Next upgrade - or save for a new build?

[Pickers]

So I have the upgrade itch. But it might well pass so not massively rushed to do much but I do wonder about if I could improve my current offering. I did have random power problems (posted on here about this - basically system would shutdown and not be able to be powered on until it was unplugged for 20 mins) but since removing an MSI afterburner small gfx overclock, and a reinstall of Windows, the only issue I've had are two sudden reboot (but system powered itself back on immediately) when running MS flight simulator - touch wood nothing else has made this happen.

So yeah, there's an element of faith loss in the system as well so I'm wondering if an upgrade or rebuild may do me better.

Current system:
i5 11400 cooled with Corsair AIO
Msi mag B560m mortar wifi
32gb Corsair ddr4 3200
3060ti FE
1tb sn850x ssd

Kolink citadel case (micro atx)
Dell Gaming Monitor 1440p
Corsair platinum 1000HX power supply (8 years old)

Use:
Office pc
Dip into Microsoft flight sim / Minecraft / fallout 4 / VR gaming from time to time.

Special requests:
I would like it to have a small desk footprint as possible really.
Low power on office tasks (currently, the system seems to draw ~100W on idle but can't work out why.)
I don't think the 3060ti is up to 440p gaming and VR really.. but I might be wrong.


Would upgrading the gfx to say 4070ti be reasonable, or would.the CPU bottleneck too much? I would appreciate thoughts if anyone has any advice on what might be a good avenue to go down?

 

[Pickers]

Oh budget is a bit airy... It's more a case of if it seems a good deal is try and stretch

I know the price of a new 4070ti. But looking at some recent threads here, £1000-£1500 seems to go a longer way with AMD (but that scares me)

 

[Freddie1980]

You could go with something like this, you don't need to spend all your budget. Just make sure whatever graphics card you get has 16Gb of memory.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D Six Core 4.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-04829) = £269.99
• 1 x Asrock B850M Pro RS (Socket AM5) DDR5 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-04007) = £149.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance RGB XMP 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (SKU: MEM-CRS-05107) = £119.98
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04916) = £399.95
• 1 x Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE Black Dual Tower CPU Air Cooler (SKU: COO-TLR-03285) = £34.99
• 1 x Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCI-e 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SFYRS/2000G) (SKU: STO-KNG-01330) = £143.99

Total: £1,126.88 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

Personally I would go x870 to get access to PCI 5.0 which is good for future proofing but I can't find a decent matx board (you could go itx if you really want a small footprint).

 

[Pickers]

Thanks Freddie! So you think 5060ti is a better move than 4070ti? I guess it's cheaper and has more memory, but it's a less capable card on paper (though significance on VR and 1440p gaming I guess may be minimal?)

Id love an m-itx build but I worry I'd run into space and overheating issues.

 

[Freddie1980]

A 4070 Ti would be a huge upgrade on your current card, the 5060 Ti is already about 40% faster then your current card and the 4070 Ti is a another performance level above that so if you can afford it go for it (although you will miss out on DLSS 4).

 

[Craig_d1]

or wait for the super series if it's just an itch you can avoid scratching...rumour is super series will use 3gb ddr7 vvram modules so the 12gb 5070 will go to 5070S 18gb....prob be the one to plumb for if they keep the price static...or wait and see if 5070ti drops below £650
unsure how amd performs for vr, as otherwise I'd suggest looking at 9070 16gb card..the powercolor 9070 hellhound is £499.99 , 41% faster than the 5060ti 16gb relative performance (so pips the 4070ti but basically on a par)..no idea how much a 4070ti is now
aso rather tha a7600x3d, I'd look at going on MM and finding a7800x3d
@Freddie1980 the b850M pro rs is a pcie5 board..no need for an x870
also ram, just get expo verion

 

[Pickers]

So just playing around a little with intel...
This is keeping existing PSU, case and NVME SSD.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x MSI B860M Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-04084) = £179.99
• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £289.99
• 1 x Corsair NAUTILUS 240 RS ARGB All In One CPU Cooler - 240mm (SKU: COO-CRS-03509) = £79.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO/XMP 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-00996) = £99.95
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04915) = £419.99

Total: £1,069.91 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Craig_d1]

to be fair, if playing Microsoft flight sim etc, being more single player games I'd put the money more to gpu, esp as you can play 1440p and crank up settings to max..either stick with a x3d or drop to the 7600x to save £100
below only £40 more than your build. @Freddie1980 is a matx board as well so will fit in your case...you can take the ssd off his build also as can reuse it in these builds also ...below board is wifi also..if you like the look of freddie's then they do a wifi version too for £164...or can get the msi b850m gaming plus for £172(equivalent of the one you chose)...the 7000 series cpu's aren't power hungry so put a decent cooler in that isn't massive(i use it to cool my 9800x3d)


