I'm planning to order parts for a new PC and would appreciate some outside opinions. I built my current system around 7–8 years ago, but I'm less familiar with the latest hardware. I'm aiming for a mid-to-high-end build that should remain capable for many years, primarily for gaming and also for general coding.
My current parts list is:
- Crucial Pro DDR5 32GB 6000MHz (2×16GB)
- Corsair RM850e power supply
- ASUS Prime RTX 5070 12GB GDDR7
- MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi motherboard
- Corsair Nautilus 360 RS liquid cooler
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- WD Black SN850X SSD
The system will replace my older RTX 2060 PC. Is there anything here you would avoid or change? I'm especially open to suggestions for better value, compatibility, cooling, or long-term performance.
4 Answers
The RTX 5070 may not offer the best price-to-performance ratio. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is often a stronger value option and delivers similar or better performance in many games. It also benefits from AMD’s newer FSR 4 upscaling and frame-generation features.
X3D processors aren’t only useful for competitive gaming. Their extra cache can improve performance across many games, including single-player titles, so the 9800X3D is reasonable if gaming is the main goal. For coding, it’s more than sufficient, although a non-X3D chip with more cores could be worth considering only if you regularly compile very large projects or run heavily threaded workloads.
The parts make sense for gaming, but the 360mm liquid cooler is probably more than you need unless you specifically want it for appearance or noise levels. A high-quality air cooler or smaller 240mm AIO should be enough for the processor, while also reducing cost and the number of potential failure points.
Overall, this looks like a strong gaming build. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a particularly good match for gaming, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory is a sensible starting point. Just make sure the memory kit supports AMD EXPO and check the SSD capacity, since modern games can fill a smaller drive quickly.
After comparing them, I may switch to the 9070 XT. It’s noticeably cheaper here and doesn’t seem to give up much performance.