Building a gaming PC for the next 10 years

Zarax

Zarax

Zarax

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Hello everyone, I apologize for the slightly click-baity title but allow me to give it some context.

I'm currently running an i-7 3770k PC along with 16GB or RAM and a Radeon RX 590.
This is an early 2013 PC and TBH I planned to replace it between 2018 and 2019, however between disappointing performance increase and not so favorable prices I ended up just upgrading the GPU (from the original Radeon HD 7970).

Now, this PC has been soldiering on suprisingly well despite its age (gaming 1080p/60 ultra or close to that) and it's likely going to last until end of this year given the current hardware prices but a replacement is due as soon as the pricing situation is going to be reasonable.

When I built the current PC it was massively overkill for its age but I feel it was the right choice at the time and imho it paid off pretty well, especially as it's not impossibile it will end lasting 10 years in the end.

Given the current trends, it's not impossible my next PC will end up lasting 10 years as well, so I'm looking for advice on how to build for the long term.

What I've been thinking about is something along the following lines:

Ryzen 5900x (I've been an Intel user since 1988 but the current offer seems bad at future proofing)
64GB RAM (3200 or 3600)
X570 Motherboard
Radeon 6800XT (I feel the higher RAM is a better choice than better ray tracing of a 3080)
1TB SSD
2TB HDD
850W PSU
Air cooled (considering Dark Rock Pro 4)

Ideally this PC will have to need just a mid-life SSD and GPU upgrade, aiming to play at 1080p for the next 5 years. I would rather not touch any other components as I'm not confident about my building skills.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Thanks!
 
It's a good build but can you get a 6800XT? I'd drop to 16/32GB RAM and spend the difference on a larger M.2 SSD personally.
 
if gaming you won't get any benefit above 16 gb of RAM really. 32 gb is overkill realy. With your goal in mind would drop to 32gb

On the gcard I personally think you will be in a better place in 10 years with a 3080. Ray tracing is only going to become more mainstream in that timeframe.
 
Personally I think buying cheaper parts but upgrading more often say every 3 years nets more performance gains in the long run and while CPUs like the 5900X offer good performance it will end up getting beat for gaming by even the 6600X in 6 months time let alone what comes in out in 3 years.

The 3770k lasted so long because at the time CPUs were offering relatively small generational improvements but now things seem to have changed and CPUs seem to improve by around 25% every year so hardware will be getting outdated a lot faster.

The same thing is starting to happen with GPUs aswell now that AMD has caught up with Nvidia atleast in raster performance so it will turn into a real slugfest going forward and consumers will be rewarded with much higher gains than we were used too.
 
Thanks for your answers, this is resembling what I've seen 9 years ago when I built my current pc.

Some more details could be helpful:

- In average I bought a new PC every 6 years before the current one

- Replacing HDD/SSD/GPU is as far as I want to go on maintenance

- I heavily mod games so extra memory is more useful to me than features like ray tracing, take into account that I play mostly strategy games

- I don't care about high FPS, I'm targeting 1080/60 up to 1080/75 if I end up getting a new monitor

- You guys are giving nice advice but on a limited timeframe mindset: the exact same kind that back then suggested an i5 and 8GB RAM

- I'm not aiming for SSD and GPU to last 10 years, I will replace both after 5
 
So get what you want its your money no body knows what 10 years will bring.

Motherboard msi x570 tomahawk Wi-Fi is a good option.
 
mickyflinn said:
So get what you want its your money no body knows what 10 years will bring.
Click to expand...

That's for sure, 10 years ago nobody would have anticipated SSD becoming mandatory to have a decent experience.
I just hope prices will get back to sanity...
 
That's definitely impossibly tall order now that Intel stagnation era is over and there's genuine advance in CPUs.
Half dozen years would be more realistic aim, unless aiming for low end gaming near end of usage life.
Ryzen 5900X would give cores for increasingly multithreaded games with room also for background tasks like web browser etc.
Consoles dedicate 7 cores exclusively for the games to give incentive to game developers.
So 8 core CPU doesn't have much spare room with future games.

