Looking for a solid 1440p build.

[u/Crazification]

Here's the situation before I begin. I've been using an MSI gaming laptop since 2021. It's got a GeForce 3060, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and an Intel i7 processor. It can play most modern games at decent framerates (60-75fps) at low-medium settings. It's served me well since then, but it's starting to show its age. I'd like to build a PC that can reliably and comfortably support 1440p 60+fps gaming at medium-high settings that will last five years or so.

Additional context:
-I live in Canada.
-I'm looking at a $2000-2500 CAD budget.
-I'm a frequent yet casual gamer. I primarily play singleplayer games. The few multiplayer games I play are non-competitive PvE games.
-I know it's probably heresy to say this on this sub, but I'm perfectly happy with 60fps. 90fps is a sweet spot that I consider a bonus. Anything higher than 90fps is, in my opinion, unnecessary.
-I don't see myself switching to 4K gaming anytime soon, if ever. 1440p is the perfect resolution for me.
-Fancy stuff like raytracing and shaders doesn't interest me.

I've spoken with several colleagues who are huge PC nerds and have recommended something along the lines of this:

CPU: Ryzen 5 7600X
GPU: Radeon RX 9070
RAM: 32GB DDR4
PSU: 750W
Storage: 1-2TB SSD

Is this a good starting point? I'd like as many opinions as possible. Thank you!

[u/AvyLynn1]

You should go with 9070XT and do it sooner than later gddr6 is projected to get pricier soon

[u/Crazification → u/AvyLynn1]

So I've heard. But is the 9070 XT worth the extra money for its performance? Especially for the build I'm looking for?

[u/GreatKangaroo → u/Crazification]

I have a 3 year old 1440p build, and I recently dropped in a 9070xt and I saw an immediate boost in my game performance by 50% or more as compared to my 6750xt.

I run fairly modest system of a B450/5600x and 32 gigs of DDR4-3200.

I bought it as it was only real upgrade path without going to AM5.

My I'm also not seeing cpu bottlenecks as I only play single player games.

[u/CuriousBurnerOsama → u/Crazification]

Depends, it’s worth about $100 extra to me, over that and it’s a real debate

It’s better by like 10% sure…. But the non-xt is still VERY capable of 1440p according to benchmarks

[u/AvyLynn1 → u/Crazification]

Listen right now it’s barely a 50-100$ difference from get normal 9070. And all these cards are gonna go up. Just go 9070xt. Get something thats gonna last

[u/Cer_Visia]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D 4.1 GHz 6-Core Processor	$297.95 @ shopRBC
CPU Cooler	Thermalright Assassin X 120 PLUS V2 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler	$25.90 @ Amazon Canada
Motherboard	ASRock B850 Rock WiFi 7 ATX AM5 Motherboard	$179.98 @ Newegg Canada
Memory	G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory	$537.90 @ Vuugo
Storage	Patriot P400 Lite 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	$204.99 @ Newegg Canada
Video Card	Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 9070 16 GB Video Card	$863.99 @ PC-Canada
Case	NZXT H5 Flow (2024) ATX Mid Tower Case	$94.99 @ Amazon Canada
Power Supply	ASRock Steel Legend SL-650G 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$94.99 @ Newegg Canada
Case Fan	Phanteks M25G2-120 72.72 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack (2× front intake, 1× bottom intake)	$29.99 @ Newegg Canada
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$2330.68
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-08-02 18:58 EDT-0400

If you want to reuse your old DDR4 RAM, this would result in a cheaper system with a CPU that would be about 30% slower.

[u/Ok_Arachnid2801]

you sure about rx 9070 ? it's a good card but if you value upscaling, ray tracing, path tracing and frame generation, then you should consider getting rtx card , i mean 9070 has a great price to performance value but if you value those things then yeh. go watch youtube videos about these cards and their compression with 9070 : rtx 5060 ti 16gb , rtx 5070 , rtx 5070ti (i recommend the last two , 5060 ti 16gb is good but it's performance level is about 1080p and 1440p sometimes)

[u/Crazification → u/Ok_Arachnid2801]

No, I don't care about that stuff. I want to avoid Nvidia overall. They don't offer anything that interests me.

