1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,960 Picture this. You're gaming on your very average gaming PC and it's all right. 2 00:00:05,279 --> 00:00:11,920 But then inheritance strikes. Your long lost 3 00:00:09,599 --> 00:00:16,320 uncle Milbour, who you know well enough to make small talk with, but not well 4 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:20,720 enough to be that sad about, left you $3,000. 5 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:26,880 Woohoo. Well, this is perfect. Everyone knows 6 00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:30,800 that if you're on a limited budget, the best thing is to get a good enough 7 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:36,399 platform and then dump the rest of your money into your GPU. But here's the 8 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:39,680 thing about stuff that everyone knows. 9 00:00:36,399 --> 00:00:41,280 Sometimes everyone is wrong. It's been a 10 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:45,120 while since we've explored the effects of bottlenecks on the latest and 11 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:49,840 greatest GPUs. And now that we've got a new latest and greatest, I think it's 12 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:55,280 high time for us to ask, is it really worth spending this kind of money? Or 13 00:00:53,039 --> 00:01:00,879 could we get most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost? Something 14 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:03,920 something. Our sponsor, 15 00:01:00,879 --> 00:01:06,479 UG, Green. Their Nexo 500 watt desktop 16 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:11,439 charger has six GAN chips and six ports with a single port supporting up to 240 17 00:01:08,960 --> 00:01:15,960 watts of PD fast charging. Learn more using the links in our description 18 00:01:12,960 --> 00:01:15,960 today. 19 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:30,000 If you haven't seen our 2025 most average gaming PC yet, the TLDDR is this 20 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:35,840 tower here. Has a six core Core i5, 16 gigs of memory, and an RTX 3060 with 8 21 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:38,159 gigs of VRAM. It It's pretty mid, but 22 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:41,840 hey, that's what we were going for. So, let's game on it to establish a 23 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:47,119 baseline. Kicking things off at 1080p, less demanding games like F-124 and ano 24 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:52,640 1800 managed to hit around 100 frames per second at high and very high, 25 00:01:49,439 --> 00:01:54,720 respectively. But as we move into more 26 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:58,640 demanding titles like Cyberpunk and Returnal, 27 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:02,320 let's just say that I would probably have dialed some of these settings down 28 00:02:00,159 --> 00:02:09,200 if I wasn't about to compare this setup to a 50/90. As for 4K, once again, ano 29 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:12,319 is fine. I mean, 30 FPS is plenty for a 30 00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:14,160 game like this, but everything else is a 31 00:02:12,319 --> 00:02:21,319 little rough. So, now that we've got some numbers to compare to, it's time to 32 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:21,319 spend dear Uncle Milbour's cash money. 33 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:27,760 I'm going to miss that son of a Aside from being effective, swapping 34 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:31,520 your GPU is one of the simplest upgrades that you can make these days now that 35 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:36,400 pretty much everything else is buried under coolers or motherboard armor. But 36 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:40,720 that doesn't mean that it's entirely without its hazards. Releasing the PCIe 37 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:45,440 latch to get your old card out can require some serious contortion. 38 00:02:43,599 --> 00:02:49,599 Although, oh, nice. This one has the little button, so I don't have to worry 39 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:55,200 about that. And the jump from the 3060 that we have in here now to this 5090 is 40 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:59,040 a very significant one. And not just in terms of weight. You'll need to ensure 41 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:03,280 that your case can accommodate the space and cooling requirements of your bulky 42 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:07,040 new card. Not to mention that if your power supply is on the older side, it 43 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:11,440 might not have native support for this new fangled power connector that 44 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:15,519 probably won't melt. Luckily, Elijah went a little overboard 45 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:19,440 when he configured the most average gaming PC's power supply this year. So, 46 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:24,000 we've got plenty of power for our new 5090. But if he hadn't, we'd be looking 47 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:29,200 for something with a 12volt 2x6 connector that's rated for 600 watts 48 00:03:26,319 --> 00:03:34,159 plus some extra capacity for all the rest of our system, which okay, in our 49 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:40,720 case isn't much, but your mileage may vary. Right out of the gate, that is 50 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:46,080 quite the upgrade. Starting at 1080p, again, this is much better. Although it 51 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:53,200 is worth noting that we're at ray tracing medium and only 1080p on a 5090. 52 00:03:50,959 --> 00:03:58,239 So this falls well short of where I would expect it to be. With that said, I 53 00:03:55,280 --> 00:04:04,319 mean it's a lot better than Ano and F124 who only jumped by about 70%. Again, I 54 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:10,720 can't emphasize this enough going from a mid-tier card from two generations ago 55 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:12,959 to the 5090. Meanwhile, Returnal is 56 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:19,519 about like Cyberpunk, approximately tripling its performance. Let's see what 57 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:21,600 happens at 4K, though. And there we go. 58 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:26,160 Even though we've 4xed the pixel count compared to just now, we're running at 59 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:31,919 just over half the FPS, which highlights just how CPU bottlenecked we were when 60 00:04:29,199 --> 00:04:37,199 we were running at 1080p. As for how this compares to our poor 3060 at 4K, 61 00:04:34,639 --> 00:04:42,800 well, let's just say we go from slideshow to what a show. I mean, this 62 00:04:40,639 --> 00:04:47,520 is just this is just smooth. This is a pretty darn solid gaming experience. But 63 00:04:45,919 --> 00:04:53,199 just because