WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.960 Picture this. You're gaming on your very average gaming PC and it's all right. 00:00:05.279 --> 00:00:11.920 But then inheritance strikes. Your long lost 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:16.320 uncle Milbour, who you know well enough to make small talk with, but not well 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:20.720 enough to be that sad about, left you $3,000. 00:00:20.720 --> 00:00:26.880 Woohoo. Well, this is perfect. Everyone knows 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 00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:36.399 platform and then dump the rest of your money into your GPU. But here's the 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:39.680 thing about stuff that everyone knows. 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:41.280 Sometimes everyone is wrong. It's been a 00:00:39.680 --> 00:00:45.120 while since we've explored the effects of bottlenecks on the latest and 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 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:55.280 high time for us to ask, is it really worth spending this kind of money? Or 00:00:53.039 --> 00:01:00.879 could we get most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost? Something 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:03.920 something. Our sponsor, 00:01:00.879 --> 00:01:06.479 UG, Green. Their Nexo 500 watt desktop 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:11.439 charger has six GAN chips and six ports with a single port supporting up to 240 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:15.960 watts of PD fast charging. Learn more using the links in our description 00:01:12.960 --> 00:01:15.960 today. 00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:30.000 If you haven't seen our 2025 most average gaming PC yet, the TLDDR is this 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 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:38.159 gigs of VRAM. It It's pretty mid, but 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 00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:47.119 baseline. Kicking things off at 1080p, less demanding games like F-124 and ano 00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:52.640 1800 managed to hit around 100 frames per second at high and very high, 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:54.720 respectively. But as we move into more 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:58.640 demanding titles like Cyberpunk and Returnal, 00:01:56.720 --> 00:02:02.320 let's just say that I would probably have dialed some of these settings down 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 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:12.319 is fine. I mean, 30 FPS is plenty for a 00:02:09.200 --> 00:02:14.160 game like this, but everything else is a 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 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:21.319 spend dear Uncle Milbour's cash money. 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:27.760 I'm going to miss that son of a Aside from being effective, swapping 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:31.520 your GPU is one of the simplest upgrades that you can make these days now that 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:36.400 pretty much everything else is buried under coolers or motherboard armor. But 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:40.720 that doesn't mean that it's entirely without its hazards. Releasing the PCIe 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:45.440 latch to get your old card out can require some serious contortion. 00:02:43.599 --> 00:02:49.599 Although, oh, nice. This one has the little button, so I don't have to worry 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 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:59.040 a very significant one. And not just in terms of weight. You'll need to ensure 00:02:57.040 --> 00:03:03.280 that your case can accommodate the space and cooling requirements of your bulky 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:07.040 new card. Not to mention that if your power supply is on the older side, it 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:11.440 might not have native support for this new fangled power connector that 00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:15.519 probably won't melt. Luckily, Elijah went a little overboard 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:19.440 when he configured the most average gaming PC's power supply this year. So, 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 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:29.200 for something with a 12volt 2x6 connector that's rated for 600 watts 00:03:26.319 --> 00:03:34.159 plus some extra capacity for all the rest of our system, which okay, in our 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:40.720 case isn't much, but your mileage may vary. Right out of the gate, that is 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:46.080 quite the upgrade. Starting at 1080p, again, this is much better. Although it 00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:53.200 is worth noting that we're at ray tracing medium and only 1080p on a 5090. 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 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 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:10.720 can't emphasize this enough going from a mid-tier card from two generations ago 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:12.959 to the 5090. Meanwhile, Returnal is 00:04:10.720 --> 00:04:19.519 about like Cyberpunk, approximately tripling its performance. Let's see what 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:21.600 happens at 4K, though. And there we go. 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:26.160 Even though we've 4xed the pixel count compared to just now, we're running at 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:31.919 just over half the FPS, which highlights just how CPU bottlenecked we were when 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:37.199 we were running at 1080p. As for how this compares to our poor 3060 at 4K, 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:42.800 well, let's just say we go from slideshow to what a show. I mean, this 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:47.520 is just this is just smooth. This is a pretty darn solid gaming experience. But 00:04:45.919 --> 00:04:53.199 just because we're having a good gaming experience now doesn't mean that Uncle 00:04:49.919 --> 00:04:55.600 Milbour's money was optimally spent. To 00:04:53.199 --> 00:05:01.199 answer that, we've thrown our 5090 into this tower with a Ryzen 7 9800X 3D. 