PC Processors

[SoldierOfTheGreatWar]

Hello, ladies and gentleman! A new fellow on board. 

I have a question since I plan on a little CPU upgrade. 

My current specs:

Motherboard: MSI b450 Tomahawk MAX;

CPU: Ryzen 5 3400G;

GPU:  EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC GAMING ULTRA;

RAM: 2x8GB G.Skill Aegis 3200mhz;

PSU: bequiet! Supernova G3 650W gold + . 

I got the 3400G last June, and used it without dedicated GPU till a month ago, for obvious reasons on the GPU market. Now with the GTX 1660 Ti the system runs absolutely fine for my needs, but I want to upgrade the CPU on that system, so that I can bild another budget PC for my kids using the 3400G. 

Since all of my components are budget, I do not expect too much from them, and am not going to replace motherboard or GPU soon, I was thinking of buying Ryzen 5 3600 - what I call the "people`s processor" - to get the most without huge bottlenecks or issues. Then I thought - why not a middle Zen 3 unit, since my MSI b450 can handle it.

So I was thinking about Ryzen 5 5600G, because in my country the price for the 3600 and the 5 5600G right now is almost exactly the same, but I actually like APUs. I was digging into Cache factors, and I know, that the 3600 has 32mb L3, while the 5600G has 16mb, but with the new Zen 3 computing technology.

I do not play very modern or AAA games, but still want to have some "room" to play something new, if I want to. 

Will those 32mb vs 16mb L3 cache make a huge difference, or the newer generation will still be better? 

What would you reccomend? 

Very kind regards! 

M. 

[hitbm47]

@SoldierOfTheGreatWar, I am wondering about this exact same question.

I am considering to buy either a Ryzen 5 5600G or a Ryzen 5 5600, but I really want the integrated graphics as a backup, although I am very concerned about the 19MB Cache versus the 35MB Cache, since some games experience weird bottlenecks on my FX 8350 and Ryzen 5 1600 where neither of the cores are maxed out.

Another issue is, the APU will limit my primary PCIe slot to x8 speed on my MSI B450 Tomahawk, and I am unsure if disabling the Vega graphics in the BIOS will give the full x16 lanes back to the primary PCIe slot.

I still have my RX 480, but have been doing a lot of game driver performance tests on it (mostly within safe parameters), but I am afraid of loosing it, since I cannot afford a new GPU.

Kind regards