If your current gaming PC is getting a bit old in the tooth but it has a graphics card that you're happy to use for another few years, you might be wondering what's the cheapest Christmas upgrade you can give, for as little money as possible. The best gaming CPU at the moment, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, is very expensive but there is a much cheaper alternative: its distant cousin, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D.
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Packed with performance-boosting 3D V-Cache, the cheap X3D Ryzen is a fantastic upgrade for any budget gaming PC. And best of all, you really don't need to spend a fortune on the motherboard, RAM, and cooler that you'll need to go with it. In fact, you can get a complete system upgrade for less than $370 and it'll keep your rig ticking along nicely for many more years to come.
The best budget PC upgrade
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D | $197 @ Amazon
- ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming | $90 @ Amazon
- Team Group DDR4-3200 | $45 @ Amazon
- Thermalright PS120SE | $34 @ Amazon
Total cost = $366.36
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D
There's no point beating around the bush here, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is the best low-price gaming CPU around. Yes, there are cheaper processors that are still pretty decent for games, but this one gets my vote every single time—I should know as I reviewed it earlier this year and I use it regularly in one of my test rigs.
And thanks to having eight cores and 16 threads, it's capable enough to deal with tasks outside of gaming. Video editing, offline rendering, photo manipulation: it'll do them all just fine.
Its secret sauce is, of course, the extra 64 MB of L3 cache bonded to the core chiplet, giving a total of 96 MB of last-level cache. In some games, it won't make much difference (but it won't worsen things either) but in CPU-heavy scenarios, it'll magically boost minimum frame rates.
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming
There are much better AM4 motherboards than this little ASRock B550 offering but if you're looking to save as many pennies as possible, then it's the logical one to pick.
It has more than enough PCIe slots and although it only has two M.2 sockets, you can buy an SSD adapter card to go in one of those spare PCIe slots to get more storage. If that's still not enough, you do have six SATA ports you can load up with drives.
Where ASRock has been a bit stingy is the number of USB ports on the rear IO panel. Six just seems like far too few but at least there are three USB headers on the motherboard.
You won't be overclocking with this model but you really don't need to with the Ryzen 7 5700X3D. Just slap in the chip (not literally, you'll bend all the pins!), add some RAM, strap on a cooler and you'll be good to go.
Team Group 32 GB DDR4-3200
Every gaming PC needs RAM. Well, every computer does, whether it's for gaming or running your fridge, but in the case of the former, you want a large memory kit that runs fast and has low latencies.
That's exactly what this Team Group 32 GB DDR4 kit has and while you might want lots of RGB lights everywhere, there's no point spending extra on such things when you're on a tight budget.
AMD's AM4 Ryzen processors work best when paired with RAM running at 3,200 MT/s and with a CAS latency of 16—don't spend more on something with better numbers as you won't really see the benefit in games.
Thermalright PS120SE
The Ryzen 7 5700X3D doesn't come with a cooler and while you might be tempted to use one you've already got, why treat your lovely new processor so badly? Instead, just buy the Thermalright PS120SE—it's all the cooler you'll ever need with that Ryzen chip.
Don't be fooled by that low price, either, as it's genuinely very capable. I have three of them dotted around my office (some spare, some in test rigs) and they can handle much beefier processors with ease.
It can be a little fiddly to install and a touch noisy with the fans running at full pelt, but they're minor grumbles in the grand scheme of things.
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