Go with PCIE 4.0 or 3.0 for new build. Old Pc dead

Since my old pc bit the big one I need some advice. I’m starting to see very little difference in prices in building a Pcie 4.0 over 3.0. Now I’m sure they’ll be cheaper parts going on sale to make room for 4.0 pieces sometime in the future but gaming on Intel graphics suck. Only games I play are POE, Lotro, WOW and Istaria. Not exactly demanding games currently

If your priority for your PC is gaming then you won’t see a difference between 3.0 or 4.0

Old pc was running windows 7 with i7 3770. 8g of ddr3 1600 mem, and R9 390 vid card just give context of age. So anything will be an upgrade in power. But if I get the same milage or close to it wouldn’t it be better future proofed with Pcie 4.0 parts later on since specs on games keep increasing with updates?

The difference between PCIe x16 3.0 and 4.0 is 1% with an Nvidia rtx 3080 so for gaming pcie 3.0 is non-issue. Get the best value platform for your money and performance goals.

If you aren’t going to be buying really high end stuff it really doesn’t matter. Even then, as stated above, the difference is minimal.

What’s your budget

Ok this is my current thinking list which will a huge upgrade from my old system. Now from what I’ve read no games out there require the bandwidth 4.0 offers, but that’ll change in the future now that PCIE 4.0 is going main stream
Ryzen 3100
16g of pc 3200
ASRock B550M-HDV
RX 5500 8g

Thanks in advance for all the advice

IIRC the 5500 does utilize PCIE4 because of how the card itself is designed, not because of the overall bandwidth needs.

That said, it seems like a well balanced build. I’d step up to a 5600xt if you can manage, though.

EDIT: i think that’s only the 4gb versions. 8gb version affected less, but i suppose with the B550 it won’t matter since you do in face have PCIE4. But i would still opt for the 5600xt if you can.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-rx-5500-xt-vram-pcie-4

Games don’t “require” a PCIe standard. Games “require” hardware to meet a certain performance level and that hardware can either take advantage of the data transfer rates or in certain cases be limited by the data transfer rates. I’m not saying don’t get a mobo with a PCIe 4.0 slot or do get one but rather understand what it is.

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Specifically to the 5500 XT, it is designed on a PCIE4x8 bus. Theoretically, if won’t ever saturate a PCIE3x16 slot, but apparently because it only employs the x8 interface, the 4gb models can struggle with only PCIE3.0x8 due to overwhelming the 4gb frame buffer and swapping to system RAM, which causes the slowdown in PCIE3x8 vs. PCIE4x8.

Apparently the 8gb version suffers less because it has a larger frame buffer, but it’s still really silly AMD designed this card with only an x8 interface.

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