High-end build in the 2025 mad world situation

[cinemaware]

As I posted earlier in the 9070 reveal thread:

"I want to play in 4K these days, so I sold my 4070 and was ready for MSRP 5080. That didn't go too well, what with the unimpressive reviews and the stock fiasco, so I switched to 5070Ti. Better reviews, 0 stock. Ok. Time to play retro games and roguelikes until (or if?) this clown world normalizes a bit.

Now AMD, which tbh I didn't have high hopes for, entered the chat. The price for the XT can not be ignored, and they promise loads of stock on launch, so....hmmm....what's a girl to do?
I guess, wait for the in depth benchmarks. I need to see the new FSR vs new DLSS image quality comparison, and also latency for AMD's FG. The big problem is that from these initial "vs TI" slides it seems the XT lags behind Ti in games I'm most interested in (RT CP2077, Stalker, Warhammer). But, if the FSR is on par with DLSS quality-wise nowadays, and the FG decent enough and could help drag them over the 60fps threshold in 4K, then I'll certainly consider getting one. At least to tide me over until there's more Nvidia stock, or maybe even till the next year Super refresh, which might be more interesting than Blackwell launch."

So, in short, I'm interested in talking about the current situation from the position of somebody who'd like to build a new high(er)-end machine (meaning pretty much min-60-fps-in-4K) and who's open to various options and configs.

Here are some more specific subjects I'm curious about:
-has anybody seen 5070 Ti / 5080 benchmarks in 4K with DLSS that are not the usual suspects (CP2077 and other builds that reviewers got)
-what do you think about 9800X3D unobtainium situation, is there a word on whether this situation will improve in the next quarter or so?
-I haven't had an AMD GPU since 4070, what's the objective (ha) opinion on their reliability in recent years? Especially regarding heat/noise and drivers. I read some posts that the cheaper models should be avoided based on last gen. And the "drivers bad" seems to be a common mantra, though that perhaps is some tribal pushback.

PLEASE NOTE: I’d really appreciate it if we could avoid the doomerism, squabbling, and tribal back-and-forths that usually permeate these kinda threads or new items. Do we live in a mad world? Yes. Am I happy about it? No. But also, life is short, and I have been a frugal builder for years (decades, actually). I don't mind spending a bit more atm and don't care which team the solutions come from. So if you're itching to mention evil ngreedia/fake frames/stupid buyers/etc please just skip this thread, there are so many other places this stuff can be debated ad infinitum.

 

[dont whant to set it"']

@cinemaware Welcome to TechPowerUp.

I've checked your system specs: not filled. I hope you ain't pairing a high end graphics card with 2 to 4 core , cache constrained, ram limited,CPU from early-mid 2010s.
You only after a graphics card?

 

[vigor]

9800X3D processors can be easily purchased from Microcenter only if walk in to the actual store. They don't sell it online because of scalpers

 

[bonehead123]

9800X3D processors can be easily purchased from Microcenter only if walk in to the actual store. They don't sell it online because of scalpers

Yea, except for the fact that MC only has a few stores in very limited areas, so just "walking into the store" is not really feasible for some buyers...and NO, I'm certainly not gonna suggest that anyone drive a long distance to find whatever parts they are after, unless it's something they just absolutely have to have right friggin now....

And unfortunately, the OP hasn't filled out her profile info, so we don't know where she is located, and therefore cannot accurately recommend MC as a parts source

@cinemaware

Yes, the stock availability is forecast to improve over the next few months for most of the newer CPU's & GPU's, but regardless of when or how that happens, they are probably gonna be way more $$ than they already are, as the so-called "MSRP" thingy has been relegated to the fire-laden depths of hades and it's evil master(s)

 

[Besensac]

-I haven't had an AMD GPU since 4070, what's the objective (ha) opinion on their reliability in recent years? Especially regarding heat/noise and drivers. I read some posts that the cheaper models should be avoided based on last gen. And the "drivers bad" seems to be a common mantra, though that perhaps is some tribal pushback.

