I recently received a Ryzen 9 5900X from my older brother and want to build a better gaming system around it. My current parts are an MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk motherboard, 16 GB of DDR4 memory, a GeForce GTX 1060 Ti, and a 650W power supply. I can buy an RTX 5070 12GB for about $1,000 locally, add another 16 GB of RAM for around $165, and get a 1440p monitor for roughly $300. That would stretch my budget, though I might be able to manage it. Given local pricing, would it be smarter to move to 1440p now, or should I choose a less expensive graphics card aimed at maximizing 1080p performance?
3 Answers
The 5900X is still plenty strong for 1440p gaming, so there is no need to replace the platform. I would prioritize the GPU and monitor, then upgrade from 16GB to 32GB when possible. An RX 9070 XT would generally be a stronger 1440p choice than a $1,000 RTX 5070, assuming you can find a reasonably priced model.
Moving to 1440p is reasonable with this CPU. You do not need to chase ultra settings or buy the most expensive card immediately, but your current GPU is the obvious bottleneck. If the RX 9070 XT is really close to the RTX 5070 in price, compare warranty and availability; otherwise, a cheaper 16GB card could still be a worthwhile upgrade and leave room for the monitor and RAM.
The parts I listed are my complete current setup, aside from the 650W power supply. I am mainly trying to decide whether the jump to 1440p is worth stretching the budget for.
At $1,000, the RTX 5070 sounds overpriced for what it offers. Check Radeon options in your area, especially the RX 9070 XT, RX 9070, RX 9070 GRE, or even a 16GB RX 9060 XT. Those cards are all capable of 1440p, and the extra VRAM on the higher-end models should make them better suited to newer games.
I checked the prices here in Romania. The cheapest RX 9070 XT I can find is around $920, so the price difference is much smaller than in some other markets.
Keep an eye on the power supply, though. A decent 650W unit may work, but depending on its quality and the exact graphics card, a PSU upgrade could be sensible.