I'm planning a new desktop gaming build with a budget of roughly $2,000, plus whatever I can recover by reusing or selling parts from my current system. My goal is at least 60 FPS at 4K in noncompetitive games, preferably at high or ultra settings. I'm in the USA and may also upgrade my peripherals if there are worthwhile deals.
My current system uses a Corsair 275R case, an Eagle B650AX motherboard, a Ryzen 5 7600X, an RX 6800, 32GB of TeamGroup T-Create DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a 1TB WD Gen5 NVMe drive plus a 256GB Gen4 NVMe drive, a 650W or 850W modular NZXT power supply, and a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 cooler. At 1440p on the highest settings, I'm currently seeing around 95 FPS in 007 First Light and 115 FPS in Ghost Recon Wildlands.
For the next build, I'm considering a Lian Li V100 case, a B850 or X870 motherboard, a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, an RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB SSD, a 1000W Gold or Platinum modular PSU, and an NZXT Kraken Elite 360. What parts are worth changing, and where should I spend or save to get the best 4K gaming performance?
4 Answers
You may not need to replace the whole system immediately. The 7600X platform is still capable, so selling the RX 6800 and upgrading only the graphics card could provide most of the improvement at 4K. It may also be worth waiting and reassessing when newer CPUs and GPUs arrive, then upgrading the processor only if your games actually show a CPU limitation.
Make sure the graphics card has at least 16GB of VRAM for 4K. Many games will run with less, but demanding texture packs and newer releases can cause severe performance drops once the VRAM limit is reached. Both the RX 9070 XT and RTX 5070 Ti are reasonable minimum choices here. Nvidia may be preferable if you value DLSS and frame generation, since those features can help in especially demanding new games.
For this use case, the RX 9070 XT is probably the better value unless you specifically need Nvidia features such as CUDA, DLSS, or certain ray-tracing performance. Spending around $1,250 of a roughly $2,000 budget on the graphics card would leave very little room for the rest of the system, so the case and cooling budget may need to come down.
At 4K, the GPU does most of the work, so a Ryzen 7 9800X3D is probably unnecessary. Your existing Ryzen 5 7600X, or a less expensive AM5 chip such as a 7700X, 9600X, or 9700X, should be sufficient for a 60 FPS target. A B850 board such as the Tomahawk Max II would be plenty, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 is fine, though CL30 is not essential for 4K gaming. DDR5-6000 CL36 could be a better value if CL30 kits are overpriced.
Exactly. DDR5-6000 CL30 used to be easy to find at a good price, but current availability can make CL36 or another reasonably priced 6000 MT/s kit the more sensible choice.