I've used a 6900XT at 5120x1440 resolution without any major issues about drivers.
Afterwards, I've switched to a reference 7900XTX for the fake 8K monitor at 7680x2160@240hz and performance was still good with FSR.
The only game which had an issue for me was Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.
The gpu driver would crash the first time I would start the game but it would just work fine at the next start.

After 1 year, I wanted to mount the gpu upright and the reference cooler for the 7900XTX was not working in this position.
I've got pissed about it and got a 4090.
At 7680x2160 at native rendering 7900XTX and 4090 are both bellow 60 fps in the demanding games.

After 7 months of using 4090, my 1200W PSU began to restart my PC during gaming.
Swapped the PSU, sold the 4090 and got a Sapphire Nitro 7900XTX a couple of days ago just because I wanted to have DP 2.1 again to use my monitor at 240Hz.

Once you start using upscaling, you can use either Nvidia or AMD at 4K anyway.
If the performance of the 9070XT is not that great at 4K even with the new FSR, a Sapphire 7900XTX is also an option.

My issue with FSR was the shimmering on grass and leaves in some games.
Turns out it was the sharpening. Once you disable that in the game, it's fine.

Some people keep saying that AMD has no GPU for 4K meanwhile I use one at dual 4K

 

[_roman_]

"I want to play in 4K these days,

was ready for MSRP 5080. That didn't go too well, what with the unimpressive reviews and the stock fiasco, so I switched to 5070Ti.

I'm not sure when the X3d 16 or 12 core 9000 series ryzen will be available.

If you want to buy today 4k box: Ryzen 9800X3d / Nvidia 4090 or 5090 / 2x32 GiB DRAM / 2TB NVME

I would totally ignore those AMD graphic cards for 4k. Even while knowing low end - mid range amd graphic card test will be soon available to read. These are max whqd cards.

PLEASE NOTE: I’d really appreciate it if we could avoid the doomerism, squabbling, and tribal back-and-forths that usually permeate these kinda threads or new items.

When you make such statements than you may be more specific please.

You may tell us your hardware. If you have cash and how much cash. How long can you wait?

--

4k is not cheap.

--

-I haven't had an AMD GPU since 4070, what's the objective (ha) opinion on their reliability in recent years?

The amd gpu drivers in windows 11 pro 23h2 with MSI radeon 6800 Z trio was problematic in Summer 2023. High energy consumption in idle. Wrong readout of EDID values. Wrong handling of EDID values. Did also happens with openrc + linux kernel + mesa + i3wm.
The amd gpu drivers in windows 11 pro 23h2, now 24h2 are problematic with the Powercolor 7800XT hellhound card. Still random bugs. But recently the first time I had to downgrade my windows 11 pro 24h2 amd gpu drivers.

Game profiles are lost or forgotten several times. Happened with the asrock 6600XT challenger D with windows 10 pro and my other amd gpus since that time. That happens quite regularly.

Personally I would rate the windows amd gpu drivers from 1 the worst to 10 the best, a 4. Here why a 4 - a little bit better as garbage:
too much to fix by hand just for a gaming only windows 10 pro or windows 11 pro installation. Too much to do.
Windows 11 pro needs a dedicated gaming profile for every game, as the standard profile consumes too much power.

Bugs which i send it are not fixed over several years.

Too big of driver size with barely any useful feature. Useless features in the amd gpu driver. Too complicated, too many tabs, searching for an option. Not fully unlocked overclocking.

-what do you think about 9800X3D unobtainium situation,

There are plenty of these processors available in central europe. Lots of these processors, lots of dram, lots of mainboards.

