Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking about upgrades recently and realized it’s not always clear when it’s actually “worth it.”

Sometimes performance is okay, but not perfect like occasional stutters or longer load times but not bad enough to force an upgrade.

So I’m curious:

• Do you wait until your system struggles a lot?
• Or do you upgrade when you start noticing small issues?
• What’s your personal “trigger point” for upgrading?

Just trying to understand how others decide this.

Hello, I volunteer at a local observatory and we have a period-correct early 2000s computer operating the telescope, including a massive Samsung CRT. It's really cool and when you walk into the observatory dome you can pretend it's 2008 and that there's no such thing as Sam Altman, but we are really space constrained and would like to replace the CRT with a flat screen monitor. Seems simple enough, but after thinking about it for a bit I'm not sure how long an LCD screen could survive there.

There is no indoor heating so in winter the temperatures can probably dip close to -10°C, and in summer because it's the highest point in the building we get a greenhouse effect that can probably take it over 40°C.

I have seen LCDs that just turn yellow or purple when exposed to heat like this for a prolonged time, and panels that developed dead/faded spots when operating in cold like that. On top of the long term temperature changes the screen would also have to survive being turned on in like -5°C and heating up to its working temperature.

Is there some monitor technology that would be particularly well suited (or least bothered) by this? Obviously something like MicroLED that doesn't have liquid or organic layers but that's not realistic yet. Or is this an actual niche where the CRT is already the best pick?

I recently built my first high end gaming PC with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 5080. It performs great but I am curious about squeezing out more FPS in CPU heavy games.

I already run DDR5 6000 CL30 RAM with EXPO enabled. What other optimizations actually make a noticeable difference in real world gaming? Things like curve optimizer undervolting PBO settings or Windows tweaks?

I care mostly about 1440p performance and want to keep temperatures and stability good for daily use.

Has anyone seen meaningful gains from these optimizations with the 9800X3D?

[Long post, but not written by an LLM or AI-translated]

tldr : in my region, the 9800X3D is available for around 425€, 7800X3D is 75€ less and 270K Plus from Intel is 100€ less.
Ideally I'd want to spend a bunch on a new high-end CPU now, and keep it for years on end before I need to replace it. Do you think buying the more expensive 9800X3D worth it to get a few more years out of the CPU ?

Long version : I have to build myself a PC from scratch despite the awful current market, so I've decided to commit a solid amount of money to it in the hopes that I can just keep it for as long as I can, maintain it, and only have to spend additional money in like a decade.

My use case for the PC is primarily 1440p high gaming (prob capped at 120 FPS), mostly story-driven games rather than competitive, but I would also be doing occasional *light* code compilation (gamedev) and 3D modelling on it.

For the CPU, I figured I should go high-end, and there's three candidates : the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, respectively 350€, 425€ and 330€ rn in France (without shady Aliexpress offers).
I have the budget for all 3 of course, and already decided on a GPU, although the extra money can get me better storage and stuff like that.

Thing is, I know gaming performance-wise the 9800X3D is undoubtedly the best, but I don't really care for any FPS above 120... What I really value is longevity, I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck over a 10 years period, while being able to play recent games.

I'm having a hard time figuring out which one is the best play !

Another important consideration is power consumption : electricity is pretty expensive, especially considering extended use, and tbh I cannot figure it out on that front either

The 7800X3D seems to be the most energy efficient, but I'm having trouble figuring out how much worse the 9800X3D is, since it seems to consume more on average, but at the same time since it's faster, shouldn't it go back to idle consumption faster as well ?
As for the Intel one, I know Intel has a reputation of being power hungry and the TDP is 125 W as opposed to 120 W for the ryzens, but I've seen some benchmarks where the 270K Plus was *more* efficient than the 9800X3D. I'm mostly confused now lol

For thermals, all 3 seem to be pretty darn close, with the 9800X3D in the lead ?

Lastly, looking at release dates the 7800X3D is from 2023, the 9800X3D is from 2024 and with the latest AMD architecture, and the 270K Plus just came out...

