I'm putting together a compact PC for general use and gaming, mainly retro emulation, with Xbox 360 emulation and Bloodborne-style workloads as longer-term goals. I also play strategy games such as Total War. Portability isn't important, but I have limited space, so a Micro-ATX case is essential. I chose the wood-accented Lian Li A3 because it will fit into my living-room furniture better than a typical gaming case. My target resolution is up to 1440p. The current parts list is: Ryzen 7 7800X3D (€390), Gigabyte B650M A Elite AX Ice (€180), Lian Li A3-MATX-WD-W-G case (€85), Zotac RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (€680), Crucial Pro 32GB DDR5-6400 (€440), Kingston NV3 1TB NVMe SSD (€154), Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Digital (€48), and Corsair RM750e 750W Gold PSU (€115), for a total of €1,980. I'm buying in Lisbon, Portugal. Does anything look unbalanced, overpriced, or incompatible?
3 Answers
You can keep the compact format while getting much better value. A B850M board, DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a decent TLC NVMe drive, and an RX 9070 would fit the overall budget and be considerably faster in games. A 9070 XT may also fit if you save on the motherboard, cooler, case, and memory. If Nvidia is non-negotiable, use a short or SFF RTX 5070 model and verify its dimensions, since the case is the limiting factor. The 750W Corsair unit is enough for any of these cards as long as the chosen GPU’s power recommendations are met.
The biggest issue is the graphics card price. An RTX 5060 Ti isn’t necessarily a bad card, but €680 is poor value when an RX 9070 can often be found for around the same money and delivers substantially more gaming performance. If you want to stay with Nvidia for emulation support or Vulkan compatibility, an RTX 5070 would make more sense at a similar price. Otherwise, the RX 9070 or 9070 XT is the stronger choice for 1440p gaming. Check the card’s exact length and thickness against the A3’s GPU clearance before buying.
I was leaning toward Nvidia because I’d read that its drivers and Vulkan support were better for emulation. I’ll compare the 9070 and 5070 options more carefully.
The CPU, cooler, power supply, and 32GB capacity are all sensible for this use. I would change the memory, though: DDR5-6000 with tight timings, ideally CL30, is usually the safer AM5 pairing than DDR5-6400. Also, €440 for 32GB seems exceptionally high, so double-check that price and the kit specification. A 1TB Kingston NV3 will work, but it’s a budget drive without the features and consistency of a better TLC SSD with a DRAM cache. Consider a higher-quality 1TB model if the budget allows, or go straight to 2TB for a gaming library.
The case cannot change because of the furniture, but I’ll verify the GPU clearance and look for better-priced RAM and storage.