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:05.280 That's right. We're not only going from six to eight cores, but these are 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:11.199 running at almost double the base frequency. And we've also doubled our 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:13.919 RAM to 32 gigs of DDR5. Starting at 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:17.840 1080p, it's clear that our slower CPU resulted in us leaving a lot of 00:05:16.320 --> 00:05:25.759 performance on the table. We've gone from around 100 FPS to over 150 frames 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:30.160 per second. And this is a this is a butter smooth gaming experience. And 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:36.560 that's true across the board, meaning that much of our 5090s performance was 00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:39.440 completely wasted on our average PC. But 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. 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:50.240 Obviously, I know that Cyberpunk is a very GPUheavy game, especially at higher 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:56.080 resolutions. That's why we use it as a GPU benchmark. But performance that's 00:05:54.160 --> 00:06:00.400 exactly the same as what we were getting with the 12400. That I didn't see 00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:05.039 coming. You have to be seriously GPU bottlenecked to be pushing four times 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:09.520 the number of pixels but still be getting over half the FPS. We saw the 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:15.680 same thing in Returnal, meaning that only ANO and F1 managed sizable FPS 00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:20.080 increases going to our higherend CPU, showing that these games, even at 4K at 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:24.880 these settings, are still somewhat CPUbound. But here's the thing. We have 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 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:35.039 total waste of money for us, what is a reasonable amount of Milbourne's 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 00:06:40.080 --> 00:06:46.720 got better availability, especially if you're willing to physically go to a 00:06:43.440 --> 00:06:48.960 shop. And they're selling for maybe 850 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:54.000 Yankee bucks, which still too expensive if you ask me. But AMD and NVIDIA didn't 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, 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:05.759 our average PC, now powered by an AMD 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:08.080 GPU, not only matches our 5090, but 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:12.800 actually beats it in three out of our four games. Not by much other than F1. 00:07:11.440 --> 00:07:19.520 This probably just comes down to run-to-run variance. But still, what 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:21.840 that shows is that we are clearly 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:29.280 CPUbound, and buying a more expensive GPU is giving us nada, nothing. We could 00:07:26.080 --> 00:07:33.440 just put a 9070 XT in here, maybe even 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.160 less. But what about 4K here? Now that 00:07:33.440 --> 00:07:41.840 we're more GPU bound, the 5090 does manage to differentiate itself. But it 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 00:07:43.919 --> 00:07:50.639 4K. That 12400 can still kind of keep 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:52.400 up. All of our games get dragged into 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:57.680 actually playable territory here, though. Uh, Cyberpunk is arguably a 00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:02.400 little bit marginal, at least at these, you know, ray traced medium settings. 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:07.759 So, did AMD nail the positioning of the 9070 series? It kind of looks like it. 00:08:05.599 --> 00:08:12.639 1080p performance is neck andneck with higherend cards, as you would expect 00:08:09.599 --> 00:08:15.280 with a modern CPU, and at 4K, we're 00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:21.360 getting at least 50% of the performance of the 5090 for less than 30% of the 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:23.759 price. Now, it is still true that the 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 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:31.680 higherend CPU like a 9800 X3D, and we 00:08:28.960 --> 00:08:37.120 found that was especially true at 1080p. But the mismatch is not nearly as bad. 00:08:34.959 --> 00:08:42.159 So, I guess what I'm trying to say is for most gamers, that unobtanium video 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:45.519 card that you can't get your hands on might not have affected your gaming 00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:50.160 performance nearly as much as you thought. Anyway, fun thing by the way. 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:54.399 Plof mentioned in a previous video that he talked his friend into upgrading his 00:08:52.160 --> 00:08:58.880 monitor instead of shelling out for an expensive 50 series GPU. Well, I have an 00:08:56.880 --> 00:09:05.440 update for you. His friend went with it and is totally stoked on the decision. 00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:08.560 So, while the wisdom has for years been 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:10.320 just dump your budget into the GPU, I 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:14.000 feel like GPU companies have kind of taken advantage of that wisdom and 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:18.560 convinced us to spend more than we should be spending on the GPU. And these 00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:24.399 days, we might want to consider a more rounded approach to our upgrades. Like 00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:26.399 this rounded segue to our sponsor, you 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:30.000 green. 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