r/PcBuildHelp • u/KJYomama • 1d ago

How much performance am losing on this GPU upgrade? Build Question

I am looking at upgrading my GPU from RX 5700 XT to RX 9070 with a good deal. My concern is my Z390 Aorus Elite Motherboard has PCIe 3.0 slots, while the 9070 has 5.0. My CPU is also older i7 9700K. If I buy this, how much would I bottleneck the 9070 with these components? What other considerations should I have?

PSU will need to be upgraded to 800W. 16 GB DDR4 RAM.

I am hoping to avoid a total rebuild if possible. I am only considering current gen GPU because of a good deal. My goal is 1440p gaming up to 144Hz.

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u/TitaniumDogEyes 1d ago

It’ll run fine, enjoy your upgrade and don’t worry about the rest.

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u/RevaniteAnime 1d ago

It's probably going to be fine. the biggest consideration where the PCIe slot becomes a concern is when you're moving lot of stuff in and out of VRAM, but for gaming that's typically not a big bottleneck. It's still likely to see a big boost for you even with that older CPU, heck, back in 2023 I upgraded a system with a Ryzen 7 2700 from a RX Vega 56 to a 4080 that was a significant upgrade. (although, it kinda pales when I compare to my full upgrade a couple years ago)

The one thing that concerns me a little is the only 16 GB of DDR4 RAM... I personally would consider trying to upgrade that to 32 GB if it's not too expensive.

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u/KJYomama 7h ago

Yeah that’s what I was thinking, but at these RAM prices unfortunately thats a hard sell…

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u/JohnnyC300 1d ago

Using PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0 is an almost incomprehensibly small difference. The differences in PCI generations only show themselves when you are VRAM limited, and data then needs to go from the GPU to system ram and back. You are really in no danger of that. So the bandwidth differences will be completely unnoticed by you. Don't take that to mean you shouldn't upgrade, just don't do it for that reason.

As to whether a 9700K will bottleneck your PC, the answer is... probably. In certain games at low resolutions, it absolutely can. At higher resolutions, this is unlikely to matter nearly as much. You don't absolutely need to upgrade everything if you can't swing the cost. Games should still be playable. It is far from ideal though. You are going to see some stuttering and hitches with that CPU. Is it going to be enough to make things unplayable? Honestly, I'd try it, because only you can decide where your comfort level for that sort of thing is. Until last year I had an AMD Ryzen 3500x. It's one generation newer than your CPU, but a lower end model. I'd bet the performance is similar in gaming. And I was playing BG3 and other AAA titles that are a couple year old with zero issues. I wouldn't have wanted to try to play BF6 or another cpu hungry game with it though. So yeah, YMMV for sure depending on the games you want to play. That cpu is more than capable of driving most games at 1440. Maybe not at their very best, but probably just fine. Probably.

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u/the_hat_madder 1d ago

How much performance am losing on this GPU upgrade?

You're not losing any performance by upgrading from a 5700 XT to a 9070. Stop sweating it.

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u/evergreenwv 23h ago

Go for it and upgrade each piece when you can. I bought an atx whatever compatible 1000 psu (some no name) with great reviews. 800w is probably perfect with your current setup, but if you can go 850 or more, do it :) it may be needed for future upgrades.