Ironically it's that very low resolution which makes CPU more important.
And should really update that below low end monitor.
Even for slow paced games it doesn't make sense with that basically medieval resolution...
Especially for those strategy games, which benefit from screen real estate


But GPU definitely needs upgrade before that, unless raytracing doesn't pick up to replace rasterization more.
 
energizer123 said:
if gaming you won't get any benefit above 16 gb of RAM really.

On the gcard I personally think you will be in a better place in 10 years with a 3080. Ray tracing is only going to become more mainstream in that timeframe.
Click to expand...
Doesn't need that complex multi tab web browsing and some other stuff on background and suddenly 16 GB doesn't have room for demanding games.
32GB has nice spare room there.
Also for use as faster than any DirectStorage cache for game assests assuming developers start coding smartly.

Except for 3090 Nvidia's lack memory to be long term future proof.
3070 has 3GB less memory than equally powerfull previous gen top card and 3080 only matches memory XSX has meant for VRAM usage.
AMD's Fury cards were bitten to rear by that tight memory when new making them age badly.
Remember that while running out of GPU power starts to gradually decrease fps, running out of VRAM causes fast very notable fps drops when GPU needs to wait for data over in relation slow PCIe bus.
 
Zarax said:
Hello everyone, I apologize for the slightly click-baity title but allow me to give it some context.

I'm currently running an i-7 3770k PC along with 16GB or RAM and a Radeon RX 590.
This is an early 2013 PC and TBH I planned to replace it between 2018 and 2019, however between disappointing performance increase and not so favorable prices I ended up just upgrading the GPU (from the original Radeon HD 7970).

Now, this PC has been soldiering on suprisingly well despite its age (gaming 1080p/60 ultra or close to that) and it's likely going to last until end of this year given the current hardware prices but a replacement is due as soon as the pricing situation is going to be reasonable.

When I built the current PC it was massively overkill for its age but I feel it was the right choice at the time and imho it paid off pretty well, especially as it's not impossibile it will end lasting 10 years in the end.

Given the current trends, it's not impossible my next PC will end up lasting 10 years as well, so I'm looking for advice on how to build for the long term.

What I've been thinking about is something along the following lines:

Ryzen 5900x (I've been an Intel user since 1988 but the current offer seems bad at future proofing) Ryzen 5600X
64GB RAM (3200 or 3600) Kingston HyperX Fury 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit
X570 Motherboard MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk WiFi
Radeon 6800XT (I feel the higher RAM is a better choice than better ray tracing of a 3080) I've carried over my MSI GTX 1660 Super
1TB SSD Corsair Force MP510 series 960GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive
2TB HDD I've carried over my previous storage
850W PSU Corsair RM750X
Air cooled (considering Dark Rock Pro 4) Alpenfohn Brocken 3 Black Edition CPU Cooler Dual Fan Edition (can only use one fan though) + x5 Corsair ML140 fans with positive+ pressure setup (idle is 36°C fans at 215rpm and ARMA 3 load sits around 56°C with fans occasionally ramping up to about 500-600rpm)

Ideally this PC will have to need just a mid-life SSD and GPU upgrade, aiming to play at 1080p for the next 5 years. I would rather not touch any other components as I'm not confident about my building skills.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Thanks!
Click to expand...



I just upgraded from an i7-3770k as well and likewise it served me so well that I'm building my son's PC with it. I've put my recent build specs against yours in bold above if it helps and I'm hoping this will serve me for another 8-9 years with only the GPU and perhaps storage being upgraded, which is why I went with the x570 motherboard. The new build is epic with performance so yours should be even better.

I've carried over my GTX1660 Super, Sound Blaster Z and some SSD and Storage drives which will probably get upgraded to M.2 drives in the future.

