I'm building a relatively inexpensive PC with a Ryzen 5 3600 and 16GB of RAM. I mainly want to play competitive shooters such as Valorant and Rainbow Six Siege, along with older games like Titanfall 2, and I'll also use the system for programming. I'm deciding between a GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2060, RX 5700 XT, or possibly another used GPU. Are any of these better choices for this use case, and are the Ryzen 5 3600 and 16GB of RAM still sufficient?
3 Answers
An RTX 2070 is arguably the most balanced option: it performs around the level of the RX 5700 XT while retaining ray-tracing support and continued driver updates. The Ryzen 5 3600 and 16GB of RAM are fine for this build. Consider 32GB only if you expect to run demanding applications or lots of programs at the same time.
The RX 5700 XT is generally faster than the RTX 2060 in traditional gaming, so it’s a strong choice if the price is right. The RTX 2060 has newer driver support and hardware ray tracing, but ray tracing probably isn’t important for the games you listed. A used RTX 2070 or 2070 Super would also be worth considering if you can spend a little more, especially for the extra features and VRAM.
Out of the GPUs you mentioned, I’d go with the RX 5700 XT. It offers excellent performance for competitive 1080p gaming and should handle those games easily. Just compare prices carefully, since the value depends heavily on the condition and cost of each used card.

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