I want to give my roughly seven-year-old gaming PC a worthwhile GPU upgrade without spending so much that it makes more sense to build a new system. I'm looking for a new or used card that will be reasonably balanced with the rest of the hardware rather than being severely bottlenecked. My budget is about $600 CAD, and I'd prefer not to replace the CPU if possible. The system has a Radeon RX 5700 XT, Ryzen 7 3800X, MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard, 16GB of 3600MHz RAM, a Corsair RM750e 750W PSU, and a 1TB HP EX920 NVMe SSD. A new system will probably happen within the next five years, so I'm mainly after a sensible upgrade that can still be useful in that future build.
4 Answers
The RX 9060 XT with 16GB of VRAM looks like one of the better fits for this budget. It should provide a noticeable improvement without being an absurd pairing for the Ryzen 7 3800X, and the extra VRAM gives it better longevity. The 8GB model may be acceptable if it is substantially cheaper, but 8GB can already be limiting in newer games, even at 1080p.
Even if you keep the current CPU for now, it is worth checking whether a later Ryzen 5000 chip is supported after a BIOS update. A used Ryzen 7 5700X3D or 5800X3D would substantially improve CPU-limited gaming and give you more room to install a faster GPU later. You could also consider moving to 32GB of RAM, although the GPU is the more immediate upgrade.
The processor will eventually limit higher-end GPUs, so cards such as a 9070 XT would be excessive for this system and budget unless you also upgrade the CPU. With no CPU change and a $600 CAD ceiling, a midrange 16GB AMD card is the more balanced route.
A used RTX 4070 could also be worth considering if you find one around your limit. A used RTX 3070 Ti or possibly an RTX 3080 may fit the budget as well, while an RX 7700 XT is another AMD option. Just compare actual prices and condition carefully, since some of these cards may not offer enough value over a newer 16GB card.
The Nvidia options can put more CPU overhead on the processor, so with a Ryzen 7 3800X I’d lean toward an AMD card unless the used price is especially good.