And of course the case, which after a lot of research I went with the ASUS TUF Gaming GT501VC Midi-Tower Case. It's pretty big for a mid-tower but the layout is good and it feels very well made.
 
Zarax said:
You guys are giving nice advice but on a limited timeframe mindset: the exact same kind that back then suggested an i5 and 8GB RAM
Click to expand...

People recommended 8Gb because is was cost effective to do so, Then they upgraded later when prices dropped.

64Mb memory used to cost £70. Then 512Mb was £70. Then 4Gb was £70. Then 8Gb was £70. Now 16Gb is £70. In a few years, 64Gb will be £70. Then 128Gb will be £70.

So it makes very bad financial sense to buy 64Gb now, when you`ll only use 16Gb. You can upgrade to 64Gb or 128Gb in 5 or 8 years when it`s incredibly cheap.

The same with most things. I prefer to buy a graphics card that will last me 2 years. Then I can sell it and buy a new one that will last me the next 2 years. That`s much cheaper then buying an expensive card that wil last 6+ years.

We don't have a limited timeframe mindset, we`re just sensible and understand that prices plummet (unless there`s a pandemic.)
 
Last edited:
CuriousTomCat said:
You can upgrade to 64Gb or 128Gb in 5 or 8 years when it`s incredibly cheap.
Click to expand...
No you can't because by then DDR4 will be rarity and with bad availability/choise!
Actually DRAM manufacturing starts likely to move toward DDR5 during this year and certainly in next.
So DDR4 price might not drop any from current level, except on garbage performance stuff.
 
ninjag said:
I just upgraded from an i7-3770k as well and likewise it served me so well that I'm building my son's PC with it. I've put my recent build specs against yours in bold above if it helps and I'm hoping this will serve me for another 8-9 years with only the GPU and perhaps storage being upgraded, which is why I went with the x570 motherboard. The new build is epic with performance so yours should be even better.

I've carried over my GTX1660 Super, Sound Blaster Z and some SSD and Storage drives which will probably get upgraded to M.2 drives in the future.

And of course the case, which after a lot of research I went with the ASUS TUF Gaming GT501VC Midi-Tower Case. It's pretty big for a mid-tower but the layout is good and it feels very well made.
Click to expand...

Thanks, this is a very good starting point.
The case seems a tricky point, especially as many otherwise fine mid-towers seems to have trouble with many larger GPUs.

CuriousTomCat said:
People recommended 8Gb because is was cost effective to do so, Then they upgraded later when prices dropped.

64Mb memory used to cost £70. Then 512Mb was £70. Then 4Gb was £70. Then 8Gb was £70. Now 16Gb is £70. In a few years, 64Gb will be £70. Then 128Gb will be £70.

So it makes very bad financial sense to buy 64Gb now, when you`ll only use 16Gb. You can upgrade to 64Gb or 128Gb in 5 or 8 years when it`s incredibly cheap.

The same with most things. I prefer to buy a graphics card that will last me 2 years. Then I can sell it and buy a new one that will last me the next 2 years. That`s much cheaper then buying an expensive card that wil last 6+ years.

We don't have a limited timeframe mindset, we`re just sensible and understand that prices plummet (unless there`s a pandemic.)
Click to expand...

Except RAM prices never really dropped in the years following.
I paid 1500€ for that PC and it was a prebuilt (from a smallish place so components are more typical of a self built PC) and since 2018 I never was able to find an equivalent (i7 class) PC at better prices even keeping 16GB of RAM, so I'm not going to bother, especially as upgrading RAM has never been a straightforward process for me and no, I'm not counting inflated GPU prices in this.

I'm fully aware that "overbuilding" is often a futile exercise, however with Moore's law slowing performance per core improvements I feel my last PCs history might repeat at least until the next paradigm shift (which might very well be ARM).

