Upgrade advice needed: RTX 5080 vs 5070 Ti + best DDR4 CPU for gaming & emulation (coming from 5900X + RTX 3070)

Posted by TenaZiousD@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 35 comments

Hey everyone,

I’m currently running a Ryzen 9 5900X paired with an RTX 3070 OC and playing at 3440x1440 ultrawide. Lately I’ve been running into noticeable stuttering in newer games (2025/2026 titles), especially in scenarios with high VRAM usage, so I’m planning a major upgrade and could really use some advice.

GPU-wise, I’m 100% sticking with NVIDIA and I’m currently deciding between the RTX 5070 Ti and the RTX 5080. I’m leaning heavily towards the 5080 since I want something that will last me a few years at this resolution with Ultra settings + Ray Tracing / Path Tracing where available, but my total budget is around 2000€, so I need to balance things carefully because I also need to upgrade my CPU.

The reason I want to upgrade the CPU as well is to eliminate bottlenecks in CPU-heavy games like Arma 3, Arma Reforger, Starfield, Battlefield 6, etc., and also to push the highest possible FPS in demanding PC titles like Six Days in Fallujah, Silent Hill 2 Remake, God of War Ragnarok, Elden Ring with RT on High, Cyberpunk 2077, and eventually GTA VI when it lands on PC.

On top of that, emulation performance is very important for me. I use RPCS3 a lot and also other emulators like shadPS4, Ryujinx, and Xenia Canary. My goal is to reach stable 60 FPS at 2560x1440 in very CPU-heavy titles like God of War Ascension, Uncharted 1/2/3, Resistance 2 and 3, etc., so strong CPU performance (especially for emulation workloads) matters a lot.

One important constraint: I’d really prefer to stay on DDR4. DDR5 prices here in Spain are still extremely high (a 32GB 6400 kit is around 490€ minimum), and I don’t feel like the platform switch is worth it for me right now.

As for cooling, I’m using a BeQuiet Pure Loop 2 FX 360mm AIO mounted on the top of a Fractal Design Meshify 2 RGB (3x140mm front intake + 1x140mm rear exhaust). I don’t have any liquid cooling or thermal pad mods for the GPU and I’m not planning to go that route unless it’s absolutely necessary.

For the CPU, I’m open to both AMD and Intel options, as long as they support DDR4 and offer a good balance between performance and thermal efficiency. The models I’m currently considering are the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Intel i7-14700K / KF, i7-13700K / KF, and i5-14600K / KF.

What I’m really looking for is the best balance between performance (especially 1% lows and emulation performance) and thermal efficiency, given my cooling setup. I’m also curious whether going all-in on an RTX 5080 + slightly “worse” CPU makes more sense at 3440x1440, or if I should step down to a 5070 Ti and invest more into the CPU.

Any advice, real-world experience, or similar builds would be greatly appreciated 🙏.

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Fredasa@reddit

Another fellow already mentioned overclocking but I'll offer my own thoughts here anyway.

It's not that a 5080 can get close to a 4090 after overclocking (that argument ignores the obvious detail that you could always OC a 4090 as well). It's that the 5080 is the best overclocker of the last two gens. So if you're into overclocking, the consideration becomes: An OC 5080 is some 25% better than an OC 5070 Ti.

The other thing the 5080 has going for it: If you hypothetically ever need something better than a 5070 Ti, you have exactly three choices, and that's unlikely to change for years. Two of those choices can't be had for sub-$2,200 or so, which makes the third option Hobson's choice for practically everyone.

Last but not least, (non-old) GPUs nowadays simply aren't going to meaningfully depreciate in value. Hell, for the last year or two, all they've done is gone up in value. What this means is that it's probably perfectly safe to buy the best GPU you can possibly afford (as long as you're favoring MSRP), and consider it an investment—by the time you put it back in the market, you probably won't really lose any money at all, no matter what you bought.

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Cleenred@reddit

Yea if you land on a good chip, I'm not interested on gambling >1k in hopes of getting a good chip thanks

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Fredasa@reddit

Sorry, no, the 5080's overclocking advantage is never framed as being dependent on the silicon lottery. The stock clocks are simply low. It would be speculative, but nonetheless informed, to guess that the guts of the GPU were destined for a future 5080 Ti spec that will now never arrive, and the headroom the 5080 enjoys was intended to be exploited in said SKU.

