for 350$, it's even better than 500$ rtx 2070 super. Depending where you live.


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## storm-chaser (Oct 28, 2020)

*I echo everyone recommending the GPU change. *
I would advise you go for the the MSI Gaming X 5700 XT. Its a bit pricey, but runs very cool and dramatically reduces in case temperatures relative to the RX 580. The RX 580 is a great performer, but runs very hot. You could literally fry an egg on the backplate during heavy gaming. The gaming x 5700 XT has a sick backplate that is raised a little more than 1 mm away from the PCB. This buffer zone is a great help in getting rid of the heat before it radiates outward through the backplate itself. Not to mention this card is able to spin the fans down to 0 % when under a light load. Making it a great choice if you are worried about noise. MSI did something amazing with this card, because not only is it quiet under light load, it is also tied for the quietest card under full load. Quite difficult to achieve both of those things in one offering. 

Not to mention, that backplate is only a few inches away from the CPU in most cases. All this extra heat right under the CPU can reduce stability and may limit your max overclock, especially if your case suffers from lack of airflow.  This is the primary reason I got rid of my RX 580. I didn't need a 185 w heater nestled in the heart of my rig. lol. And while the 5700 XT has a higher TDP, it is much more effective and much faster in dissipating heat, leading to a cooler running GPU and lower case temps, and in my case, even reducing my CPU temps by a few degrees.


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## Sithaer (Oct 29, 2020)

Devon68 said:


> In that range and if you want to buy used and dont mind not having warranty get a 1080 TI for 350$, it's even better than 500$ rtx 2070 super. Depending where you live.



No warranty is a dealbreaker for me, did that once and ended up with a fancy paperweight 1 year after buying the card.
Not doing that again/can't afford that risk.

That pretty much puts the 10 serie cards out of the question, that and 1080 ti go for ~450-500$ where I live. _'only blower FE models under that'_

Second hand but brand new 5600 XT with 3 years warranty go for ~333$, 2060 around the same with 1-2 years warranty.

Ideally a non XT 5700 would be perfect for me but that card is rarely being sold for some reason.

Well I still have ~2 and half months before buying anything so things could change._ 'I hope for the better'_.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 16, 2020)

Incoming Friday or Saturday, if all goes well.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 17, 2020)

Ordered and picking up the beast tomorrow.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 19, 2020)

These results speak for themselves!


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## Splinterdog (Dec 22, 2020)

I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.


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## oxrufiioxo (Dec 22, 2020)

Unless you can get a 3900X/XT for pretty cheap I'd wait for a 5900X.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 22, 2020)

oxrufiioxo said:


> Unless you can get a 3900X/XT for pretty cheap I'd wait for a 5900X.


It's (5900X) also compatible with my Asus CHVII with the new BIOS and also not that much more expensive than 3900X down here which is a surprise.
Thanks for the tip!


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## oxrufiioxo (Dec 22, 2020)

I wouldn't know anything about pricing but according to the cpu support list on your board as of bios version 4007 it's supported.


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## milewski1015 (Dec 22, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
> Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.


Good stuff with the upgrades! I went from a 580 to a 5700 XT, and would love to dump my 2600 for a 5600X/5800X. Enjoy the new GPU!


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## Chrispy_ (Dec 22, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> I'm now considering upgrading the Ryzen 2600X and would welcome opinions on 3600X up to 3900X.
> Apart from gaming I also re3nder quite a few videos, so there's that to consider.


Don't buy the 3600X, I have an XT (not that I paid for it) and it's exactly the same as a 3600 in real-world use. If you were going to hit a CPU bottleneck with the vanilla 3600, you'll still hit the same bottleneck with the X variant.

I have a 3900X, no real difference to speak of for gaming but CPU encodes are faster. This 3900X was pilfered from work, the chip I normally run in this board is a 3700X but I've needed more cores and 128GB RAM in this new working-from-home era; Not everything works great over VPN or remote sessions :\

It depends what you're encoding in and how often too. Premiere/Adobe Media Encoder appear to be inefficient, barely-coded pieces of shit. You will *not* get the performance scaling you hope by doubling up on cores. IMO a good upgrade on a budget from the 2600X is probably the 3700X. For gaming I wouldn't recommend an overclock, but if you do enough all-core load, stick it on a 4.2 or 4.3GHz all-core OC and you'll be miles ahead of the 2600X.


