PC Advice - Upgrade or Not?

[MisterMiracle87]

Hi All,

I've had my build for a little over 2 years now and it was my main leap to PC gaming from consoles. I tried PC gaming many years ago and built a PC when Battlefield 3 was new. Anyway, I've had no issues in which my build was at fault, but I am a novice when it comes to components and could just use a little advice.

I have a lengthy wishlist on Steam and newer releases have started to recommend the AMD Radeon™ 6800XT GPU, which I'm assuming is a later model than my current GPU, but I don't know the settings these recommendations are usually for. Wether these are 4K, 1080p or something else. I'm currently playing at 1440p.

I play a wide range of games and the games recommending the 6800XT that I'm referring to are Space Marine 2 and Silent Hill 2, but I also play a lot of games where performance is no issue at all such as Inscryption, For The King 1 & 2 and the game I play mostly is probably Street Fighter 6.

My question is, is it time for me to upgrade to further futureproof my system, or am I good for another few years before I NEED to upgrade?

My build is listed below:

Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
12GB AMD RADEON™ RX 6700 XT - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair iCUE H100i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler

 

[sck451]

I wouldn't pay any attention to "recommended" specs. They are almost always incoherent nonsense. I'd look at actual reviews of the games on your specific hardware, or alternatively at how they actually perform for you. If it's less than you want, that's the time to upgrade.

Your build can easily be upgraded (a 5700X3D for the CPU, and probably either the Nvidia 5070 or the AMD 9070 when they're released, depending on performance), but my guess is that for 1080p you're absolutely fine, but for 1440p you'd need to be on relatively low settings, depending on the frame rate you want. It all depends on what you want and what display you have.

Basically, upgrade when you have an issue, not before.