As for the "archaic" resolution comments, I currently play on a 24" monitor so anything above 1080p makes no sense and even on my wife's 32" it seems to be mostly OK (except when she has to turn off anti aliasing due to her card being another Radeon HD7970) so 4k is not going to be something I care about, nor is high refresh as if I had to upgrade now I would go for a Philips 32" curved 75hz freesync 1080p monitor.

I'm not your typical gamer, the most demanding games I own are Cities Skylines and Ashes of the Singularity, both of those love to eat RAM more than raw power, especially heavily modded, my latest purchase was Rome Total War remastered.
 
Zarax said:
Thanks, this is a very good starting point.
The case seems a tricky point, especially as many otherwise fine mid-towers seems to have trouble with many larger GPUs.



Except RAM prices never really dropped in the years following.
I paid 1500€ for that PC and it was a prebuilt (from a smallish place so components are more typical of a self built PC) and since 2018 I never was able to find an equivalent (i7 class) PC at better prices even keeping 16GB of RAM, so I'm not going to bother, especially as upgrading RAM has never been a straightforward process for me and no, I'm not counting inflated GPU prices in this.

I'm fully aware that "overbuilding" is often a futile exercise, however with Moore's law slowing performance per core improvements I feel my last PCs history might repeat at least until the next paradigm shift (which might very well be ARM).

As for the "archaic" resolution comments, I currently play on a 24" monitor so anything above 1080p makes no sense and even on my wife's 32" it seems to be mostly OK (except when she has to turn off anti aliasing due to her card being another Radeon HD7970) so 4k is not going to be something I care about, nor is high refresh as if I had to upgrade now I would go for a Philips 32" curved 75hz freesync 1080p monitor.

I'm not your typical gamer, the most demanding games I own are Cities Skylines and Ashes of the Singularity, both of those love to eat RAM more than raw power, especially heavily modded, my latest purchase was Rome Total War remastered.
Click to expand...


How do you find the remastered Rome? I was tempted, although I never got into Rome 2 as much as I thought I would. Empire was my favourite for the theme (I loved the old Cossacks games) but Shogun 2 is my favourite for the mechanics and gameplay. I've been tempted with the Warhammer ones but I'm not sure yet.

Regarding monitors, I've got the Gigabyte G32QC which I can highly recommend. Great value for the money, although it's weird jumping between a curved and flat monitor sometimes lol
 
mickyflinn said:
There are lots if mid towers that can accomadate a 3090, any preference e.g white, rgb ?
Click to expand...

Black, no RGB if possibile, easy to clean.

ninjag said:
How do you find the remastered Rome? I was tempted, although I never got into Rome 2 as much as I thought I would. Empire was my favourite for the theme (I loved the old Cossacks games) but Shogun 2 is my favourite for the mechanics and gameplay. I've been tempted with the Warhammer ones but I'm not sure yet.

Regarding monitors, I've got the Gigabyte G32QC which I can highly recommend. Great value for the money, although it's weird jumping between a curved and flat monitor sometimes lol
Click to expand...

For 15€ it's worth a shot, beware that they changed the UI and it's almost universally hated. Basically, get it if you're into modding, otherwise beware.
As for the monitor, right now I have a 24" Asus that was one of the best of 2012, considering a Philips E Line 322E1C as it's in the same price range.
 
Zarax said:
Black, no RGB if possibile, easy to clean.
Click to expand...

Here are a few that will take a 3090.

ODE My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,123.71 (includes shipping: £0.00)​
​
 
Zarax said:
I currently play on a 24" monitor so anything above 1080p makes no sense and even on my wife's 32" it seems to be mostly OK (except when she has to turn off anti aliasing due to her card being another Radeon HD7970) so 4k is not going to be something I care about, nor is high refresh as if I had to upgrade now I would go for a Philips 32" curved 75hz freesync 1080p monitor.
Click to expand...
If that's the case then buying a 3090 is just a waste of cash, even a 3060ti would probably be good enough at 1080p 75hz for the next 5 years.
 
If cleaning is important then maybe good to look for a case with a front panel which is hinged for easy access to the filter?
 
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