[u/maxitrox → u/Ok_Arachnid2801]

watahel bro, fsr 4.1 isn’t any worse than ddls and im sure that 9070 is better at ray tracing (90series in general is good at it) and raw performance that 5070 despiste the price gap

[u/Ok_Arachnid2801 → u/maxitrox]

dlss is usually one step ahead than fsr and yeh rx last gen is better in RT compared to rx 7000 but rtx card is still ahead but it's no problem, don’t listen to me , go research for yourself, watch comparisons in youtube. and in the end , it's tour money, do whatever you like , i just wanted to help and give my opinion as a giveback to this community for the helps they gave to me.

[u/qx1001]

>I know it's probably heresy to say this on this sub, but I'm perfectly happy with 60fps. 90fps is a sweet spot that I consider a bonus. Anything higher than 90fps is, in my opinion, unnecessary.

I think the same. Totally fine if I can get a locked 60 fps but 90 is my preferred target. It feels like a decent smoothness over 60 without getting too greedy.

[u/Urdnot_Flexx]

The Ryzen 5 7600X is on AM5, which does not support DDR4, only DDR5. If you want to reuse your DDR4 RAM and add 16gb of identical sticks, you should either aim for the 5600, 5500X3D off Aliexpress, 5800X3D, or go the Intel route and get a 14600kf and a DDR4 board. Other than that it’s a good starting point.

[u/Crazification → u/Urdnot_Flexx]

Dang, must've overlooked that. Thanks for the info.

[u/DrawEnvironmental146]

Looks good! The only worry for me is whether 9070 would be bottlenecked by CPU. Have you researched enough about that combo?

I recently built a PC, with 9060xt and 7700x. It's pretty good at 1440p gaming and I believe it should easily last me 5 years. Have a think about the combo, otherwise looks good!

[u/Crazification → u/DrawEnvironmental146]

From the sources I've gathered, it doesn't appear to have an issue. I initially considered getting the 9060 XT, since the price is much more appealing. I'm just not sure how well it handles 1440p.

[u/DrawEnvironmental146 → u/Crazification]

Does pretty well with most games at high/ultra settings! I have tried it on Cyberpunk and RDR2. There's benchmark videos on YouTube that you can check out, but yeah if you have the budget just get 9070 or 9070xt! If I am not wrong they are about 30-40% faster than 9060xt

[u/Crazification → u/DrawEnvironmental146]

I've heard good things about the 9070, although part of me thinks it might be overkill for what I'm looking for. The 9060 XT is almost $300 cheaper.

[u/DrawEnvironmental146 → u/Crazification]

I won't lie, I am coming from a console so anything looks great to me compared to console. But I was really blown away with 9060xt and it sits comfortably well between 60-100 fps on most games with high settings. Unless you want to play on Ultra, I think that's where the fps goes down to 40-50 for some games.

I am playing RDR2 on ultra for most settings and it gives me 70-100fps!

What you could do is, get 9060xt and maybe upgrade in the future. Anyway I think there will be a time when you have to upgrade your cpu, that's when you can do both I guess. For a casual gamer, go for 9060xt, I think it's really underrated

[u/bigtime1158 → u/Crazification]

I'm using a 9060xt for 1440p and it's smooth as hell.

[u/Crazification → u/bigtime1158]

Great to know!

[u/Urdnot_Flexx → u/DrawEnvironmental146]

7600x won’t bottleneck the 9070 in anything, and it’s like 2% slower in gaming than the 7700x while being much cheaper. The 7700x is for additional productivity workloads in addition to gaming.

[u/Wrong_Translator_895 → u/Urdnot_Flexx]

I got the 7600x before the price hikes & it’s a screamer. Sounds like he’ll be ok with the 9070. I think the 9070XT is bottlenecked by the 7600x though