My current setup is pretty dated, but still doing alright for what I’m playing, although I’d like better framerates and a bit more “futureproofing” for when I start playing the more demanding games in my backlog.
Parts are:
- R5 2600x;
- 2060 Super;
- 16GB @ 3466 16-18-18-18-36;
- 1440p 144Hz monitor.
Currently playing The Witcher 3 Next Gen at medium details, DLSS set to quality and no RT. I get 50-80 fps, which isn’t too bad, but I’m aiming for high details and 120+ fps.
The most resource intensive game I have in my backlog is probably TLoU (or RDR2, or CP2077), and I’d like to play those at high/120 fps too, not really interested in RT.
At the moment I’m looking to get a 7800XT.
Do you think I can get away wih just a GPU + PSU upgrade, or would the 2600x cause too great a bottleneck at target resolution/details/fps to ignore?
For the GPU I’m considering a 7800XT instead of a 6800XT mainly because of the lower power consumption and slightly higher performance. Also the 7800XT comes with a very neat backplate plus GPU support bracket.
Issue is I don’t know if that justifies a ~15% price increase (price right now is $600 equivalent for the 6800XT and $690 equivalent for the 7800XT). I do like the looks of the 7800XT a bit more though lol so if current CPU and RAM can work with the new GPU at target resolution/details/fps, and there aren’t huge drawbacks to getting the 7800X instead of the 6800XT, I’m willing to spend those extra $90 on the former.
What do you think?
Thanks in advance to anyone replying!
Your current PSU is important for figuring out if you need to upgrade. Maybe consider a Ryzen 5800X3D (if your motherboard supports it with a BIOS update) and a 6800 XT because I don’t think the 2600 is gonna be pushing 100+ frames at 1440p in most newer titles (of course it depends on the title and settings). I don’t think the 7800 XT makes much sense over the 6800 XT at that price.
Agree here. The 2600x is a major bottle neck and should be replaced.
Oh, I absolutely need a new PSU if I get a better GPU, current one is 550W!
Unfortunately I have a budget, and I really can’t fit a R7 5800X3D in it without halving the spending for GPU+PSU, since the cheapest I can find it for is $300 converted. For that price I can get something like a XFX 6700XT, which is a nice boost in FPS (around 40-50% more compared to my card), but according to the benchmarks on Tom’s Hardware, at 1440p Ultra details it averages around 100fps across many different games. Don’t know if lowering details to High would allow it to get to 120+ FPS
A 5600 is $250 less than a 5800x3d, and is 65 watts instead of 100. You’ll not come anywhere near justifying a $350 processor unless you’re spending $1000 on the video card as well.
Get yourself a used 5600 for under $100 since everyone is upgrading to a 5800x3d. Then buy yourself whatever GPU you’re comfortable getting with your remaining budget. 6700, 7700, and 7800 are all good, with the 7700 probably being the most future proof per dollar, and 6700 being the most FPS per dollar. The 7800 is in a weird spot. I think it’s probably just there to convince people to get the 7900.
And don’t forget to update the bios before putting the new CPU in :)
Your PSU should be fine. It is rated at up to it’s listed draw. If you wanna be safe, aim for 10% lower. I have a 7900xt + 5800x3d with 2 NVME drives and an AIO. With a kill-a-watt in the wall while gaming, I measure 430 watts going to the power strip for the PC plus 2 monitors (which pull 50 on their own with the tower off). Online power calculators are extra conservative. Your PSU could run my rig.
I also have a good Freesync monitor, and I quite honestly can’t tell the difference between 90fps and 144fps. If you’re getting 80+FPS consistently, let Freesync take care of the rest and don’t worry about it.
A 5600 sounds like a great deal, but I’m questioning whether or not it would be a sound investment on the long run, as I’d rather not have to upgrade again before four or five years, especially considering I plan on playing two AAA games that should release in 2024 (hopefully haha). The difference in price between the 5600 and the 5800x3d in my country is considerable (around 160) but not enough to allow me to get a better GPU (I put a 6800XT on the wishlist) as a 7800 will cost exactly 150 more, while not actually providing a great improvement (something like 5-8% more FPS at 4k, and a lower TDP, besides FSR3 which, to be honest, if I can avoid using I rather play native). At least according to what I’ve been reading online.
