I'm looking to spend roughly £900 upgrading my current PC. It has a Ryzen 5 3600, GTX 1660, ASUS A320M-K motherboard, and 16GB of DDR4. I already own a 240Hz 1440p monitor, but my current system can't make full use of it.
I'm planning to buy an ATK Blazing Sky Ghost Extreme mouse for about £75 and an MSI MPG A850GS power supply for £80. I'm also considering a Ryzen 5 5500X3D for around £200 to replace the Ryzen 5 3600 and avoid limiting a future graphics card. That leaves approximately £550 for the GPU, although UK prices are constantly changing.
Ray tracing would be useful, so I've considered an RTX 4070 or RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. I'm also open to AMD cards such as the RX 9070 GRE or RX 7900 GRE. What would be the best upgrade for competitive 1440p gaming, and is keeping the A320M-K motherboard a sensible choice?
2 Answers
A 7800 XT is already a strong 1440p card and the 5500X3D should not hold it back. If you can find a reasonably priced 7900 GRE, or even a 7900 XT, those would be better choices for rasterized performance. However, UK pricing seems much higher than US pricing right now, with used 7800 XTs often selling for around £400–£500, so compare local listings carefully rather than relying on overseas deals.
The motherboard is worth considering before choosing the GPU. Its main PCIe slot runs at PCIe 3.0, and an RTX 5060 Ti uses an x8 interface, so it would effectively run at PCIe 3.0 x8 and lose a small amount of performance. Cards such as the RX 9070 or RX 7900 GRE use an x16 interface and would be less affected. Also confirm that the board has a BIOS version supporting the 5500X3D. If you keep the motherboard, putting more money into the GPU can still make sense, especially since you can replace the board later for roughly £100–£150.
I’m not against keeping the current board, since I’d rather put the money toward the GPU for a larger performance increase. I’m on BIOS version 6254, which I believe supports the 5500X3D, and I don’t mind accepting a small performance loss until I eventually move to a newer platform.
That pricing seems to have been from before the current market situation. Used RX 7800 XTs in the UK are currently around £400–£450 at best, with some listings reaching £500.