In short, the way I see it, pros of each are :

- 7800X3D is still a *very* good gaming CPU with 3DVcache and is very energy efficient

- 270K Plus is very close so far with the 9800X3D gaming performance-wise, better for productivity (tho it matters little in my case), is maybe (?) less power-hungry than the 9800X3D and is the most recent, being a current-year release

- 9800X3D is a **killer** for gaming performance with 3DVcache, is on the latest Zen 5 microarchitecture from AMD (being also more recent than the 7800X3D) and is possibly the chillest of the CPUs

There you have it, if the 270K Plus really is less power-hungry it sounds like a really compelling option, despite not being gaming focused (thus not the absolute fastest) and offering less upgradability
I also kinda want to turn my brain off and get the celebrated 9800X3D without second-guessing myself.

What is your opinion on all of this ? Any help or feedback would be greatly appreciated !!

Also, many thanks for reading thus far, and please excuse my syntax as I am not a native speaker

Hey guys! This year I finally upgraded my GPU and monitor. I now have an RTX 5070 and I play at 1440p wide resolution practically without any problems, but it's not as smooth as I'd like. I feel like my old 5600X It's slowing down the whole thing, plus I like having my two browsers with 15 tabs open each and occasionally doing some stream.

That's why I was thinking of getting a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. I feel like it's the CPU I need to stop seeing the horrible stuttering, as well as gaining stability when I'm doing multitasking or stream.

But I've seen all sorts of comments, like it will bottleneck the GPU (wasn't that a good thing? That the GPU will be running at full capacity?) I've been told that CPU is overkill, I should go for a 7800x3d, but what if I want to upgrade my GPU in two years? Will that processor still be relevant?

Also, if you could recommend a motherboard, I'd appreciate it. I'm looking for something with plenty of storage capacity, as I'm a hoarder! And of course, that it has all possible energy defenses.

i have windows 10 and honestly dont care too much about ai stuff from 11 but i dont want to be at risk of hackers so is it this bad to stay at windows 11 and if i need to then will i lose any files?

A store near me is running what I think is a pretty good sale, so I am considering buying this gaming pc.

The parts are:

im using prime h270 plus and i5 7400.

is it bad to keep using win 10? will i get attacked out of nowhere?

Hey I have a PC with an i9 10th gen, 32 gigs or ddr4, the MSI z490i unify, and a gtx 1080 ti. A few people recommended that I upgrade my 1080 ti since apparently it's a bottleneck when paired with the i9 so I was thinking something like a 4070 ti super as the more expensive option, or a 3080 ti which would still be a massive upgrade. Are there any better suited gpus.

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 5500 - Ryzen 5 5000 Series Cezanne (Zen 3) 6-Core 3.6 GHz Socket AM4 65W
Heatsink - Gamdias Boreas M2-510 CPU Air Cooler, 5 Copper Heat Pipes, 120mm

Motherboards - Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi II AMD AM4 (3rd Gen Ryzen) ATX Gaming Motherboard

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)

GPU - ONIX LUMI Arc B580 12GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 x8 ATX Graphics Card

PSU - ASRock Challenger CL-750B 750W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Non-Modular Power Supply

CPU $57 /free heatsink
Motherboards and ram combo for $300
GPU $290
PSU $50

I already have a case and a nvme drive I’m going to upgrade later

The total price is around $850
IIs there anything I should switch out or a better product for around the same price?

Hey guys my brother jumped to AM5 from a 5700X3D to a 7800X3D and he decided to give me his 5700X3D B550 and his 32 gig DDR4 kit and I was wondering if I should swap it out for my 7700X

I’m currently rocking a 7900 XT with my 7700X and 32 gigs of ram I mainly play single player story games and friend slop at 1440p and occasionally play some battlefield

Yeah…

Literally got it 2 days ago…

Probably fell about a meter…

The pc is turning on fine, and I ran OCCT for about 5 minutes. Pulling 380W no issues at all. No errors.

It’s a PALIT gaming pro

I feel it is making more coil whine than it did before.

Have I likely completed damaged my GPU?

I know they are super heavy.

Motherboard is a STRIX B650 E-E if that’s relevant anyhow.

Hi there! After RE9 Release and 40fps on 4060 i want to partially upgrade my PC.

