I'm considering a graphics card upgrade because it seems like the best performance-per-dollar improvement, but I've been out of the hardware scene for a while and would appreciate some advice. My current system has a Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT, Ryzen 5 3600, 550W be quiet! Straight Power 11 PSU, an older 1080p monitor, and an ASRock B450M Pro4 motherboard. Would upgrading to something in the Radeon 7800 or 9060 class make sense, or would the CPU, power supply, or resolution limit the benefits? I'm looking for a relatively inexpensive upgrade for more modern 1080p gaming without replacing several components. I'm not particularly concerned about reaching extremely high refresh rates.
4 Answers
I wouldn’t go much beyond an RX 6750 XT or RTX 3060 Ti with the Ryzen 5 3600. More powerful cards can run into a noticeable CPU bottleneck at 1080p, so you may not get enough extra performance to justify the cost.
The best way to extend this platform may be upgrading the CPU first. A Ryzen 5 5500X3D, if you can find one from a trustworthy seller at a good price, would give the existing RX 5700 XT more room in CPU-heavy games without requiring a motherboard or memory replacement. After that, a 9060 XT would make more sense, provided it’s priced close to its normal retail price.
A used RTX 3070 in the roughly $200–$250 range could be a practical option. If you’re staying at 1080p and don’t need very high refresh rates, it should provide a worthwhile upgrade without requiring a complete system rebuild. Just check the card’s condition and make sure your particular model’s power connectors and PSU requirements are suitable.
A newer 9060 or 9060 XT would probably be a reasonable match for a 550W power supply, but pairing it with a stronger CPU would help you get the most from the card. At 1080p, the Ryzen 5 3600 may become the limiting factor in newer games.
That was my concern too. A Radeon 7800-class card might technically work near the edge of the PSU’s capacity, but I’d rather avoid running the system without much power headroom.
When you say bottleneck, do you mean performance could drop below 60 FPS in newer games? I’m not aiming for 144 FPS, so I’d be fine with a lower ceiling as long as gameplay stays smooth.