Building a ~$1,000 gaming PC

[baseline bum]

Holy video cards, nvidia 3xxx & 4xxx series, are still $1500-2500 when I searched them yesterday on amazon? ! I was about to purchase a ryzen 9 7950 + mb combo yesterday until I saw those video card prices. I'll hold off until those come down a bit, like $1000 less.

Video card prices got shot to the moon by crypto mining in late 2020 and 2021, and they're only now starting to fall to MSRP for the midrange and lower cards, at least from Nvidia. AMD is much better value right now and I expect their cards will age better because Nvidia is really stingy on the amount of RAM they're putting on their cards, though if you have to use CUDA you're kind of boned and stuck with Nvidia. Nvidia really screwed up overproducing the 3000 series for mining even though it was known long in advance that ethereum would eventually be moving off proof of work this year, and once it did that was pretty much the end of gpu mining. Now Nvidia is releasing their new at ridiculously high prices to get people to buy the rest of their 3000 series cards. The $1200 RTX 4080 is crazy. AMD will be launching two cards Tuesday that will probably be pretty compe ive with the 4080 for $900 and $1000, and I expect at least the $1000 one to beat the 4080 pretty soundly for gaming performance. Well for rasterized performance. For really heavy raytracing (eg Control, Cyberpunk 2077) the 4080 will likely still be a lot better than the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT launching Tuesday.

[koriwhat]

Video card prices got shot to the moon by crypto mining in late 2020 and 2021, and they're only now starting to fall to MSRP for the midrange and lower cards, at least from Nvidia. AMD is much better value right now and I expect their cards will age better because Nvidia is really stingy on the amount of RAM they're putting on their cards, though if you have to use CUDA you're kind of boned and stuck with Nvidia. Nvidia really screwed up overproducing the 3000 series for mining even though it was known long in advance that ethereum would eventually be moving off proof of work this year, and once it did that was pretty much the end of gpu mining. Now Nvidia is releasing their new at ridiculously high prices to get people to buy the rest of their 3000 series cards. The $1200 RTX 4080 is crazy. AMD will be launching two cards Tuesday that will probably be pretty compe ive with the 4080 for $900 and $1000, and I expect at least the $1000 one to beat the 4080 pretty soundly for gaming performance. Well for rasterized performance. For really heavy raytracing (eg Control, Cyberpunk 2077) the 4080 will likely still be a lot better than the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT launching Tuesday.

I'll keep an eye out for AMD's drop tomorrow. Thanks for the reply BB.

[baseline bum]

I'll keep an eye out for AMD's drop tomorrow. Thanks for the reply BB.

Reviews just dropped today. This is probably my favorite PC hardware reviewer, Gamer's Nexus.



I have to caution there is a good chance the 7900 XTX sells out in say five minutes tomorrow given it performs right around RTX 4080 level for $200 less.

[baseline bum]

I'll keep an eye out for AMD's drop tomorrow. Thanks for the reply BB.

Some other good reviewers you might check out if interested would be Hardware Unboxed and Digital Foundry





Or for written reviews I like Techpowerup

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/a...n-rx-7900-xtx/

I'm personally really enjoying the RX 6700 XT I picked up a couple of weeks ago (for $380) that's a little less than half as powerful as the RX 7900 XTX, pretty strong for 1440p in really hard to run games like Cyberpunk, and it works really well playing Elden Ring at 1800p. And then I use AMD's upscalers (namely FSR and RSR) to upscale to 4k, but you sound like you have the budget to just go for native 4k without needing any upscaling.

Though if you want the best raytracing performance you'll have to bite the bullet and spend the Nvidia tax. RT isn't too important to me, at least in the budget segment I was targeting (~$400), so I liked the 6700 XT I got for $380 way better than the RTX 3060 Ti that ran $400 to $450 and mostly played games worse than the 6700 XT but raytraced better.

[baseline bum]

LOL MSI ting on the RTX 4000 series

[baseline bum]

God the RTX 4060 Ti is such a fail. Might be the worst gpu I have ever seen.

[NASpurs]

Haven't built a PC in like 5 years.

What a surprise to me when I put a Ryzen 9 5900x build and found that AMD considers it to be normal for the CPU to be at 80C-90C.

Had to lower the voltage from 1.4 to 1.08 to keep this thing at 40C-50C

[baseline bum]

Haven't built a PC in like 5 years.