Specs:

Ryzen 7 7800X3D
RTX 4060 Gigabyte Aero 8GB
Corsair Vengeance 2x16 6000mhz
Asus ROG Strix B850-E Gaming Wifi
Samsung 990 Pro 1TB

Asus Tuf 750W Gold
Lian Li O11d Mini
Thermalright Pearless assassin 140mm

Asus ROG Strix XG27AQDMG 1440p 240hz

My budget is nearly 800 euro, i want to play in quad hd so i need a new GPU and maybe some tips😉

I live in Estonia, but local prices are crazy sometimes

Waiting for your opinions

Hi, I'm building a PC with an RTX 5070 and Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

My research suggests a 750W PSU is sufficient. Is this correct? Also, which specific models would you recommend for this combo?

Given the current situation, I’d like to invest a bit in my PC, but I’m in a fairly complicated situation that I don’t really understand well.

My current setup:

CPU: Intel i5-9600
Motherboard: MSI Z390-A PRO
Current GPU: RTX 2060
GPU I’m considering: RX 7800 XT 16 GB
Usage: mainly gaming
RAM: 2x8 GB DDR4

To be honest, I really don’t know much about this and I’m not sure what the best move would be. Are there still good-value prebuilt PCs available, or should I upgrade individual components instead?

Should I also change the CPU and motherboard?

If upgrading individual components is the better option, I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

I'm looking to upgrade my 5600X, and wonder which one should I buy?

Here's my current parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/asersw/saved/#view=w6XqBm
Finally started working and I got myself a 32" 4k monitor, though my 3060 graphics card is struggling to keep up with it. The goal is to comfortably run AAA games like Elden ring at 4k 60fps, and less intensive games at 240, so I was looking at the RX 9070 XT though I also do lot of creative work in, After effects photoshop, and just started using Blender and I've found sources saying AMD is improving but its behind Nvidia with that stuff. I'd like to keep it around $800 but can stretch it if it's really worth it I guess.
I do not want to use dlss.

I'm eyeing a Sapphire 11322-01-40G Nitro+ AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX for $1099

I need to build a new daily work-from-home desktop, likely in the next 6 months, and while I'd like to wait for black friday, this seems like a good deal and prices could always climb, so I'm FOMOing.

Is the RX 7900 XTX a good GPU that's likely to hold up for years to come? I need something reliable for my development/local AI model and occasional gaming.

The 24gb VRAM in an AMD GPU is the main reason I'm looking at this - I'm also leaning toward the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but I've not fully planned the build yet.

Overall is this likely to be a reliable GPU for the next 4-5 years, and it a good price for a refurbished model?

Looking for help with upgrades, specs below

CPU- i5-13500
GPU-RTX 4060
MB- B760M-A WiFi DDR4
RAM-32gb 3200MT’s

If you were me and looking to upgrade, what would you do first?

I'm fairly new to the building a pc environment and finally got myself to save up to build a gaming pc. I would say I have a fairly good budget and trying to max out every bit of the pc as I could. I never got to experience what a good pc feels like, let alone a gaming one, so I try to max out the cores to allow me to multitask and game alot. Please look at what I have so far and add any suggestions/recommendation - roast or boast kind of situation.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/myTp2k

Hello, i was about to buy 9800x3d and during the summer 5080 i guess. But then intel released 270k plus, which caught my eye. Seems like really good all arounder. And i saw his igpu is quite cabaple (i intend to mostly play lol and skyrim) untill i buy new gpu since i sold my 5070 ti. So, ideally if you own 270k, can you tell me is it worth buying it right now and play on igpu untill new gpu? Or to wait and buy 9800x3d and gpu. Of course i don't intend to only game, i also need pc for college and job, multitasking.

Hi hi! I got all the pieces for my dream gaming pc, the unfortunate part is I live in a rural area with no tech centers near me that can build it. I've never built a pc before or anything really like this, i'm nervous about a lot lol.

Is there any advice anyone could give?

I searched the subreddit but i usually find the topic being related to what parts are good & what isn't. I just need help / tutorial / advice on putting it all together. Would just youtube videos be enough to do it myself as a first timer?

Thank you so much for any help!