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## milewski1015 (Dec 22, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> Don't buy the 3600X, I have an XT (not that I paid for it) and it's exactly the same as a 3600 in real-world use. If you were going to hit a CPU bottleneck with the vanilla 3600, you'll still hit the same bottleneck with the X variant.


This. The 3600X is at best 3% better-performing when compared to the 3600. Not worth any significant price difference. Would be one thing if they were within $5-10 of each other, but I haven't seen them that close in quite a while. Aside from the performance difference, the 3600X does come with the Wraith Spire instead of the smaller Wraith Stealth that comes with the 3600, but given that OP is doing what sounds like heavy video editing, I'd imagine they already have a cooler better than both in-box offerings, which makes the better cooler the 3600X provides a moot point.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 22, 2020)

I'm now thinking more towards the 5000 series Ryzen and for the price, the 5600X is looking good. Although I may be able to stretch a little further.


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## milewski1015 (Dec 22, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> I'm now thinking more towards the 5000 series Ryzen and for the price, the 5600X is looking good. Although I may be able to stretch a little further.


Unless your video editing software really loves more cores, the 5800X is barely better than the 5600X when it comes to gaming. The 5800X really only makes sense if you can't afford the extra 100USD for the 5900X. Even then, you mention gaming 80% of the time, so I'd be hesitant to conclude that the extra money spent on a 5900X would be worth it.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 22, 2020)

milewski1015 said:


> Unless your video editing software really loves more cores, the 5800X is barely better than the 5600X when it comes to gaming. The 5800X really only makes sense if you can't afford the extra 100USD for the 5900X. Even then, you mention gaming 80% of the time, so I'd be hesitant to conclude that the extra money spent on a 5900X would be worth it.


I'm leaning towards 5600X, mainly for the price point and, as you point out, the 5800X shows no significant advantages in gaming. Bragging rights, yes 
A significant upgrade from a 2600X, though and not a bad price where I live, depending on the exchange rate (a complicated issue in itself).
Edit:
I use a Corsair AIO by the way.


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## Durvelle27 (Dec 23, 2020)

With gaming in mind, the best move is to upgrade the GPU. You’ll see a bigger improvement vs the CPU

not to mention you can always upgrade the CPU later down the line and prices will be even lower


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## oxrufiioxo (Dec 23, 2020)

Durvelle27 said:


> With gaming in mind, the best move is to upgrade the GPU. You’ll see a bigger improvement vs the CPU
> 
> not to mention you can always upgrade the CPU later down the line and prices will be even lower



He already upgraded the gpu and now wants more cpu power.


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## Durvelle27 (Dec 23, 2020)

oxrufiioxo said:


> He already upgraded the gpu and now wants more cpu power.


I didn’t even see that 

in that case the 5600X value can’t be beaten

the IPC uplift on Zen3 is amazing and it offers the best bang for buck matching last gens 3800X in heavy loads and completely beating them in single threaded loads


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## Splinterdog (Dec 23, 2020)

5600X it is then, especially having just read the review by W1zzard.








						AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review
					

Six Zen 3 cores beating eight Zen 2 Cores? That's exactly what's happening with the Ryzen 5 5600X. AMD's massive IPC gain helped it overcome a two-core deficitm, even in productivity tests. The Ryzen 5 5600X redefines what you really need for a high-end gaming PC.




					www.techpowerup.com


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## Durvelle27 (Dec 23, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> 5600X it is then, especially having just read the review by W1zzard.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The 5600X is a well rounded CPU

You won’t be disappointed. And the 12 Threads will last you awhile


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## Selaya (Dec 23, 2020)

milewski1015 said:


> [ ... ]The 5800X really only makes sense if you can't afford the extra 100USD for the 5900X.
> [ ... ]


The 5800X doesnt make any sense at all (unless they drop its price by like, $100 which isn't happening) - I would only ever consider it if you cannot obtain any other SKU, which is probably actually a thing these days.

Anyways; this is far too late but - you should've pooled your money for a 3080/6800 instead of upping your CPU - the 5600X will not be that significant for MT loads (rendering videos), while you will notice little to nothing on the gaming front because your 5700XT isn't strong enough to get bottlenecked by the CPU, for the most parts. I mean, depends obviously on whether you're into high fps gaming or not - if you plan on 4K I'd honestly have recommended a 2600 with a 3080 even for a brand new build - you're not going to get CPU bottlenecked anytime soon and the 5600X is _seriously overpriced_ these days.
But yeah, you know what they say about opinions ...