What a surprise to me when I put a Ryzen 9 5900x build and found that AMD considers it to be normal for the CPU to be at 80C-90C.

Had to lower the voltage from 1.4 to 1.08 to keep this thing at 40C-50C

You think cpus run through power have you gotta look at gpus these days.

[140]

Some other good reviewers you might check out if interested would be Hardware Unboxed and Digital Foundry





Or for written reviews I like Techpowerup

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/a...n-rx-7900-xtx/

I'm personally really enjoying the RX 6700 XT I picked up a couple of weeks ago (for $380) that's a little less than half as powerful as the RX 7900 XTX, pretty strong for 1440p in really hard to run games like Cyberpunk, and it works really well playing Elden Ring at 1800p. And then I use AMD's upscalers (namely FSR and RSR) to upscale to 4k, but you sound like you have the budget to just go for native 4k without needing any upscaling.

Though if you want the best raytracing performance you'll have to bite the bullet and spend the Nvidia tax. RT isn't too important to me, at least in the budget segment I was targeting (~$400), so I liked the 6700 XT I got for $380 way better than the RTX 3060 Ti that ran $400 to $450 and mostly played games worse than the 6700 XT but raytraced better.

Sup BB, would you still say the 6700xt is the best value for 1440p?

[baseline bum]

Sup BB, would you still say the 6700xt is the best value for 1440p?

Really depends what you play and what framerates you target. It's not a 1440p144 gpu at all for single player gaming. For that you want 6800 XT, 7800 XT, 6950 XT, 7900 XT, or 7900 XTX on the AMD side and then there's really nothing on the Nvidia side I'd even consider buying other than the RTX 4090. My 6700 XT still holds up great for 1440p gaming for the most part, but you really want 6800 XT or better in the poorly optimized Starfield if you want 60 fps. I have to drop to 1144p with FSR2 upscale to 4k to get my framerates in the mid 50s to 60 (really hate having it drop below 50). Unreal Engine 5 games are likely to be really punishing on whatever gpu you buy today. Though all the UE5 games out right now are pretty poorly optimized other than Fortnite.

[140]

Really depends what you play and what framerates you target. It's not a 1440p144 gpu at all for single player gaming. For that you want 6800 XT, 7800 XT, 6950 XT, 7900 XT, or 7900 XTX on the AMD side and then there's really nothing on the Nvidia side I'd even consider buying other than the RTX 4090. My 6700 XT still holds up great for 1440p gaming for the most part, but you really want 6800 XT or better in the poorly optimized Starfield if you want 60 fps. I have to drop to 1144p with FSR2 upscale to 4k to get my framerates in the mid 50s to 60 (really hate having it drop below 50). Unreal Engine 5 games are likely to be really punishing on whatever gpu you buy today. Though all the UE5 games out right now are pretty poorly optimized other than Fortnite.

Eh I don't need those super high frame rates tbh. Also all those other cards you mentioned are in a price range that I'm just not willing to go to right now so maybe the 6700/6750 is gonna be right for me. I'll keep looking into it though, thanks

[baseline bum]

Eh I don't need those super high frame rates tbh. Also all those other cards you mentioned are in a price range that I'm just not willing to go to right now so maybe the 6700/6750 is gonna be right for me. I'll keep looking into it though, thanks

You should follow r/buildapcsales. They had a 6800 XT posted for $430 a few days ago, but sadly it's expired now. But god damn that was a deal, nearly 50% faster at 4k for 30% higher price than the 6700 XT that tends to go for around $330 now. They still have a 6800 non XT posted there in stock at $400, and that's a little less than 30% faster than the 6700 XT at 4k with 16GB RAM for about 20% higher price. If those are too much of stretches the 6750 XT only sells for $10 to $20 more than the 6700 XT and offers about 10% more performance, at the cost of using about 60-70W more power than the 6700 XT, as the 6750 XT is basically a 6700 XT clocked balls to the wall and with 18Gbps RAM instead of the 16Gbps RAM on the 6700 XT. So if you have the power supply for it I'd probably grab the 6750 XT over the 6700 XT. If you want to run a quieter card at lower power I'd either grab the 6700 XT or get a 6750 XT and undervolt it if it's between those two cards.

7700 XT is definitely a no-go at $450 with RX 6800 non XT performance but 12GB of RAM. 6800 XT at this moment I only see for $490 so I probably wouldn't take that over the $500 7800 XT that has the same performance and same 16GB RAM but ~50W lower power consumption.