 

[cinemaware]

Thank you for the sane replies. It's nice to see people can still have a normal conversation online, even on the slightly flammable topic such as new GPUs

To avoid multi-quoting hell, I will just reply to the main points you make

-I didn't fill the specs sheet, true, didn't know there is one but also my specs are kinda in flux. Like I say, I sold the 4070 (which I somewhat regret now), and put my Ryzen 5600X + 32GB RAM + 650W PSU on sale. I was silly enough to think 7800/9800X3D situation will normalize in Q1, because AMD said so last year.
Atm I'm not sure whether I really want to sell it thou, I need it for work and if I sell maybe I could buy B850 MB + 7500f as a placeholder. But then I'd have to soon sell the CPU again and lose some money on it.

-I live both in Taiwan and Poland. IN TW the stocks of both CPUs and GPUs are nonexistent (also usually come with 50-100 USD mark up). The 9800X3Ds and Blackwells are only (sometimes) available if you build a new, ridiculously overpriced whole rig. 7800X3D is available but costs near 9800X3D launch price, which I refuse to pay. In Poland there is some stock but tax + official scalping markup is too high to bother.

-my budget...hmmm. Basically, I've always been a frugal buyer, but that was in the old times when buying second hand was a viable option. Now this market seems to have evaporated, and I'm getting old and willing to pay MSRP for the more high-end stuff. I know people say MSRP is impossible, but I don't think it’s quite true, at least shouldn't be once we get past crazy times. So, I'm ok with ~1100 USD for 5080, 800 for 5070Ti, 550 for 9800X3D (that's MSRP with unavoidable local mark-up). Perhaps, in the 1-in-a-mil scenario where there was a 5090 in front of me at 2200USD I maybe would pull the trigger on that too. I'm not sure about XTX or 4080 because they are either sold out here or go for crazy prices. I also do want the new MFG/FSR FG, even if just to check it out.

- how long can I wait? Ha another good question. At first, I was livid at Jensen that this is happening, now I’m more philosophical and enjoy having more time for my other, non-GPU reliant games. I guess I'm ok with waiting some months, but at the same time I'm a bit spooked by Trump's trade war moves and think maybe the prices will shoot up even more like in Covid? I would like to GPU now, even if I had to use it with 5600X, which actually still kicks ass: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2025-is-the-amd-ryzen-5-5600-still-a-smart-buy-in-2025

-about 4K: well, I don't mind to upscale (or even use FG, believe it or not), so I'd side with @Besensac's opinion - I guess you can do that even without x090 GPU. I've already run some older games (Forza, Valhalla) rather comfortably on my 4K LG C2 with that old 5600X + 4070 combo, with little compromising. But now I'd like to make a leap to being able to run 90% games with upscaling and some behemots like CP2077 with FG. I played it already in 1440p maxed out with FG and it was quite ok...there is lag, but tolerable for me.

So I suppose 5070Ti or 9070XT could do the trick - hence my questions about benchmarks with DLSS in more games, which are scarce. I found this one yesterday:

I think at the moment it boils down to the review of the new FSR. If it's on par or very close to the new DLSS regarding quality, then I could go with AMD. If there are problems, like before, then maybe I'll wait...I know NV has it head turned by datacenters but this stock situation can't go on forever.

Anyway, in the meantime I'd just like to chat about new developments...it’s a bit of a circus, quite annoying but undeniably also a fascinating one. This week we will see reviews of 5070 and 9070/XT, looking forward to it.

 

[DaemonForce]

if the FSR is on par with DLSS quality-wise nowadays, and the FG decent enough and could help drag them over the 60fps threshold in 4K, then I'll certainly consider getting one. At least to tide me over until there's more Nvidia stock, or maybe even till the next year Super refresh, which might be more interesting than Blackwell launch."

I'm not a 4K gamer. 1080p144 desktop is as high as I go and 6K30 upscale for qualifying VR. FSR4 looks very promising, so I'm considering it and other goodies.
If market temper is any indication, we will have a slim window of checking out influencer reviews a day before complete stock run out, ~15min after launch.
That goes for both sides, the 5070 and 9070 cards. AMD is pulling off an absolutely insane storage war for this launch but I wouldn't count on it to carry.
The delays have people as excited as angry piranha and that's worse than grocery shopping while hungry.