we're having a good gaming experience now doesn't mean that Uncle 64 00:04:49,919 --> 00:04:55,600 Milbour's money was optimally spent. To 65 00:04:53,199 --> 00:05:01,199 answer that, we've thrown our 5090 into this tower with a Ryzen 7 9800X 3D. 66 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:05,280 That's right. We're not only going from six to eight cores, but these are 67 00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:11,199 running at almost double the base frequency. And we've also doubled our 68 00:05:07,759 --> 00:05:13,919 RAM to 32 gigs of DDR5. Starting at 69 00:05:11,199 --> 00:05:17,840 1080p, it's clear that our slower CPU resulted in us leaving a lot of 70 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:25,759 performance on the table. We've gone from around 100 FPS to over 150 frames 71 00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:30,160 per second. And this is a this is a butter smooth gaming experience. And 72 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:36,560 that's true across the board, meaning that much of our 5090s performance was 73 00:05:33,199 --> 00:05:39,440 completely wasted on our average PC. But 74 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:45,520 what about at 4K here? I've got to say my surprise kind of goes the other way. 75 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:50,240 Obviously, I know that Cyberpunk is a very GPUheavy game, especially at higher 76 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:56,080 resolutions. That's why we use it as a GPU benchmark. But performance that's 77 00:05:54,160 --> 00:06:00,400 exactly the same as what we were getting with the 12400. That I didn't see 78 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:05,039 coming. You have to be seriously GPU bottlenecked to be pushing four times 79 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:09,520 the number of pixels but still be getting over half the FPS. We saw the 80 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:15,680 same thing in Returnal, meaning that only ANO and F1 managed sizable FPS 81 00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:20,080 increases going to our higherend CPU, showing that these games, even at 4K at 82 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:24,880 these settings, are still somewhat CPUbound. But here's the thing. We have 83 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:30,800 an average PC. We're not gaming at 1080p. So then, if buying a 5090 is a 84 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:35,039 total waste of money for us, what is a reasonable amount of Milbourne's 85 00:06:32,319 --> 00:06:42,000 inheritance to spend on a GPU for our average PC? How about a 9070 XT? It's 86 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:46,720 got better availability, especially if you're willing to physically go to a 87 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:48,960 shop. And they're selling for maybe 850 88 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:54,000 Yankee bucks, which still too expensive if you ask me. But AMD and NVIDIA didn't 89 00:06:51,440 --> 00:07:01,759 ask me, did they? Let's see how it holds up. Would you look at that? At 1080p, 90 00:06:58,319 --> 00:07:05,759 our average PC, now powered by an AMD 91 00:07:01,759 --> 00:07:08,080 GPU, not only matches our 5090, but 92 00:07:05,759 --> 00:07:12,800 actually beats it in three out of our four games. Not by much other than F1. 93 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:19,520 This probably just comes down to run-to-run variance. But still, what 94 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:21,840 that shows is that we are clearly 95 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:29,280 CPUbound, and buying a more expensive GPU is giving us nada, nothing. We could 96 00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:33,440 just put a 9070 XT in here, maybe even 97 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:36,160 less. But what about 4K here? Now that 98 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:41,840 we're more GPU bound, the 5090 does manage to differentiate itself. But it 99 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:47,360 does show that hm if we're not trying to get the best of the best performance at 100 00:07:43,919 --> 00:07:50,639 4K. That 12400 can still kind of keep 101 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:52,400 up. All of our games get dragged into 102 00:07:50,639 --> 00:07:57,680 actually playable territory here, though. Uh, Cyberpunk is arguably a 103 00:07:55,759 --> 00:08:02,400 little bit marginal, at least at these, you know, ray traced medium settings. 104 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:07,759 So, did AMD nail the positioning of the 9070 series? It kind of looks like it. 105 00:08:05,599 --> 00:08:12,639 1080p performance is neck andneck with higherend cards, as you would expect 106 00:08:09,599 --> 00:08:15,280 with a modern CPU, and at 4K, we're 107 00:08:12,639 --> 00:08:21,360 getting at least 50% of the performance of the 5090 for less than 30% of the 108 00:08:18,319 --> 00:08:23,759 price. Now, it is still true that the 109 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:28,960 9070 XT is going to get a little bit more room to shine when paired with a 110 00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:31,680 higherend CPU like a 9800 X3D, and we 111 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:37,120 found that was especially true at 1080p. But the mismatch is not nearly as bad. 112 00:08:34,959 --> 00:08:42,159 So, I guess what I'm trying to say is for most gamers, that unobtanium video 113 00:08:40,159 --> 00:08:45,519 card that you can't get your hands on might not have affected your gaming 114 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:50,160 performance nearly as much as you thought. Anyway, fun thing by the way. 115 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:54,399 Plof mentioned in a previous video that he talked his friend into upgrading his 116 00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:58,880 monitor instead of shelling out for an expensive 50 series GPU. Well, I have an 117 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:05,440 update for you. His friend went with it and is totally stoked on the decision. 118 00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:08,560 So, while the wisdom has for years been 119 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:10,320 just dump your budget into the GPU, I 120 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:14,000 feel like GPU companies have kind of taken advantage of that wisdom and 121 00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:18,560 convinced us to spend more than we should be spending on the GPU. And these 122 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:24,399 days, we might want to consider a more rounded approach to our upgrades. Like 123 00:09:21,279 --> 00:09:26,399 this rounded segue to our sponsor, you 124 00:09:24,399 --> 00:09:30,000 green. With how much tech we use in our work or gaming setup these days, the 125 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:34,959 amount of cables running up and down your desk can be quite disorganized and 126 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:38,880 messy. 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