European here. I’m pretty content with my setup (Ryzen5 3600XT, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060… I play in 1080p) for the games I’m playing at the moment, and I don’t plan on playing many AAAA games in the future. BUT. With the recent tariffs flying around, China denying rare earths, etc etc I fear we might see an increase in hardware prices like we had with covid, so I was thinking on upgrading at least CPU+VGA; more than FOMO let’s say is Fear Of Being Overpriced. What do you think, should I upgrade now that things looks a little more relaxed? Will the whole mess involve only the USA or everyone cause globalization?
Buy a used 5700x3D, update your BIOS to the last version, remove heatsink, take out 3600 and put in at least 5700x3D or5800x3D, take out the 16GB and put in 32GB, but any recent GPU you can afford to replace 1060. A 4060 beats the 1080 Ti in everything to give you an idea. It’s only a few frames but it beats it. Even for 1080p, if you turn off DLSS, it’s not overkil. If stores sell a $299USD 5060 I would say to buy that, but any 40 series will be a big boost, combined with 3D CPU, you will be loving it all
I agree with you, I just don’t agree with the GPU advice. I would not buy a 4060 at the moment. I don’t know what your budget is, but I would say buy something with at least 12Gb VRAM. Even for 1080p, 8 will be insufficient in the future.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html#section-rasterization-gpu-benchmarks-2025 and https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/ can give you some more idea what to buy. I would even go as much as saying buy second hand as the new GPUs all are underperforming and you might score a better deal buying second hand.