I'm currently using a Ryzen 7 5700X with an RTX 4060. At 1080p, games usually ran above 100 FPS on high or ultra settings, even while streaming. After switching to a 1440p ultrawide monitor, I'm still getting roughly 80–90 FPS without streaming, but the same games drop to around 30–45 FPS as soon as I start a stream. I'm using NVENC H.264, so I'm wondering whether the problem is VRAM, encoder settings, or something else. Would an RTX 5070 Ti be excessive for the Ryzen 7 5700X, or would I need to upgrade both components? Is there a less expensive GPU upgrade that would solve the issue?
3 Answers
The Ryzen 7 5700X shouldn’t be a major limitation at 1440p ultrawide, especially if you upgrade the GPU. A Radeon RX 9070 XT is often a strong value option for this resolution, while the RTX 5070 Ti also makes sense if you prefer NVIDIA’s NVENC encoder and streaming features. A 5070 Ti wouldn’t automatically require a CPU upgrade, although performance will depend on the games and frame rates you’re targeting.
A drop from 80–90 FPS to 30–45 FPS while using NVENC is larger than expected. Before buying anything, check GPU usage, VRAM usage, temperatures, and whether the streaming software is accidentally using a software CPU encoder or an overly demanding preset. Also verify that the game and stream are not both trying to use all available VRAM. Lowering texture quality, stream resolution, or the encoder preset can help identify the cause.
Since you’re already using NVENC H.264, check the actual encoder load and GPU memory while streaming rather than assuming it’s VRAM. A capture card can also reduce capture overhead, but it usually isn’t necessary unless software and encoder settings don’t solve the problem.
If you mainly play games that benefit from extra CPU cache, a 5700X3D or 5800X3D could provide a useful improvement on the AM4 platform, but it probably won’t fix a resolution-related GPU limit by itself. For 1440p ultrawide, the graphics card is the more likely upgrade priority. You can upgrade the GPU first and monitor CPU utilization before replacing the processor.
The 5070 Ti is still a reasonable choice if it fits your budget, particularly because NVENC is generally more convenient for streaming. The 5700X can stay for now; consider a 5800X3D or 5700X3D only if specific CPU-heavy games show a processor bottleneck.