I'm putting together my first gaming PC and would like some feedback before buying. My target is 1440p gaming, mostly for titles such as Minecraft, Call of Duty, The Last of Us Part II, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I'd prefer not to increase the budget much beyond $2,156 AUD.
The build uses a Ryzen 5 7500X3D, Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, 16GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and an 850W Gold-rated power supply. I chose a single 16GB memory stick because DDR5 prices are high, with the possibility of adding another stick later. Are these parts well balanced, and are there sensible ways to reduce the cost or improve 1440p performance?
2 Answers
You could consider a Ryzen 5 7500F if you want to save money, but this appears to be the least expensive X3D option available. A 16GB RTX 5060 Ti costs roughly $300 more, while the 8GB version is about the same price as the 16GB RX 9060 XT, so the Radeon card is the better value here.
For 1440p, I’d prioritize the GPU over the CPU. You can switch to a Ryzen 5 9600X, use a cheaper B650 motherboard and SSD, and choose a similar-quality 850W Gold PSU. That combination can fit a Radeon RX 9070 into nearly the same total budget, which should provide a noticeably larger gaming improvement than keeping the X3D processor.
That’s a compelling trade-off. The slightly weaker CPU seems worthwhile if the RX 9070 gives a meaningful improvement at 1440p.
That matches what I found. The 7500X3D is already the cheapest X3D chip I could locate, and the 16GB 5060 Ti would push the budget too far.