I have the chance to buy a used AM5 system whose parts were purchased about a year ago. The seller originally valued it at around €1,000, and I offered €700. The build includes a Ryzen 7 9700X, be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5, ASRock B850 LiveMixer WiFi motherboard, 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a 2 TB Lexar NM790 NVMe SSD, integrated AMD graphics, a be quiet! Straight Power 12 Platinum 750 W power supply, a Fractal Design North case, and an additional 140 mm fan. There is no dedicated graphics card.
My current system has a Ryzen 5 5600X, a B550 Aorus Elite V2 motherboard, 32 GB DDR4-3200, an RTX 3070, several SSDs and a hard drive, plus a 750 W power supply. I mainly play GTA IV, PUBG, Call of Duty, CS2, RDR2, and similar games. I currently use 1080p but plan to buy an OLED 1440p monitor and would prefer high settings rather than lowering everything.
I could spend up to €900. Would it make sense to buy this AM5 system, sell my current PC for roughly €600–750, and then purchase a Radeon RX 9070 XT? Or would I be better off keeping my current system and upgrading only the graphics card?
2 Answers
At €700, the AM5 system would be a fairly reasonable deal, but €900 is harder to justify since it has no dedicated GPU. The CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSD, cooler, case, and power supply have value, but the Ryzen 7 9700X is not necessarily the best gaming-focused choice compared with a cheaper Ryzen 5 9600X or an X3D chip. I would probably cap the offer around €750–800 unless the condition and remaining warranties are excellent.
For your situation, upgrading the GPU first makes more sense. A Radeon RX 9070 XT would be a major step up from the RTX 3070 for 1440p, and selling the 3070 could recover roughly €200–250. The Ryzen 5 5600X may limit performance in some CPU-heavy games or at very high frame rates, but at 1440p the GPU will usually be the main limitation. You can upgrade the platform later if the CPU becomes a problem.
My concern was that the 5600X might hold back a 9070 XT, especially in games like PUBG, CS2, or Call of Duty. Still, keeping the current platform would leave more money for the monitor and GPU.
That was my thinking too. A similar new system could cost around €1,200–1,400 depending on the exact parts, but €900 still feels high for a build without a graphics card. I wanted another opinion before committing.