I have built one PC before and want to give my current system to my daughter while building a separate machine for myself. My current system has a Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 3070, Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite AX V2 motherboard, 32GB of DDR4-3600 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and a 2TB hard drive. I was considering upgrading the CPU before handing it over, but I am not sure whether that is necessary. For my new build, I am aiming to spend around $2,000 USD and would like advice on whether the selected parts are balanced or unnecessarily expensive. The draft includes a Ryzen 7 9700X, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 4TB NVMe SSD, a Radeon RX 9070 XT, an X870 motherboard, a 750W power supply, and a 1440p 180Hz monitor. What would you change for either system?
4 Answers
Your daughter's current system is already well balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, so I would not rush to replace the Ryzen 5 3600. If she eventually needs more CPU performance, the B550 board can accept a Ryzen 7 5700X3D after a BIOS update. A larger SSD may be more useful than a CPU upgrade, especially if she will be installing a lot of games.
Before finalizing the parts, decide what you will actually use the computer for and what games or applications you want to run. The current list has some odd value choices, including an expensive X870 board, premium case fans, and liquid cooling that may not be necessary for a 9700X. A good air cooler, a reasonably priced B650 or B850 motherboard, and properly priced DDR5-6000 memory could provide nearly the same performance for less.
If your daughter mainly plays lighter games such as Minecraft, the existing PC should be more than enough. It can also be fun to let her help choose the case, lighting, and other visual details, since those may matter more to her than a small CPU upgrade. You can always upgrade the processor later if her games or workload become more demanding.
For the new build, make sure the graphics card gets the largest share of the budget. The Ryzen 7 9700X should be more than capable for gaming, while the GPU will have the biggest effect at 1440p. I would also double-check the unusually high prices listed for the memory and SSD, since both should normally cost far less and could free up money for other components or a stronger graphics card.
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