The issue with running a PSU exactly at, or very close to, the sustained draw of your system is that it won’t be able to withstand sudden GPU/CPU spikes, that can go way beyond what the PSU is rated for, am I wrong? At max load a 550W 80+ gold PSU (the one I have) will have 89% efficiency and provide 490W; TDP of reference 6800XT is 300W (and I read online that suggested PSU is 700W), but I’m getting a OC card and they suggest 750W, so I think my card’s TDP should be something around 325W; TDP of 5600 is 65W. I have a NVME, a SSD and two HDDs, plus four case fans. I think it will be way too much to handle for my current PSU. Rather be safe than sorry haha Besides, I now have to upgrade PSU because I went conservative the first time around. Had I bought a 850W PSU then, I would have paid not much more and could’ve avoided spending again now so getting a more powerful PSU today will save me from upgrading agaon next time I get a better GPU and CPU (since I buy quality PSUs)
I can tell 90FPS from 144FPS. Is 90 not smooth enough? No, but 120+ is even smoother haha
The issue with running a PSU exactly at, or very close to, the sustained draw of your system is that it won’t be able to withstand sudden GPU/CPU spikes, that can go way beyond what the PSU is rated for, am I wrong?
The TPD of the components is their max rated draw. They will not exceed that draw. Any spikes under normal operation (aka gaming) are spikes up to that max rated number, not over. If you calculate your component’s max power draw correctly you will never exceed your PSU’s max draw.
At max load a 550W 80+ gold PSU (the one I have) will have 89% efficiency and provide 490W
No. A power supply’s posted wattage is what it is rated to output. That is the max draw it will supply to the internal PC components. The efficiency rating is what tells you how much AC wattage from the wall is required to generate that 550 watts of DC power for the PC components.
A 550W PSU with 85% efficiency will require 647 watts of AC power from the wall to provide that 550W of output. A 90% efficient PSU will require 611 watts from the wall to do the same.
Additionally, PSUs function on curves based on draw. Here’s Corsair’s graph from their Choosing a Power supply page: https://res.cloudinary.com/corsair-pwa/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1665096094/akamai/landing/PSU-Family-Page/diagrams/80Plus_Chart.jpg
Corsair (and most other PSU manufacturers) build their PSUs to maximize efficiency around the 50% load mark, which for a 550W PSU is 275W. However, pay attention to the Y axis of the chart. A Gold PSU is at 90% efficient at 50% load, but it’s still 87% efficient at 80% load.
NVME and SSD drives pull 5W max. Fans are usually in the 2W range but running full speed are in the ~5W range.
Figure out your load requirements and know, don’t guess.
A 5800x3d means you’ll need a bigger PSU, but if you get a bigger PSU, you won’t have enough to get a better GPU, so you won’t need the 5800x3d. If you’re really really insistent on getting something better than the 5600, wait for the 5600x3d. It should be ~$100 cheaper than the 5800x3d which will cover the cost of the PSU and is still a 105w TPD chip. The 5800 is overkill if you don’t have the video card and components needed for it, and 4k gaming is actually slightly less intensive on CPUs compared to 1440p.
The short version of every question about upgrading is that the CPU isn’t going to be what gets you to 120FPS. The GPU is. $100 extra dollars in the CPU is going to give you a couple more FPS. $100 more into the GPU is going to give you 10-20 more FPS.
Personal anecdote: I have a 5800x3d. The performance change when I upgraded from a 5600 was single digit FPS at best for the games I play. It was measurably different, but not perceptibly different. I’d have better performance putting that same money into a better GPU
Which country are you in? Finding a used 5600 should be really easy and cheap.
Thanks a lot for the follow up! Some things, though.
The TPD of the components is their max rated draw. They will not exceed that draw
What does this mean, then?
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-7800-xt-nitro/38.html
If you go down a bit, where they list the 20ms spikes, their 6800XT spiked to 579W, which is well above the TDP (300-350W depending on model). Am I misunderstaing something?
PSU
So I can probably save some money and go for a 750W instead of a 850W, accounting for spikes as shown above
5600X3D
Unfortunately I’m not from the US, and it looks like it will be a MicroCenter exclusive!
anecdote
I can get a new 5600/5600X for less than half the price of a 5800X3D (second hand market is kind of limited, and prices are, like, around 10% lower on the 5600), and since I will be playing games at 3440*1440 on the new monitor and won’t be playing competitive games, I guess a 5600 should be enough to get 100/120 fps at that resolution. I’ll keep looking into it! I’m not really in a hurry, to be honest, for various reasons, so I have time to keep researching
Thanks a lot!
