I mainly play competitive games at 1440p on a 540Hz monitor and rarely play AAA titles. From the benchmarks I've watched, the RX 9070 XT seems to offer only a modest FPS increase over my RTX 3080 Ti, while the 1% lows vary between tests. The upgrade would cost around £150–£250 more. Would that be worthwhile, or should I keep my current card and wait for the next generation?
5 Answers
What processor are you using? For very high refresh-rate competitive gaming, a stronger CPU could make more difference than replacing the GPU.
The RX 9070 XT is around 30% faster on average, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a big improvement for your use case. Competitive games are often played at low settings, so performance may be limited by the CPU rather than the graphics card.
Which competitive games are actually running poorly on the RTX 3080 Ti? Once you’re already above roughly 300 FPS, the CPU and game engine often become the limiting factors, so the 9070 XT may not help much with a 540Hz display.
A 30% improvement feels too small for an upgrade at that price. Waiting for the next generation could provide a more noticeable performance jump, especially if newer manufacturing processes improve efficiency and overall speed.
I’d keep the RTX 3080 Ti for now and wait for the next GPU generation. It should handle competitive games well enough, and the jump to the RX 9070 XT probably won’t feel large enough to justify spending another £150–£250.
I’m using a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, so the CPU is already fairly strong. I’m still unsure whether the GPU upgrade would provide enough extra headroom to justify the cost.