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## Splinterdog (Dec 23, 2020)

Selaya said:


> The 5800X doesnt make any sense at all (unless they drop its price by like, $100 which isn't happening) - I would only ever consider it if you cannot obtain any other SKU, which is probably actually a thing these days.
> 
> Anyways; this is far too late but - you should've pooled your money for a 3080/6800 instead of upping your CPU - the 5600X will not be that significant for MT loads (rendering videos), while you will notice little to nothing on the gaming front because your 5700XT isn't strong enough to get bottlenecked by the CPU, for the most parts. I mean, depends obviously on whether you're into high fps gaming or not - if you plan on 4K I'd honestly have recommended a 2600 with a 3080 even for a brand new build - you're not going to get CPU bottlenecked anytime soon and the 5600X is _seriously overpriced_ these days.
> But yeah, you know what they say about opinions ...


The 3080 is way out of my price range and 6800 hasn't even arrived this far south yet, both of which are at/would be at premium prices. Price gouging is a national sport here in Argentina and has been for decades.
The 5700XT upgrade (from RX580) is one of the most significant GPU upgrades I've made in a long time and I'm not talking about a gazillion benchmarks either, but real-time gaming from my own perspective which is what really counts at the end of the day.
I don't _need_ to upgrade the 2600X, but I want to and down here the 5600X is half the price of a 3900X, it's current gen and will serve me well for at least the next 2-3 years. And I don't need to change any other hardware. Thanks to AMD for clearing that path for us.
And yes, we all have an opinion, so thanks for yours!


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## puma99dk| (Dec 23, 2020)

I used RX 590, 5700 XT and now a RX 6800 and I can clearly at 4K feel the difference.

I do still own my Sapphire Nitro+ RX 590 Special Edition, I love the card, how quiet it is and how it looks just a bit sad about the performance.

I had a Sapphire PULSE RX 5700 XT I traded it together with my MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon-AC a Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVME plus some cash for a AMD Radeon RX 6800 Reference card (PowerColor branded box, bios is stock AMD).

I saw a good performance boost going from my RX 590 to the RX 5700 XT in 4K and also going to the RX 6800 I was lucky because ProShop only got like 200 RX 6800 reference cards and 50 RX 6800 XT cards and no one really want to sell does or trade them without you getting ripped off.

So I decided to go with the RX 6800 for now just wish it was Sapphire branded like my other AMD cards because I am a Sapphire fan but in 2020 with the shortage I take what I can get 

If anyone check my signature they can see my max oc on my RX 6800 where it's stable for everything.


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## Chrispy_ (Dec 23, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> I'm now thinking more towards the 5000 series Ryzen and for the price, the 5600X is looking good. Although I may be able to stretch a little further.


I'm holding out for the sensibly-priced 5700X. The 5800X's 8C/16T with a single monolithic CCX and all 32MB of L3 shared makes sense for the best Zen3 has to offer. The 5900X still relies on accurate thread scheduling to the correct cores die and I don't trust devs or Microsoft to do that job properly, so unless you need more than 8 cores, stick to single-die models.

The 5600X is only 6 physical cores. I'm not sure that's worth big money in 2020, it was certainly fine in 2017 but I think 6 cores is firmly in lower-budget territory now, especially with consoles having 8 cores each, it's likely to be the optimal core count for gaming before this generation of consoles is done.


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## Durvelle27 (Dec 23, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> The 3080 is way out of my price range and 6800 hasn't even arrived this far south yet, both of which are at/would be at premium prices. Price gouging is a national sport here in Argentina and has been for decades.
> The 5700XT upgrade (from RX580) is one of the most significant GPU upgrades I've made in a long time and I'm not talking about a gazillion benchmarks either, but real-time gaming from my own perspective which is what really counts at the end of the day.
> I don't _need_ to upgrade the 2600X, but I want to and down here the 5600X is half the price of a 3900X, it's current gen and will serve me well for at least the next 2-3 years. And I don't need to change any other hardware. Thanks to AMD for clearing that path for us.
> And yes, we all have an opinion, so thanks for yours!