edit: since I’m pretty new to recent-ish AMD cards (last AMD I got was a Sapphire HD 6850 lol), and you seem to know a bit about it, is Powercolor really a “tier 2” manufacturer? I was considering a Powercolor Red Dragon 6800XT, but after reading about it being a lower tier manufacturer, and freeing up some budget by getting a R5 5600, I’m now considering a Sapphire 7800XT Nitro+ instead. I usually prefer getting high quality parts, even if it means spending a bit more and sacrificing some performance, and I found a Sapphire N+ 7800XT for VERY cheap (only 75 more than the Powercolor 6800XT) so I’m considering getting it instead. Would help with PSU and futureproofing, since it consumes a lot less (especially the spikes) and it’s faster, even if by a small margin, besides being one of the historic third parties for ATI/AMD
edit 2: pretty sure I had this bad boy https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/sapphire-hd-6850-vapor-x.b116 haha
edit 3: is a 5600x (154.50) worth it over a stock 5600 (132.60)? Very small price difference
Sorry about the late response.
The TPD is the Thermal Power Design. It’s not actually the raw power draw that a component can experience, but over some aggregate time (like a minute) that’s the amount of heat the component should generate at max draw. Heat (TPD) is therefore used as a good power estimate for how much the machine will use under max load because 1 watt of power consumed = 1 watt of heat generated. However the component can go over that limit. I was wrong on that and was using TPD as the actual draw.
For a PCIE card, the slot provides 75 watts, and each PSU lead provides an additional 150 watts. So on a 2 connector card the max power that the computer (PSU plus motherboard) can supply at any moment is 375 watts. I have no idea where the 579 number comes from. I guess it’s possible if the card is reporting power consumed from capacitors onboard as well, and that power draw was brief enough.
The rest of the charts in that page show the card consuming the expected power amount.
A 750w should be perfectly fine. I have a 7900xt with 5800x3d, 2x NVME and AIO. It’s running on a 750w PSU and has never pulled more than 450 from the wall, which includes my 2 monitor power draw as well.
A 5600 is a freaking solid processor. If you really want to go bigger and you can find a 5800 or 5900 for $50-60 more then that might be worth it. I really don’t think the price gap from the 5800 to the x3d is worth the performance gain though (especially as someone who has on and saw single digit FPS gains at best, and in the majority of cases it was under 5, but can vary based on the games you play)
For AMD / Radeon card manufacturer quality, I honestly don’t know. My 7900xt is my first card from them, and the price difference between the Sapphire and Powercolor was under $50 so I went for the quality part. I just followed the tier charts. Anecdotally I have seen comments from other people around Reddit that said powercolor is a perfectly fine manufacturer. I think whatever option gets you a 7800xt is the best one to go with.
For the 5600 vs 5600x, that’s up to you. I had an X before my 5800x3d but never overclocked it, so that was essentially wasted money. From what I read about a year ago, once the 5600 had dropped low enough in price, the price increase vs performance increase of the X wasn’t worth it. If you’re going to overclock I think it could be worth it, but at that point a 5800x might make even more sense. That’s all up you though.
Don’t worry, thanks for the follow-up!
5600 vs X
In the end I researched a bit more, and paying more for a 5600x isn’t really worth it (15% higher price for 2% higher FPS); I’m going for a base 5600: 5800 and 5900 are way more (1.6-2x the price), so I’ll settle with the budget option, especially considering thr doubts in the ending paragraph a little further down…
reporting power consumed from capacitors onboard as well, and that power draw was brief enough
Yes, it says 20ms spikes, very brief. Don’t know too much about it, and I can’t find a 750W PSU for a decent price (almost the same as the 850W), so I’ll just go with the more powerful one and call it a day. Not really worth it to pay 5% less and save just a few bucks
Powercolor vs Sapphire
I’m also going for the Sapphire, it’s basically the same price and the design has kind of grown on me, I really like it!
Thanks a lot for everything so far, I’ll take a bit longer to think things over and then I’ll see what to do (especially because I read that sometime in 2024 AMD should release their RX8000 and the performace jump should be pretty massive, so I might skip this upgrade and just go full bleeding edge build -so top tier AM5 X3D CPU, RX8800/8900, ultrawide monitor, and all other bells and whistles- when those new cards drop). I’m questioning whether investing 1k now on a EOL platform (AM4) is really worth it or not!
For what it’s worth I have a 2600 and a 6700 XT on a 550W PSU on 1440p 144Hz coincidentally and it does alright but I don’t play super new games or max out settings. Not ideal but good enough for me.
Oh, wow, that’s such a coincidence haha! So 550W PSU would be enough for the 6700XT? Yours isn’t titanium rated, is it?
Would you mind sharing some of the games you play and the FPS you get? Thanks!