That said, the 5080 was originally a bit of a gamble due to an issue with ROPs.

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Framed-Photo@reddit

Outlets like DF have already covered how well both of these cards can OC, that has not changed the consensus that the 5080 is pretty poor value compared to the 5070ti which has historically been drastically cheaper.

Born_Bad_1294@reddit

Unless and until you can find a X3D CPU for a decent price, stick with the 5900X.

And I would recommend the RTX 5070 Ti, 5080 only offers 10-15% better performance than the 5070 Ti and I don't think that's worth the extra premium. Both are of the same generation, so the driver updates duration should be the same and both have 16GB VRAM.

So stick with the 5900X and get the RTX 5070 Ti 16GB

JimmyGodoppolo@reddit

Keep in mind, it's easy to OC the 5080 to get 4090 performance in situations where you aren't vram limited. Which absolutely trashes an OC'd 5070ti

RiskIntelligent3789@reddit

No... Hey, the RTX 5080 have only 16gb of vram and the 4090 is way more powerful with 24gb of vram... And your OC is a joke because even if you OC, you don't have the same result... To play in 4K Ultra, you need 24GB for some games in native...

reading is hard for you huh

in situations where you aren't vram limited

Even without vram limited... The 4090 without OC destroy the 5080 OC... And if you have a 4090 OC, it is will be 30% better than your 5080 OC...

4090 without OC does not destroy an OC'd 5080. They perform very similarly except in VRAM limited situations, while the 5080 OC is significantly more power efficient. Here's just one example, but there's tons of other examples out there showing the same.

Of course, it destroyed your card... In RE4, you have 106FPS against 120FPS with the 4090, the 1% low is awful in your card... 97FPS against 110FPS...

Lonely_Platform7702@reddit

They have the exact same OC headroom. An OC 5070Ti is about equal to a stock 5080. The difference will remain ~15%.

He will be CPU bottlenecked in CPU intensive games anyway.

Octaive@reddit

The 5900X has aged out, especially for their use case, so I am against this recommendation. It's basically a crappy 5600 because of the core configuration. It's awful. The 5600 performs like a toilet.

OP, you should spend the money on a new CPU, which one really depends on the price.

Falkenmond79@reddit

Wtf is wrong with you dude. Your the same guy that wanted to tell me a 5070ti is faster than a 4080super by 15%. 5900x has „aged out“? And you recommend 14th gen intel BS? What are you? Another Userbenchmark sock puppet account? And saying it’s a 5600x? Yeah, In games that only utilize one or two cores, maybe.

OP: The 5900x is fine. For pure gaming, a 5800x3d (which drives my 4K TV-PC btw, is better, but hard to obtain at a decent price).

Otherwise you can’t really upgrade DDR4 anymore. A 14700/14900 might be faster in some games, but both are known to burn up and are wasted on ddr4 setups. Probably wouldn’t beat the 5900x much, unless you go ddr5. Also much too expensive.

Jesus what bad advice.

The 5900X is two 6 core CPUs. It can't cross communicate between the CCDs for gaming without worse performance than not doing it at all. That's why the 9950X3D is basically just an 8 core with zero performance advantage. The 7900X and 5900X are 6 core gaming CPUs with productivity as a big bonus.

The 5900X barely out performs a 5600X in gaming workloads, regardless of core count. Some games like Civ benefit because it's not real time, but yeah, there's nothing wrong with me. The 5900X is nothing like an X3D processor and is basically a 5600X, which isn't good.

https://youtu.be/Gjx-ZbKVb3A?si=ma2BNGyBl7dxDMDG

Barely any performance advantage at all. And if we then cross compare with HWUB, we have a situation where the 5900X is way behind for modern gaming.

FlatImpact4554@reddit

You get what you pay for.

5900X was good but it's better to you to switch to AM5... with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D (9850X3D is 30% more expensive) and the 5070 Ti, it is only 15% worse than the 5080 but you save 300 bucks... The price of the 9800X3D... And I'm pretty sure if you sale your 5900X + mobo + rams that you could and add a bit, buy a B850 at 200 bucks and for 400 bucks of ram.

