Currently have a Ryzen 7 5800X, 2x32gb DDR4, and Asus b550f MoBo and a RTX 5080. Thinking about upgrading my CPU, ram, and MOBO before prices get even crazier for everything. Is it better to buy now or wait a while til things are more reasonable? I play on a 49" ultra wide OLED w/ 240hz refresh rate.
You should wait. Rumor has it AMD might re-start production of the 5800x3d chips. Right now what the ones you see for sale are used or new old stock. that is why they are $600+. A 5900xt will only get you less than 10% of a performance jump, so thats a waste of money too.
Your current build is incredibly unbalanced, only because the GeForce RTX 5080 has so much power and the Ryzen 7 5800X is relatively tame.
That said, we never recommend upgrading “just in case things get worse.” If there’s a reason to upgrade right now, it’s not that - it’s the unbalance in your current system. Using an upper midrange CPU from 2020 with a high-end GPU from 2025 is maniacal! That RTX 5080 is sitting around twiddling its thumbs in any games that require even an ounce of CPU power.
If you’re local to a Micro Center, one of their Ryzen 7 7800X3D combos would be a well-balanced upgrade to match up with your RTX 5080.
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Why Resolution you play at? If you play at 1080P you will always some bottleneck no matter the CPU upgrade 2K or better you’re ok #ArsenalPC is correct you need a 7800X3D or better((9700X,9800X3D) to get most out of your card. The 9850X3D should drop at the end of the month maybe wait for that?
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Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 7 9700X are the two recommended match-ups for this build. 7800X3D if he plays a lot of reaction time based games, due to the 3D V-Cache helping with 1% and 0.1% lows. If he’s a Fortnite player, 7800X3D.
If he plays more cinematic titles then the Ryzen 7 9700X will provide high performance and has a little nicer memory controller onboard, so he might be able to reach better memory speeds.
Ryzen 7 9800X3D is overkill for every GPU on the market including the RTX 5090. In a system with RTX 5090 and 9800X3D, the 9800X3D is not fully saturated with 100% CPU utilization except in certain CPU-heavy titles like MS Flight Simulator. We’re actually surprised AMD is launching a 9850X3D in this market.