My brother gave me his older gaming PC, and I have roughly $1,000–$1,500 to spend on upgrades. The current hardware is a Ryzen 7 5700X, Asus Prime X470-Pro motherboard, 16 GB of DDR4 memory (2×8 GB), an RTX 2080, and an EVGA SuperNOVA 850W B2 power supply. I game at 1440p now and may move to 4K later, although I do not need maximum 4K settings. I mostly play single-player games. Would it be reasonable to replace the RTX 2080 with an RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti without the Ryzen 5700X becoming a major bottleneck? Would upgrading to a 5800X3D alongside the graphics card be worthwhile, and is the 850W PSU sufficient?
2 Answers
At 1440p, you can install an RX 9070 XT and see a very large performance increase without immediately replacing the 5700X. The processor is still capable, especially in mostly single-player games, and the 850W power supply should be sufficient as long as it is in good condition and has the required power cables. Moving to 32 GB of DDR4 would also be a sensible quality-of-life upgrade. You can always consider a 5800X3D later if a particular game shows a CPU limit.
The 5800X3D is the last major gaming upgrade for this AM4 platform, but it can be unusually expensive for an older chip. With a budget of $1,000–$1,500, it may be worth comparing the cost of a newer platform with 32 GB of memory and a strong graphics card instead of putting most of the money into the existing system. Selling the current PC and buying a newer prebuilt could offer better long-term value, particularly if the 5800X3D price is inflated.
I’ll compare the total cost of upgrading this system against a newer build or prebuilt. If the platform upgrade costs too much, replacing the whole system may make more sense.
That sounds like a good plan. I may upgrade the graphics card and memory now, then look at a 5800X3D later if the processor starts holding things back.