I'm building my first desktop after years on an i7-7700HQ and GTX 1060 Max-Q gaming laptop. My budget is about €1,500 for the cheaper setup, or up to roughly €1,700 if a stronger graphics card is genuinely worthwhile, not including the monitor. I'm in Germany, so the prices are based on the local market.
My games will be around 70% competitive multiplayer titles such as League of Legends and Overwatch, with the remaining 30% being modern AAA games like Elden Ring and Expedition 33. I'd like to play at 1440p without dropping everything to low settings. The monitor is a 27-inch 1440p model with a 200 Hz refresh rate.
The rest of the system is the same between my two main options: a Ryzen 5 9600X, Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WiFi motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 1TB WD Black SN7100 NVMe SSD, NZXT H5 Flow case, and a 650W MSI MAG A650GL Gold power supply.
The cheaper option uses a 16GB Radeon RX 9060 XT and costs around €1,560. The other uses an RTX 5070 12GB and comes to roughly €1,710. Is the extra €150 worthwhile for my mix of games, or would I barely notice the difference outside AAA titles? Is 32GB of RAM sensible, and will this AM5 build and power supply leave me enough room to upgrade the CPU or graphics card later?
5 Answers
32GB is a sensible amount and definitely isn’t overkill for a new gaming PC. Two 16GB sticks also give you dual-channel memory. DDR5-6000 is a good target for Ryzen, although a reasonably priced 6000 CL30 or CL32 kit would be preferable to CL36 if the price difference is small. Faster 6400 memory can work, but 6000 is generally the easier plug-and-play choice on AM5.
For competitive games, you probably won’t notice much difference between the 9060 XT and 5070 at 1440p; the Ryzen 5 9600X should push high frame rates easily. The difference becomes more visible in demanding AAA games, particularly with ray tracing. I’d either save money with the 9060 XT or spend a little more on a 9070-series card rather than choosing the 5070 as a middle ground.
The RX 9060 XT should already be perfectly capable for 1440p, especially in esports games, and its 16GB of VRAM is useful for future AAA titles. However, the RTX 5070 is awkwardly positioned: it costs more, has less VRAM, and isn’t such a big step up that it becomes an obvious choice. If your budget can stretch, I’d look at an RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT instead. They offer a much larger performance increase and make better use of a €1,500–€1,700 gaming budget.
Before ordering, check the total parts pricing carefully. With current memory and storage prices, it may be possible to rebalance the build toward a 9070 XT by choosing a less expensive but still reliable SSD, memory kit, or power supply. The 9600X, B650 board, and cooler are a solid combination; the graphics card and PSU are where I’d prioritize the extra budget for 1440p AAA gaming.
The AM5 platform gives you a good upgrade path, so a future CPU replacement should not require changing the motherboard and memory immediately. Graphics card upgrades are straightforward too. The main part I’d change now is the power supply: 650W is adequate for the current lower-power card, but an 850W PCIe 5-capable Gold unit would give you much more headroom for a 9070 XT or a future high-end GPU. It only costs a little more and avoids replacing the PSU later.
An 850W unit should be plenty for this class of system. A 1,000W model isn’t necessary unless you already expect to move to an unusually power-hungry flagship card.
The 9070 XT is roughly 30% faster rather than 20% in some comparisons, but the exact gap depends on the game and settings. Either way, it’s a more meaningful upgrade than moving from the 9060 XT to the 5070.