I've been a PlayStation 5 player all my life, but I'm considering moving to PC because Path of Exile 2 becomes frustrating in the endgame. During heavily juiced maps, Azmeri wisp strategies, and the final stages of Expeditions, I sometimes get severe FPS drops and die because of them. I mainly want a system that can handle these situations as smoothly as possible.
A local, well-regarded PC builder has quoted about £4,000 for a system with a Ryzen 9800X3D, GeForce RTX 5080, 64GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD, including a three-year warranty. I would play on an LG C3 OLED, which supports 4K at 120Hz. Aside from Path of Exile 2, I'd mostly use the computer for work, YouTube, and occasional 4K films.
Is this a reasonable price, or would a much cheaper build perform similarly? Would this hardware eliminate the endgame stuttering, and how long could it realistically last before needing an upgrade?
4 Answers
That setup is extremely powerful, but it’s probably more than you need. A Ryzen 7800X3D or similar gaming CPU paired with a Radeon RX 9070 XT and 32GB of RAM should deliver excellent 4K performance for considerably less money. A £4,000 price tag sounds high unless the build includes an especially expensive case, cooling, storage, or other extras.
The main question is your resolution. At anything below 4K, the proposed parts would be serious overkill. Even at 5120×1440, a 7800X3D, 32GB of RAM, and a 9070 XT can deliver very high frame rates. For your 4K 120Hz television, a high-end GPU makes more sense, but the RTX 5080 still may not be necessary for Path of Exile 2 alone.
It should improve the situation, but no hardware can guarantee that those drops disappear completely. Extremely busy encounters can be limited by the game engine, simulation, or server rather than just the GPU. A high-end system should give you more headroom, but occasional dips may still happen.
For gaming, 32GB of RAM is plenty right now. Having 64GB won’t make the game run faster unless you’re doing unusually memory-heavy multitasking, such as keeping a huge number of browser tabs open while gaming. You can always add more later if your needs change, provided the motherboard has suitable slots.
The system will be excellent for 4K gaming and should remain capable for many years, especially since your other uses are light. Before ordering, have the builder provide the exact models of the motherboard, power supply, SSD, cooler, and case, and verify the parts together with a compatibility checker. The CPU and GPU are only part of the value of a £4,000 build.
I’ll be playing on an LG C3 at 4K and 120Hz. My concern is the severe slowdown during 200% delirium maps, Azmeri wisp strategies, and the last few Expedition remnants, where the game can become so sluggish that I die. Does that make the more expensive build worthwhile?