HELP WITH UPGRADE OPTIONS

So we've got an older computer used for CAM/CAD and communicates with the motion controller for our machine. I am upgrading the CAM software but I fear that the new software will be very sluggish. (the 2019 version is already slow af). there is three open slots on the board so I figured adding some more storage would help? Not great with the hardware aspect of the computer so any help on what I can do is greatly appreciated. What I know is as follows: AMD Ryzen 3 2200g with radeon vega graphics, 3500Mhz, 4 cores, 4 logical processors. 8GB RAM. Board: Gigabyte Tech, B450M DS3H-CF, x.x

I don't have a TRUE IT guy on staff so I could REALLY use some help here. Thanks

Edited by JobeOB, 15 December 2023 - 11:09 AM.

Until other people with more experience chime in it would help if you posted the make and model of the motherboard.  This is a very weak CPU with integrated graphics. You need a better CPU and a dedicated graphics card with double the RAM.

See the below link comparing your CPU to others on the market.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+3+2200G

Here is a link showing your GPU performance

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-vega-8.c3042

Thanks I updated the info

It seems you are concerned with speed using that software, choosing a Ryzen 3 is not a good choice for speed. Your motherboard is an excellent choice. Go with the fastest Ryzen 7 you can afford with a Noctua CPU cooler NH-D15S to reduce thermal throttling. Next would be RAM which you would need to know how much memory that software and operating need to run and add some extra for overhead to prevent slowing. You can stay with 8GB RAM and you can always add more RAM later if needed. As for storage I recommend you get a NVMe drive for speed because other drives would slow down your computer. I know this from my own personal experience since I have built 4 desktop computers so far. This is what I have currently that I have built.

Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: B450 AORUS ELITE serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American
    Megatrends LLC. v: F64a date: 02/17/2022
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen+ gen: 2 level: v3 note: check
    built: 2018-21 process: GF 12nm family: 0x17 (23) model-id: 8 stepping: 2 microcode: 0x800820D
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 8 tpc: 2 threads: 16 smt: enabled cache: L1: 768 KiB
    desc: d-8x32 KiB; i-8x64 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 8x512 KiB L3: 16 MiB desc: 2x8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2243 high: 3200 min/max: 2200/3700 boost: enabled scaling:
    driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: ondemand cores: 1: 2200 2: 2200 3: 1888 4: 2200 5: 2200 6: 3200
    7: 2200 8: 2200 9: 2200 10: 2200 11: 2200 12: 2200 13: 2200 14: 2200 15: 2200 16: 2200
    bogomips: 118170
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Baffin [Radeon RX 550 640SP / 560/560X] vendor: XFX Pine driver: amdgpu v: kernel
    arch: GCN-4 code: Arctic Islands process: GF 14nm built: 2016-20 pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 8 ports: active: DVI-D-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 07:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:67ff
    class-ID: 0300 temp: 48.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1536x864 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 406x229mm (15.98x9.02") s-diag: 466mm (18.35")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-1 mapped: DVI-D-0 model: Acer S271HL serial: <filter> built: 2019
    res: 1536x864 hz: 60 dpi: 65 gamma: 1.2 size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: AMD Radeon RX 550 Series (polaris11 LLVM 15.0.6 DRM
    3.49 6.1.0-15-amd64) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Baffin HDMI/DP Audio [Radeon RX 550 640SP / 560/560X] vendor: XFX Pine
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 8 bus-ID: 07:00.1
    chip-ID: 1002:aae0 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 09:00.3 chip-ID: 1022:1457 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-15-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169
    v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
    class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: wg-mullvad state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 22.3 TiB used: 6.59 TiB (29.5%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 model: PCIe SSD size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: ECFM22.9 temp: 27.9 C
    scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 QVO 8TB size: 7.28 TiB block-size:
    physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT
  ID-3: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HUS728T8TALE6L4 size: 7.28 TiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter>
    rev: W414 scheme: GPT
  ID-4: /dev/sdc maj-min: 8:32 vendor: Seagate model: ST8000DM004-2CX188 size: 7.28 TiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 5425 serial: <filter>
    rev: 0001 scheme: GPT

The fastest CPU you can technically install on that motherboard is a Ryzen 9 5950X (16 Core/32 Thread), and you can install up to 128 GB RAM. However, it might not be necessary to go that far.  A Ryzen 7 5700X runs fairly cool and doesn't draw a lot of power, which I think is a good thing on that motherboard.  It's still a fairly large upgrade, with twice the number of cores than your current CPU.  Next step up would be a Ryzen 9 5900X which has 12 cores.  Either would require a separate GPU card to work (which should also improve the performance of CAD/CAM software).  For example, something mid-range might be a RTX 3060 or 4060 card, or a Radeon RX 7600, which I guess would work well enough.  All are hugely more powerful than the integrated graphics you are using.  These upgrades will most likely require upgrading the computers power supply, depending on what's on there already.

You can upgrade the storage if you need the space, but I think it's unlikely to affect the performance of the CAM software much.

A BIOS update will be definitely needed before using the newer 5000 series CPU:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B450-AORUS-ELITE-rev-1x/support#support-dl-bios

but this is easily done.

and a quickly made list of parts for your existing motherboard to give some example or idea:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7C9MMV