If you go 9070XT and it's the 4K contender, you may be running it for a while. I'm saying that in relation to 7900* and all 40 series skyrocketing after November.
Some prices are falling but it's gonna take more time before any of it looks good again. The 9070XT has me rethinking the dual PC circus too. Could last me ~2030.
Not a fan of its FP64 but has more calculation technologies that might be more useful as time goes on.

I also wouldn't trust the marketing chart:

Something about this doesn't look right to me.

 

[cinemaware]

Yeah, the tight review embargo is ridiculous. It was just a few hours for 5070Ti. About the chart, hmm...we will see....though it certainly looks more informative than the "vs GRE" charts, or Nvidia's CES rubbish ones.
If I can get CP2077 to run maxed out with PT, plus get 60fps 4K at Stalker, then I probably can stick with XT or Ti for a while. There are no other major releases important to me on the horizon.

 

[RJ]

I've built a system with 4k in mind back in November. My plan was to get a 4090. They don't exist as new anymore, not anywhere near normal prices.

I just cannot justify spending $2000 or more on a (ab)used, 2 year old GPU, without a transferable warranty. If you are anything like me, meaning you keep your GPU for at least 3 years, (I am still on my 2080TI) our only long term 4k option is 5090. I say that because 16GB of VRAM, may cut it in 2025, maybe even into 2026 but certainly not beyond. We already have games that push past 16GB and I'll be damned if I throw money at a GPU now only to come back in a few months to get another to solve the VRAM problem.

I would love to be wrong about this, for the sake of all of us, but magical performance and efficiency gains are over. Without groundbreaking changes, for example, new materials , you can't get a 5090 performance in a 250W envelope to open the door for a 6090 at 500W. People put hope in the next node, I'll be happy to eat my words, praying I'm wrong but only incremental gains are left to be had.

OP, I'm in the same boat. I even dug up my star citizen account after 11 years. Installed it, haven't launched it yet, don't dare on Turing. Control and Alan Wake 2 waiting for GPU. 64GB cl26 RAM, gen 5 m.2, all waiting.

Long story short, for 4K only the 4090 and 5090 are viable options and we'll still have to rely on aids even with those two.

 

[Besensac]

Long story short, for 4K only the 4090 and 5090 are viable options and we'll still have to rely on aids even with those two.

Sure, I guess I must be imagining that I can play at 7680x2160 with a 7900XTX
I keep games at my native resolution and enable FSR to performance and it just works.
A 7900XTX is more than enough to game at 4K, it is not even that expensive compared to Multi Flame Gen and it does not melt.
High standards to meet these days

 

[RJ]

Sure, I guess I must be imagining that I can play at 7680x2160 with a 7900XTX
I keep games at my native resolution and enable FSR to performance and it just works.
A 7900XTX is more than enough to game at 4K, it is not even that expensive compared to Multi Flame Gen and it does not melt.
High standards to meet these days

Don't be stupid. There are games my 2080ti can play at 4k, that does not mean it's a viable option for 4k.

Go look through OP's post, did he mention KCD 2? What games did he mention? Cyberpunk 2077 and Stalker 2.

Go ahead, max out those two games at 4k. You don't even have to report the results to us, we already know. Do it for yourself.

 

[Endymio]

I... put my Ryzen 5600X + 32GB RAM + 650W PSU on sale. I was silly enough to think 7800/9800X3D situation will normalize in Q1, because AMD said so last year.
Atm I'm not sure whether I really want to sell it thou, I need it for work..

At 4K, the difference between that CPU and a 9800X3D may not justify the cost, especially when the former is free (you own it) and the latter requires a new mobo and memory too. If you're price constrained, keep the existing CPU and buy a better card. Alternately, you can simply replace your cpu with the 5800X3D, and get a big chunk of the cpu performance gain for less than $200 (you keep your existing mobo/memory).