My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Asrock B850M Pro-A WiFi (Socket AM5) DDR5 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-04010) = £145.00
• 1 x PNY XLR8 Gaming EPIC-X RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-PNY-04561) = £79.99
• 1 x Arctic Freezer 36 A-RGB 120m Black CPU Cooler - 2x 120mm (SKU: COO-ARC-02418) = £36.95
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Six Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DG-AM) = £169.99
• 1 x Gainward GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Phoenix-S 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-GNW-05399) = £679.99

Total: £1,111.92 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Gray2233]

So just playing around a little with intel...
This is keeping existing PSU, case and NVME SSD.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x MSI B860M Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1851) DDR5 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-04084) = £179.99
• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03111) = £289.99
• 1 x Corsair NAUTILUS 240 RS ARGB All In One CPU Cooler - 240mm (SKU: COO-CRS-03509) = £79.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO/XMP 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-00996) = £99.95
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04915) = £419.99

Total: £1,069.91 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

For primarily gaming and light office tasks, you're better off going with AMD.

The 265K is a fantastic chip, but only if you need a lot of CPU grunt for workstation/media creation related tasks, it falls behind in gaming.

 

[Pickers]

For primarily gaming and light office tasks, you're better off going with AMD.

The 265K is a fantastic chip, but only if you need a lot of CPU grunt for workstation/media creation related tasks, it falls behind in gaming.

That's interesting. Even flight simulator as I thought that's quite CPU heavy isn't it? Cost doesn't seem to have much in it so I guess it is down to ideal use case.

I'm looking for a low power solution where possible

 

[Gray2233]

That's interesting. Even flight simulator as I thought that's quite CPU heavy isn't it? Cost doesn't seem to have much in it so I guess it is down to ideal use case.

I'm looking for a low power solution where possible

FS2020: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2025-amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-review?page=3

FS2024: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-...#section-flight-simulator-2024-cpu-benchmarks

Intel's 13/14th gen chips are usually better in games than their current Arrow Lake line, unfortunately they also suffer from degradation issues so buying one is a gamble. AMD has been ahead of Intel performance wise in many (if not most) instances for years now, Arrow Lake as mentioned only really shines in workloads such as media creation.

MSFS seems to like the extra L3 of X3D CPU's too, so going with the 7600X3D is probably your best bet if you do upgrade.

 

[Pickers]

I have a spare arctic freezer 34 eSports air cooler now I think of it. Would that be ok for the 7600x3d?

 

[Gray2233]

I have a spare arctic freezer 34 eSports air cooler now I think of it. Would that be ok for the 7600x3d?

It should be fine tbh, as long as your case has decent airflow. Just run it at an offset if necessary and I suspect you'll be grand, at worst it runs a bit warm for your liking and you need to pony up £30 for a Peerless Assassin or something.

I run a 5800X3D on a single tower four heatpipe HSF and it's absolutely fine, the 7600X3D should run a good deal cooler (105w TDP on the 5800X3D vs 65w TDP on the 7600X3D).

 

[mickyflinn]

I have a spare arctic freezer 34 eSports air cooler now I think of it. Would that be ok for the 7600x3d?

Definitely.

Still think you Should just upgrade to a 5070ti/9070xt and see if you need to upgrade the rest.

As msfs turn down the settings to low and see if it crashes and would also run me test just to rule out memory but I doubt it's that.

 

[Gray2233]

Definitely.

Still think you Should just upgrade to a 5070ti/9070xt and see if you need to upgrade the rest.

As msfs turn down the settings to low and see if it crashes and would also run me test just to rule out memory but I doubt it's that.

MSFS can be a bit of a bugger on the CPU, but honestly I think I'd do the same regardless. Even a 9070 (non XT) for £500 is going to offer a pretty hefty boost over a 3060ti and it'd leave a good £100-200 in the tank for platform updates if necessary.

A wee' bit of tweaking and it's not that far from a 9070XT in performance either to be honest.

 

[Pickers]

See I was thinking either upgrade everything but the gfx, or the complete opposite .

Is it worth waiting to see what happens to 5070ti prices? 5060ti 12gb version was going to be my affordable route...

 

[mickyflinn]

See I was thinking either upgrade everything but the gfx, or the complete opposite .

Is it worth waiting to see what happens to 5070ti prices? 5060ti 12gb version was going to be my affordable route...

Get the 5070ti or 9070xt and sell your 3060ti which you should get £200 for then keep saving and maybe get the 9800x3d or if your lucky you can wait for the 10000 series cpu.

Plus you should get £150 to £200 for you CPU, mobo nand memory or reuse it a a second pc there's lots of options but GPU should be first imo.


Sure the 5070ti have gone up from £650 to £679 (plait, gainwood) but right now you can get the MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB VENTUS 3X OC for £679.

MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X OC Review

NVIDIA has launched the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti today, lifting the review embargo. The MSI RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X comes at NVIDIA MSRP of $750, yet includes a small factory overclock. In terms of performance, the Ventus is able to compete with RTX 4080 Super and RX 7900 XTX.

www.techpowerup.com