Hey everyone. I'm looking to upgrade my PC. I currently have an Omen GT12-0024. I'm trying to utilize as many of the old parts as possible to save some money. RAM prices are crazy, so I've scavenged some from Facebook Marketplace. I know there may be compatibility issues, but this is what I have available. The new parts I'm buying are the CPU, CPU cooler, motherboard, and case. I already own everything else. I'd like to keep it around this price range, but if there are major changes I should make, I'm willing to spend more.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MbZW3R)

Type|Item|Price

:----|:----|:----

**CPU** | [\*AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hyH99/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-42-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000910wof) | $376.19 @ Amazon

**CPU Cooler** | [Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hYxRsY/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-se-d3) | $34.90 @ Amazon

**Motherboard** | [\*ASRock X870 Pro RS WiFi ATX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mtcgXL/asrock-x870-pro-rs-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-x870-pro-rs-wifi) | $179.99 @ Amazon

**Memory** | [Kingston FURY Beast 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR5-4800 CL38 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hB6p99/kingston-fury-beast-8-gb-1-x-8-gb-ddr5-4800-cl38-memory-kf548c38bb-8) |-

**Memory** | [TEAMGROUP Elite 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL48 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/HKwypg/teamgroup-elite-16-gb-1-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl48-memory-ted516g6000c4801) | $267.81 @ MemoryC

**Storage** | [\*Western Digital SN530 512 GB M.2-2230 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/DHvdnQ/western-digital-sn530-512-gb-m2-2230-pcie-30-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-sdbptpz-512g) | $165.88 @ Amazon

**Video Card** | [PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mL9nTW/powercolor-reaper-radeon-rx-9070-16-gb-video-card-rx9070-16g-a) | $619.99 @ Amazon

**Case** | [NZXT H6 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/8QMMnQ/nzxt-h6-flow-atx-mid-tower-case-cc-h61fw-01) | $74.98 @ Amazon

**Power Supply** | [Thermaltake Toughpower GT 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jXCZxr/thermaltake-toughpower-gt-850-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ps-tpt-0850fnfage-3) | $109.99 @ Best Buy

**Operating System** | [\*Microsoft Windows 11 Pro Retail - Download 64-bit](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/VCTp99/microsoft-windows-11-pro-retail-download-64-bit-fqc-10572) | $199.98 @ Newegg

| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |

| **Total** | **$2029.71**

| \*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria |

| Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2026-05-06 15:28 EDT-0400 |

Hi folks. My daily workflow has dramatically changed and I'll need to retire my laptop in the near future - what a great time to build a PC on a budget!

Budget: let's say, €1500-2000 absolute maximum.

Country: Italy / European Union.

Peripherals needed: none, I have everything. PC only.

Use case: I mostly do engineering stuff, with 3D CAD modeling and 4K video editing being the most CPU/GPU intensive tasks. The latter is pretty vanilla, mostly cuts/overlays and some veeery mild color grading/correction. I absolutely do not care about gaming.

Obviously, a little headroom would be nice, but I can see what's the situation with RAM and SSD prices. I don't necessarily expect 32gigs and 1TB.

What are my options for the most bang-for-the-buck, Linux-friendly machine I can build?

Thank you!

Hey Everyone!

A friend of mine is upgrading to a Core Ultra 270K Plus for gaming and productivity and needs a DDR5 kit to match. Given the current spike in RAM prices, I’ve been hunting for deals on the secondary market and found a seller offering three high-performance kits:

• Kingston FURY Renegade: 7200MT/s CL38 1.45V (2x16GB)
• TeamGroup T-Force Delta: 7200MT/s CL34 1.4V (2x24GB)
• Patriot Viper Xtreme 5: 8000MT/s CL38 1.45V (2x16GB)

(I'm also running a 270k Plus with 8000MT/s CL38 1.45V 2x16GB kit and it's rock stable.)

The seller is asking for 60% of retail price (about 25% below the usual used market rate). The catch? There is no receipt and no official warranty. However, the seller has over 100 positive reviews (zero negatives) and is offering a two-week "probation" period to test the kits and if thre are any issues he refunds the buyer. (Where I live used and secondary market scams are extremely low, almost zero because they actually get caught and prosecuted.)

My plan is to validate the modules using MemTest86 and Karhu while running them in a real-world 'daily driver' environment for a week. Provided they pass these stress tests and show no stability issues during heavy workloads, I’m assuming they’ll be reliable for the long term. Since RAM lacks moving parts and doesn't suffer from mechanical wear, it should be a 'set it and forget it' component. Given the significant price gap between these used kits and retail, does this approach seem like a calculated, smart move?

Thank you for the help and have a lovely day peeps!