I mainly use my PC for Microsoft Flight Simulator and occasional FPS games. I'm moving from MSFS 2020 to MSFS 2024, and my RTX 2060 seems to be the main limitation at 1440p. My current system has an ASRock B450M motherboard, Ryzen 7 5700X, 32GB of 3200MHz dual-channel RAM, an RTX 2060, and a 450W power supply. I'm considering a pre-owned RTX 4070 Ti Super or a new RTX 5070 Ti, along with a PSU upgrade. Since I'd like this to be my final major upgrade before moving to a newer platform, would the 5070 Ti be significantly better, or would my motherboard and CPU hold it back? I'm also interested in how important VRAM is for MSFS 2024 and whether upgrading to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D would make sense on AM4.
2 Answers
A 5070 Ti should work well with your system. The Ryzen 7 5700X may limit performance somewhat in particularly CPU-heavy situations, such as busy airports, but it shouldn’t make the GPU upgrade pointless. Your B450 board only provides PCIe 3.0 while these newer cards use PCIe 4.0 or newer, though the real-world performance loss is generally small—around a few percent at most. For the new GPU, replace the 450W PSU with a quality 850W unit; a higher-capacity model is optional rather than necessary. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is another option if it is substantially cheaper, although it lacks DLSS and is usually slightly slower than the 5070 Ti.
The better choice largely depends on the price gap. If the used RTX 4070 Ti Super is several hundred dollars cheaper, it should still be a strong 1440p card and the savings could go toward a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. If sales bring a new RTX 5070 Ti close to the price of the used 4070 Ti Super, the 5070 Ti is more appealing because you get newer hardware and a full warranty.
The prices can sometimes be quite close, roughly 1,000–1,200 AUD for the 5070 Ti versus a used 4070 Ti Super. At that point, the newer card and warranty make the 5070 Ti seem like the safer long-term purchase. I’m still unsure whether to add a 5800X3D or save the CPU and motherboard upgrade for a future platform change.