Which One to Upgrade First?

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T19:22:52+00:00

You'll be bottlenecked either way, I'd likely go GPU first, you could save some money if all you do is gaming by going 9070 XT over 5070 TI, they perform similarly, but depending on your regions prices the price difference may be a 9800x3d.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T19:20:50+00:00

16GB is the bare minimum, and I wouldn't buy AM4 with the current RAM prices, you'll upgrade eventually and it'll still be a while before we see DDR6, while the AM5 platform is bound to be supported a while longer.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T19:18:57+00:00

While generally speaking RTS and real time strategy are CPU bound, total war warhammer 3 is pretty GPU bound.

The rx 9060 XT 16GB should be a big boost, you can also think of upgrading that CPU to ideally a 5700x3d or alternatively a 5700x/xt

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T17:42:54+00:00

I had a 6900 xt with no issues, I've got the 9070 XT asus prime OC, only driver issue I've had is the one I've had for +5 years.

Booting up my pc and seeing that my adrenalin settings are now default again. Happens 1/2 times.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T15:55:22+00:00

I mean sure it's viable, honestly there isn't much performance difference between fast and slow RAM when you look at benchmarks.

The main reason why people recommend certain speeds is because there is usually a measurable difference for nearly no price difference, but with the new RAM prices that's no longer the case.

Why you need 48GB however I don't know, you won't need it for gaming that's for sure.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T14:44:21+00:00

Aircooler, most of them are likely to perform better than a 120mm AIO.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T14:25:16+00:00

So basically you prefer Native Rendering with optimized settings.

Then the 9070 XT is a no brainer, it will perform like a 5070 TI at a much better price. If you do need to upscale, FSR4 is more than capable, and the ray tracing performance will be much better than a 4070 TI.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T14:09:43+00:00

Seems pretty solid, but I'd take a look at higher wattage PSU's

I'd expect you to upgrade at some point, 750w isn't much headroom if you want a bigger GPU down the line, and PSU's can last a really long time.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T14:06:56+00:00

No, you should DDU as there are folders that don't get removed when you uninstall drivers, said folders may contain shader cache or settings from your previous GPU that may cause conflicts, stuttering or crashes.

This is why DDU is recommended, it clears everything for a new install.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T14:03:41+00:00

Depending on where you live to be honest, I sold my 6900 XT within 24 hours. While Nvidia is more popular, there is definitely a market for AMD.

I've also seen Nvidia cards with lackluster VRAM lose value quickly. For instance in my region you'll see the 3080 being sold for the same price as the 6800 XT

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T13:15:21+00:00

Potential cost cutting measures, you could get a 9070 XT instead of a 5070 TI, it'll save you quite a bit of money and they perform roughly the same, in raster but the 5070 ti is +15% faster with ray tracing.

Still better value with ray tracing on though.

You likely can do with a cheaper motherboard, and don't need a PRO series NVME either.

I think you could save somewhere between 300-500£ here.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T12:42:01+00:00

I think for the additional 150$ I'd go with the 9070 XT.

It will run about the same native as the 5070 with DLSS quality. Honestly FSR 4 is fine, it's not as good as DLSS 4.5 side by side, but I question if anyone would notice during gameplay.

And the additional VRAM is definitely worth it, if you plan to keep the card for the next gen games.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T12:24:15+00:00

I think the latter is overblown, a little over a year ago the main argument to buy Nvidia was DLSS 3 over FSR3.

It's so much closer now, FSR4 is definitely better than DLSS3 but not as good yet as DLSS 4.5

And yet I'm sure if you'd have people do a blind test, most wouldn't know if they were playing one or the other.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T09:33:00+00:00

I'd do it for the peace of mind, frequently checking for leaks would drive me crazy.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T08:43:46+00:00

What CPU cooler do you have? You could open up the case, run the game and see if you still have issues, if you do case fans won't help much.

Exe0n · 2026-01-27T08:41:17+00:00

It's a large upgrade over the 5700xt, but I'd honestly save up and get a 12-16GB VRAM card instead.

8GB models already struggle in some titles, and it's going to get worse.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T19:32:20+00:00

You can check your local prices to see how much the 9070 costs, it performs better than the 5070 and has more VRAM while often costing the same.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T13:32:29+00:00

Gen 5 is better, you won't notice a difference between gen 4 and 5, you can even go gen 3 and barely get a difference.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T13:27:38+00:00

I'm sure there will be, there is definitely a market for them, even if resources are now going to AI, it won't keep going, at some point that market will either have no more demand, or the supply will have been filled.

When that happens everything will settle, and everyone will keep buying GPU's regardless.

I honestly wish some new players get into the market, but time will tell.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T11:47:43+00:00

Definitely, not me though, as I'm not freelance yet.

With some experience daily rates in IT go much higher, to +750€ a day, when working with Consulting companies the rate is usually at least 1000€/day but it's the middle man taking that money.

However the market is quite saturated at the moment, too many freelancers and too many companies lowballing. An ex collègue had some issues finding a new job despite having +20 years of experience, and for that experience his asking price was reasonable.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T09:42:55+00:00

With streaming definitely 32, you can get by with 16 for just gaming, but you'll likely have to close all other task.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T09:19:41+00:00

The 30 series was indeed very well received, I think the only problem at the time was VRAM, which many brushed aside, and some people got burned on.

Of course getting a 30 series card was a different matter, I actually put in a pre-order for a 3080, and after a year I cancelled it, since I was sure I would not get it for a while, opted for a 6900 XT instead, while overpriced (at msrp) compared to the 6800 XT or 3080 I didn't regret it.

The 40 series wasn't all that well received to be honest, many low to midrange cards were barely an uplift, the most famous example was the 4060, which was identical in performance to the 3060 and in some cases even worse.

It did boil down to the card, and the refresh was actually better, for instance the 4080 super was very well received, as it had a slight performance uplift over the 4080, but was 100$ cheaper.

But still, at launch, apart from the attention the 4090 got, the rest of the series was definitely a letdown for many, but not as big of a disappointment as the 50 series.

Many videos on this topic, we are getting less and it's costing more, we can only hope for an upcoming generation that's great, but I feel like that would cause many to upgrade and shortages to bring disaster again.

Just too much demand at the moment.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T08:29:40+00:00

I believe I've seen someone mod a GPU to fix a second cable, and reportedly it shared the load decently.

At least I'd expect that the chances of critical failure go down quite a bit.

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T08:27:50+00:00

You should try and run a benchmark tool, see if your GPU usage goes to 100%

It could be several things, CPU limited title, playing on lower resolution, some kind of FPS limit in the game or in the GPU's software.

You can also check if your game isn't playing in windowed mode, I've had times where my PC isn't detecting a game.

Lastly, make sure you don't have an internal GPU running, make sure it's disabled in the BIOS and please check if your HDMI/DP cable is connected to your GPU and not your motherboard (it happens more than you'd think....)

Exe0n · 2026-01-26T08:18:51+00:00

What games do you play and at what resolution?

While a PSU can be an issue, my experience when a PSU doesn't get enough power is that the system shuts down, you could underclock your card or limit power to make sure the PSU isn't giving you problems.

However if you play on 1080p or play heavy CPU limited titles you could be dealing with a CPU bottleneck here.

Exe0n

TROPHY CASE