1440p and under that 5700XT and 5600X will handle games at least for a few more years with no issues


Chrispy_ said:


> I'm holding out for the sensibly-priced 5700X. The 5800X's 8C/16T with a single monolithic CCX and all 32MB of L3 shared makes sense for the best Zen3 has to offer. The 5900X still relies on accurate thread scheduling to the correct cores die and I don't trust devs or Microsoft to do that job properly, so unless you need more than 8 cores, stick to single-die models.
> 
> The 5600X is only 6 physical cores. I'm not sure that's worth big money in 2020, it was certainly fine in 2017 but I think 6 cores is firmly in lower-budget territory now, especially with consoles having 8 cores each, it's likely to be the optimal core count for gaming before this generation of consoles is done.


I don’t think there will be 5700X maybe a 5700 but not likely a 5700X

and if we look at games and the market performance as a whole the 6 core parts are actually the best in the segment and even years from now 6 cores will still be viable considering how very few games can even fully tax 6 core or higher CPUs but even than the 5600X has the advantage of having 12 Threads which will give optimum performance in heavy threaded apps


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## HD64G (Dec 23, 2020)

puma99dk| said:


> I used RX 590, 5700 XT and now a RX 6800 and I can clearly at 4K feel the difference.
> 
> I do still own my Sapphire Nitro+ RX 590 Special Edition, I love the card, how quiet it is and how it looks just a bit sad about the performance.
> 
> ...


Ref 6800(XT) have great coolers, looks and are all made well. AIB custom ones have risk if not the best and most expensive models. So, this time around, 6800(XT) are the best in reliability, cooling and vfm if bought close to MSRP.


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## puma99dk| (Dec 23, 2020)

HD64G said:


> Ref 6800(XT) have great cooler, looks and are all made well. AIB custom ones have risk if not the best and most expensive models. So, this time around, 6800(XT) are the best in relaibility, cooling and vfm if bought close to MSRP.



The design of the RX 6800/6800XT/6900XT are the same even so that AMD have enlarged the cooler for the RX 6800XT and 6900XT it still got the same look.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 23, 2020)

I put the ROG RX580 into my other other gaming rig, an FX8350 in which they both fit very well and I even managed to get Aura working, which is a miracle in itself, due to the buggy nature of said program.
I now have a spare MSI GTX960 4GB.
Something I don't understand though is when people talk of gaming at 1440p or 4k. I mainly game at 1080p and when I feel the GPU can take it I use VSR. Is that what people are referring to when talk about these resolutions or the native resolution of the monitor?


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## milewski1015 (Dec 23, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> I put the ROG RX580 into my other other gaming rig, an FX8350 in which they both fit very well


What sort of performance does this combo get you? I've got an 8350 hanging around somewhere...



Splinterdog said:


> Is that what people are referring to when talk about these resolutions or the native resolution of the monitor?


I have a 1440p monitor so I'm talking native resolution


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## davidm71 (Dec 23, 2020)

Unless your going to buy a used gpu I would recommend a cpu upgrade as you can't even find any gpus due to shortages and price gauging thats going on. For example take Cyberpunk 2077. Very cpu intensive game that scales greatly with a better processor.


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## Zach_01 (Dec 23, 2020)

milewski1015 said:


> What sort of performance does this combo get you? I've got an 8350 hanging around somewhere...


My previous system was FX8370 with RX580 at the end of its time. On most games on 1080p it’s ok but at some it’s struggling. Mostly on the lows 1% and 0.1%. Going from FX8370+RX580 to the R5 3600+RX580 had improve things to those lows by a lot. To the avgs FPS there was an improvement but nothing to write about.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 23, 2020)

milewski1015 said:


> What sort of performance does this combo get you? I've got an 8350 hanging around somewhere...


Pretty good in Shadow of The Tomb Raider. Certainly better than with the GTX 960 and I never had any complaints on the FX8350 as it ran almost everything until the newer games began to make it creak a little.


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## Splinterdog (Dec 24, 2020)

In Cyberpunk it's a different matter with the FX8350/RX580 combo. Medium setting is about as high as I can go, without going below 45-50 fps and it's definitely playable.


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## nuggdoctor (Jan 3, 2021)

save for a year until the good cpu's are available and snag a 5950x. thats what im waiting for to ditch my delidded 8700k that runs at 5.1ghz.


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