I've had my current PC for about six years. It has recently blue-screened a couple of times while gaming, and I'm mainly looking for smoother gameplay and higher FPS rather than urgently replacing it. I'm considering a compact, minimalist NCASE build with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and an RTX 5070, but I'm not sure whether those are the best choices or what parts would pair well with them. My budget is roughly £2,000, although I'd prefer to spend less if possible. Another option is upgrading my existing system and selling it later, but I'm unsure whether moving the components into a smaller case would be difficult. Current parts: Ryzen 7 2700, stock AMD cooler, RTX 2060, ASUS PRIME X470-PRO motherboard, 16GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3600, 1TB Samsung 980 PRO, NZXT H510 case, two 120mm NZXT AER RGB 2 fans, and a Corsair VS650 PSU. What would be the most sensible upgrade path for gaming in the UK?
4 Answers
If you decide to build from scratch, the 9800X3D is an excellent gaming CPU, but it may take a sizeable portion of a £2,000 budget once you add a motherboard, DDR5, cooler, case, power supply, and graphics card. For gaming, putting more of the budget toward the GPU can sometimes provide a better result. Measure the NCASE carefully for GPU length, thickness, CPU-cooler height, and power-supply compatibility before buying anything.
A full rebuild isn’t necessary just because the system is six years old. The recent blue screens should still be investigated—check temperatures, run a memory test, inspect Windows crash errors, and consider whether the PSU or storage is becoming unreliable. If the hardware is stable after testing, a CPU and GPU upgrade could extend the machine for several more years. You can always move the components into the compact case later if its compatibility requirements work out.
An upgrade is probably the best value here. The 16GB of RAM is still usable, though moving to 32GB would help with newer games and multitasking. A 5800X3D paired with a modern graphics card should be a major step up from the Ryzen 7 2700 and RTX 2060. I’d also replace the stock cooler with a decent tower air cooler, especially for the higher-end CPU. Check your power supply before choosing the GPU, though—the VS650 is an older budget model and may be worth replacing with a newer, quality unit.
Before replacing the whole platform, check whether your motherboard has a BIOS update that supports the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Moving to that CPU and installing a newer GPU, such as an RX 9070 or RTX 5070 depending on UK pricing, could give you a huge gaming improvement while letting you keep your DDR4 memory and storage. That would avoid the cost of a new motherboard and DDR5, which can make a full rebuild much more expensive.
That’s a good point—I hadn’t considered updating the BIOS first. Memory and platform prices do seem unusually high at the moment, so keeping the existing board could make sense.
Would you recommend a particular type of graphics card for the current system? My main concern is that transferring everything into a smaller case might be more trouble than it’s worth.