It’s a Corsair TX550M so just a regular gold. If you’re just upgrading your GPU to a 6700 XT then you should be alright with a PSU from a reputable brand. I haven’t played a lot of very demanding things yet because I only upgraded recently but I can get 100ish FPS on Borderlands 3 with settings around medium-high and about 100 on Counter Strike 2 (but it’s in beta and not utilizing resources fully on my machine at the moment).
Since you seem to prefer gaming at higher settings, you’re most likely gonna be GPU bound in most titles unless you’re into stuff like CSGO or big sim games.
But it comes down to whether a 6700 XT is enough or if 6800 XT + PSU upgrade (and possibly a CPU upgrade down the line) is the better choice for you. The performance gap between the two is sizeable at around 40% at 1440p ultra (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html).
Either is a fine choice in my opinion but it just depends on how much you want to budget for the upgrade. A 750W + 6800 XT should leave room for a future 5800X3D upgrade if they drop further in price.
Thanks a lot, appreciate the insight!
That’s good to hear, I have a 550W Seasonic Focus Gold, so there shouldn’t be any problems, although my R5 2600X has a 95W TDP while your R5 2600 has a 65W TDP, so I might be on the edge.
GPU is always the bottleneck for my kind of gaming haha, that’s why I thought I could get away with keeping my current CPU, as right now on TW3 I see a 30-45% utilization while GPU is constantly at 99%.
The 40% higher FPS at 1440p of the 6800XT is a not gigantic considering the price difference ($400 vs $690), but would allow me to postpone a future GPU upgrade for much longer considering that I do play some new games, even though I spend the majority of my time on older ones.
I guess I’ll keep researching and considering the 6700XT, although currently the choice that seems to make more sense to me is getting a 6800XT and PSU right now, and eventually get a better CPU down the line when prices go down a bit and I have filled my PC upgrades piggybank once again haha
Thanks again!
Don’t know if you still care, but after looking around a bit more I found a 6800XT for MUCH cheaper than the 7800XT I wanted to buy ($530 vs $690, always converted) and at this point I really can’t justify a 30% price increase just for a slightly lower power consumption, 5% increased performance and an admittedly much cooler design of the one I set my eyes on lol
This way, if I wait a bit, I can fit GPU, CPU and PSU into my upgrade budget! Thanks again for the help!
I have no idea why some people found the 7800 XT to be anything but a cashgrab at its current price point tbh. Benchmarks are within spitting distance of each other depending on game and resolution so it’s closer to like 3% at 1440p from what I saw. Yeah 500USD is closer to the going price for the 6800 XT these days.
Doesn’t it have support for some stuff that the previous gen doesn’t have? I may have read about FSR3? Could be wrong, though, I haven’t properly researched and just picked the newest and fastest card I could afford.
Glad I posted this, you got me to save money haha so thanks
Also I just looked up its dimensions and the 6800XT will fit in my case without removing the front fan, whereas the 7800XT won’t. So, thanks to you I keep winning! Nice
2600x is starting to get long in the tooth, but I’d hesitate to recommend an immediate upgrade since it would necessitate a new main board and that would kill the GPU budget. RDR2 and CP2077 are mostly GPU heavy, but I’m starting to see more CPU heavy workloads in the newest AAA games like Starfield.
I’d say if you’re a patient gamer you can get away with a just GPU upgrade, but you will probably not see 1440p 144Hz @ highest settings in the most modern titles (CP2077 just upped reqs for the new DLC)
Yep, very patient, don’t even remember the last time I played a game on launch day.
Fortunately my MoBo supports R7 5800x3d that I added to my shopping list, just needs the latest BIOS; I also found a 6800XT for much cheaper than the 7800XT I wanted to get, so the budget went up just a little and I can get GPU+CPU+PSU. Highest (e.g. Ultra) settings are not a priority, High is usually enough for me!
Yeah, I saw the new requirements for CP2077, they went up quite a bit!
Do you think I can get away wih just a GPU + PSU upgrade, or would the 2600x cause too great a bottleneck at target resolution/details/fps to ignore?
Absolutely; upgrades are about maximising frames per $ spent. Does it give you a significant boost while avoiding the cost of a new PC? I actually went with a GTX 1070 on an Intel i7 920 for a few years before I upgraded to a new PC with a 3700x. I got a 20% boost in FPS on average, but the old combination still worked well for the games I was playing.
Sounds like I’ll have to get a new CPU anyway haha I have to choose whether to buy it now, and get an older GPU, or buy it sometime later and get a better GPU now, but “suffer” the bottleneck until then!
I know you all are gonna call me crazy but…
I would suggest you getting a SoundBlaster AE-5 Plus.
Dedicated sound cards do wonders for poorly optimized games. 🔊🎵🎮
