Provide guidance on assembling an mATX build.
Provide guidance on assembling an mATX build.
Consider whether an improvement still justifies spending another $350 to $500 after a year if Intel's upcoming CPU shares the same socket.
Everything you purchase now will be replaced with a more affordable or robust version in two years. Get what you require immediately—today. Consider upgrading your graphics if needed.
Budget stays the budget. It’s about getting something before reaching your hardware goals. Later I’ll sell my current GPU and possibly the CPU too. Upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and an RTX 5080 later this year seems logical for me. I can sacrifice a bit, but it won’t affect my finances much. My financial situation is so stable that I wouldn’t need to spend excessively or ignore other life areas. Right now, an RTX 5070 with a Ryzen 7 7700 looks like a solid upgrade compared to my old 2-in-1. It should suffice for now and let me decide if I want to invest more. If my initial creative projects (basic Blender and ZBrush modeling) don’t work out, I won’t upgrade my CPU much—maybe I could get a cheaper AMD Ryzen 9 7900 if I find a better deal, though that seems unlikely.