I'm planning to spend about €2,000 on a new PC, with the parts currently totaling roughly €1,800. It will mainly be used for gaming, along with some coding, and I'm located in Austria. I already have two 1 TB NVMe drives from my current computer. Are there any parts I should change or upgrade for better value, compatibility, cooling, or performance?
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
- CPU cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE
- Motherboard: Gigabyte B850 EAGLE WIFI6E
- Memory: 32 GB Patriot Viper Venom DDR5-6000 CL30
- Storage: Two existing 1 TB NVMe drives
- GPU: ASRock Challenger Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB
- Case: Fractal Design Epoch XL
- Power supply: Seasonic CORE GX ATX 3, 750 W, 80+ Gold
- Additional fans: Arctic P12 Pro PST 120 mm five-pack
2 Answers
For gaming, this is a strong and generally well-balanced build. The Ryzen 5 9600X and RX 9070 XT should pair well, and DDR5-6000 CL30 is a good choice for an AM5 system. Your existing NVMe drives can also be reused as long as their health and performance are still good.
The main thing I’d reconsider is the case. A full tower is much larger than these components require, so a good mid-tower could save money without hurting airflow. You could put that savings toward 64 GB of RAM if your coding work involves virtual machines, large projects, or heavy development tools. Otherwise, 32 GB is still plenty for normal gaming and coding.
It may be worth comparing the total price against an Intel-based option with a Core i5-14600 and DDR4 memory. Depending on Austrian pricing, that combination could be several hundred euros cheaper while offering similar gaming performance when paired with the RX 9070 XT. The AMD platform is newer and gives you a better future upgrade path, though, so the cheaper alternative is mainly attractive if you want to maximize value right now.
I’d favor the AMD platform for a new build unless the Intel setup is substantially cheaper. AM5 should offer more straightforward CPU upgrade options later, while DDR5 also makes more sense for a system intended to last several years.