I'm looking to upgrade my ancient PC build from 2013. Right now, I have an Intel i7-4470k paired with an RX 480 8GB. My current setup includes a 24-inch 1080p monitor at 144Hz and a 4K 60Hz monitor that I mainly use for work. My budget for this upgrade is around 1200-1400 euros. I'm curious if I should focus on building a system that delivers good performance for 1080p gaming while keeping the option open to upgrade to a 1440p monitor in the future. I'm considering the RX 9070 graphics card, but the non-XT version costs about 570 euros here. What CPU would you recommend that would avoid bottlenecking at 1080p and still hold its ground when I eventually upgrade my monitor? I'm also thinking about the RX 9060 XT 16GB, but I'm concerned it won't be as future-proof as the RX 9070 since I typically upgrade my PC every 7-10 years.
1 Answer
With a budget of 1200 euros, you can definitely fit an RX 9070 XT into your build. Pair it with a Ryzen 5 9600X (around 190 euros), a B850 motherboard (approximately 125 euros), and 32GB of DDR5 RAM (about 220 euros). Don't forget about a new PSU, which might cost around 80 euros. That totals about 615 euros, so you'll have plenty left to invest in a solid GPU.
Would it make sense to spend a bit more for a Ryzen 7700X or 9700X? The extra cores might help reduce any bottleneck at 1080p and give me a little more future-proofing, right?