I built this PC around five or six years ago and currently use it for productivity, occasional 4K video editing in Premiere Pro and After Effects, and mostly gaming. At my desk I play at 1080p and 120Hz, while Steam Remote Play sends games to a 4K 60Hz TV.
My goal is to play current and upcoming cinematic single-player games at 4K, either natively or upscaled, using high or ultra settings with a dependable 30 FPS floor while aiming for 60 FPS. I'm considering a Radeon RX 9070 XT or GeForce RTX 5070 Ti as the first major upgrade. Would one of those be appropriate, and would I also need to replace my CPU or power supply?
Current system:
- Ryzen 5 3600
- GeForce RTX 2060 Super
- MSI B450 Pro-VDH Max
- 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4
- Unidentified 650W power supply
- 500GB Crucial P1 NVMe SSD
- 2TB Seagate 7200 RPM hard drive
- Thermaltake Versa Micro-ATX case
My editing workload is fairly light: mostly Premiere Pro and occasional After Effects work involving rotoscoping, keying, and 2D motion graphics.
3 Answers
Since you use Premiere Pro and After Effects, Nvidia is worth serious consideration. CUDA support, NVENC, and broad application compatibility can make the RTX 5070 Ti the safer all-around option for editing, even if the Radeon card offers excellent gaming performance. For gaming alone, the 9070 XT may be the better value, but your software use gives Nvidia an advantage.
Your editing workload does not sound demanding enough to make the platform upgrade urgent. I’d start with the GPU, power supply, and possibly a larger SSD if your game library is growing. Because you’re on AM4, a later drop-in upgrade to a Ryzen 7 5700X3D would be a substantial gaming improvement without replacing the motherboard or memory.
The RX 9070 XT is a strong choice for 4K rasterized gaming, especially if its pricing is better than the RTX 5070 Ti. However, I would not pair a high-end new GPU with an unknown 650W power supply. Check the exact model first; if it is an older or low-quality unit, replace it with a reputable 750W or 850W model. You can upgrade the CPU later if the Ryzen 5 3600 starts limiting performance.
That makes sense. My current editing work hasn’t really pushed the CPU yet, so keeping the platform and upgrading the GPU first sounds reasonable.