[140]

You should follow r/buildapcsales. They had a 6800 XT posted for $430 a few days ago, but sadly it's expired now. But god damn that was a deal, nearly 50% faster at 4k for 30% higher price than the 6700 XT that tends to go for around $330 now. They still have a 6800 non XT posted there in stock at $400, and that's a little less than 30% faster than the 6700 XT at 4k with 16GB RAM for about 20% higher price. If those are too much of stretches the 6750 XT only sells for $10 to $20 more than the 6700 XT and offers about 10% more performance, at the cost of using about 60-70W more power than the 6700 XT, as the 6750 XT is basically a 6700 XT clocked balls to the wall and with 18Gbps RAM instead of the 16Gbps RAM on the 6700 XT. So if you have the power supply for it I'd probably grab the 6750 XT over the 6700 XT. If you want to run a quieter card at lower power I'd either grab the 6700 XT or get a 6750 XT and undervolt it if it's between those two cards.

7700 XT is definitely a no-go at $450 with RX 6800 non XT performance but 12GB of RAM. 6800 XT at this moment I only see for $490 so I probably wouldn't take that over the $500 7800 XT that has the same performance and same 16GB RAM but ~50W lower power consumption.

Not in the US so cant really get those deals unfortunately

Speaking of PSU though, do you think my 11 year old 520w antec would handle a 6750xt? It never had any issues with a r9 280 and from what I can find they both are at around 250w

[baseline bum]

Not in the US so cant really get those deals unfortunately

Speaking of PSU though, do you think my 11 year old 520w antec would handle a 6750xt? It never had any issues with a r9 280 and from what I can find they both are at around 250w

I wouldn't. Even if it's an Antec High Current Gamer 520 (prob the best Antec 520W psu made) that's really old to be running a high power gpu on, and Techpowerup measured the 6750 XT at 286W in gaming:



They measured es up to 407W from the 6750 XT



Ugh and power supply price suck right now. Ten years ago you could get nice midrange 80+ Bronze units for $30 to $50 and only the higher end approached $100. When I replaced my PSU last year those midrange bronze units had crept up to $80 so I just spent the extra $20 on a high end Corsair RMx 750W with a ten year warranty.

[140]

I wouldn't. Even if it's an Antec High Current Gamer 520 (prob the best Antec 520W psu made) that's really old to be running a high power gpu on, and Techpowerup measured the 6750 XT at 286W in gaming:



They measured es up to 407W from the 6750 XT



Ugh and power supply price suck right now. Ten years ago you could get nice midrange 80+ Bronze units for $30 to $50 and only the higher end approached $100. When I replaced my PSU last year those midrange bronze units had crept up to $80 so I just spent the extra $20 on a high end Corsair RMx 750W with a ten year warranty.

Damn

Yeah its the HCG. Can't remember how much I paid at the time but pretty sure it wasnt too much, and its still going strong.
Might have to stick with the 6700xt then, or go the nvidia route

[baseline bum]

Damn

Yeah its the HCG. Can't remember how much I paid at the time but pretty sure it wasnt too much, and its still going strong.
Might have to stick with the 6700xt then, or go the nvidia route

Honestly that psu is in a replace immediately category whatever gpu you buy. Also 6700 XT, 6750 XT, 6800 XT, 6800 non XT are known for being outstanding undervolters. I heard it's normal to get a 6700 XT to 135W to 150W while losing minimal performance, like 5% or less, but I'm lazy and just keep mine at stock since I stopped caring about overclocking and such years ago. And mine almost never goes above 205W even if pushing strongly gpu bound loads like Cyberpunk at 1440p or 4k.

[DJR210]

baseline bum speaking of 1440p, my old 1080 G-Sync crapped out finally and I was forced to upgrade, but this one is "G-Sync Compatible"

[baseline bum]

baseline bum speaking of 1440p, my old 1080 G-Sync crapped out finally and I was forced to upgrade, but this one is "G-Sync Compatible"

GSync compatible just means it doesn't have the GSync module and effectively uses FreeSync and has been certified by Nvidia. Thank god FreeSync pretty much killed off GSync so you're not forced to stick to one gpu vendor by the monitor you buy any more.

[DJR210]

GSync compatible just means it doesn't have the GSync module and effectively uses FreeSync and has been certified by Nvidia. Thank god FreeSync pretty much killed off GSync so you're not forced to stick to one gpu vendor by the monitor you buy any more.

Yep.. it performs exactly the same too