As others have said, don't bother with CPU upgrades right now because the value is incredibly poor. The 5900x is still pretty decent, especially at the resolution you're playing at, so try that first then upgrade when prices get better. You won't get enough of a performance uplift staying on DDR4 to justify any price you'll end up spending.

For GPU, you ignore the 5080 as an option unless 5070ti prices are massively inflated, in which case you're getting horrible value regardless so it's your money if you wanna spend it.

If you really are itching to spend the extra though, I'd put my money on a 5070ti and then a nice OLED monitor if you don't already have one, followed up by just pocketing the difference.

rossi46go@reddit

For reference I have 5900x 32gb and 4090 and I can play all games 4k with all maxed setting like crimson desert

4 day ago my motherboard dead and I have buy a new pc with 9800x3D and 5080 and I can’t play maxed setting with 5900x+4090 on crimson desert in 4k.

So 5000 rtx series for me it’s a big scam and for 2k you can buy a 4090 for 5900x that it’s enough for all lastes games.

4090 it’s real monster !

More_Outside7127@reddit

Keep the 5900X until you save up enough/ram prices go down enough and upgrade to ddr5. No AM4 cpu really has what you want from it and will keep having that a few years down the line. Only real CPU upgrade for you is a 5800X3D which are pretty hard to find at a reasonable price these days.

Anyway I just think a 5080 is wasted on ddr4.

Ok-Use-8592@reddit

I highly recommend going AMD instead with the 9070XT, 5080/5090 has been notorious for melted power connectors due to its lack of load balancing

5070ti is the one case AMD is actually better... they dont offer any competing products for the 5080/5090 and melting issues on the 5080 are rare

f1rstx@reddit

5080/5090 has been notorious for melted power connectors due to its lack of load balancing

show us data that shows "NOTORIOUS MELTED POWER CONNECTORS", i'm sure you will

I see at least 4 Reddit posts after a single Google search, along with a multitude of news outlets

so 5080/5090 aren't notorious for melted connectors

The 5090 certainly is, and the 5080 has at least 4 separate incidents

The 5090 certainly is

i bet 5090 failure rate isn't higher than any other GPU

IDK man, there were a LOT of melted GPU cables here during release, and I'm still seeing the odd one here and there even these days, maybe 1 every 6 months

There are close to zero instances of the 5080 with a melted 12vhwpr. The 5090 issue is real, but the new 12v-2x6 greatly reduces the risk.

HEBushido@reddit

The PNY 5080 Epic-X is on sale at Microcenter for $1229. Normally its 1400. I just got it because 10-15% more performance is worth it when the 5070ti is $1100.

Nervous-Increase7402@reddit

My 13700k 5.5ghz in game ddr5 XTX combo been flawless past 3yrs came from 5900x 3080

TenaZiousD@reddit (OP)

Just to get out of curiosity, which CPU cooler do you have since I've read the 13700k/14700k run very hot at High multi-core load at Max clock speed. I currently have a 360 mm AIO Freezer (BeQuiet! Pure Loop 2 FX ARGB 360) I also think I would stay for now in DDR4 due to high prices here in Spain. Have you tries running games at 1440p on RPCS3?? It would be very useful to know.

Check my cover photo chief I’m also using a contact frame & thermal grizzly I’m a custom water cooler enthusiast I’m also running Kyrosheet on my GPU die 15w ultimate pads. Velocity 2 EKWB cpu block 1x480mm 3x360mm radiators dual d5 pumps 27 fans push pull config wall mounted core p8 aligned with my a/c vent 😂🤣 so it’s sucking pure chilled air hvac hack. 3x360 rads are external pack. All temps well overkill coolant sit at 25c during gaming which is 75f/77f

Dry-Lingonberry-8287@reddit

You can also look at amazon uk/fr/de or even other specialist (ralukuten, caseking…) in Europe. You can get pretty good deal sometimes. I’m upgrading to AM5 because getting an 5800X3D not overpriced is very hard. But for the least, ive got 9800x3d for 300€ and 32go dd5 6000 cl36 for 310€ last week.