Editor’s Note: For those that didn’t catch the reference, it’s a play on the ‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie’ story. Essentially, if give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want some milk to wash it down with… and straw to drink the milk… and and a napkin to wipe his face… and so on…
About 3.5 years ago, I replaced my aging GTX 1080 gaming desktops with a couple of 30-series rigs. Between inflation, parts availability, and AI demands, the market wasn’t great, and it’s only gotten worse.
At the time, I recall spending over $500 per system, more than I originally intended, and while the build quality was good and I usually target the upper end of the previous generation of hardware, I feel I missed the mark this time around, and am hitting the upper limits of my hardware much sooner than I’d like…
After a long and expensive home renovation, I decided to treat myself to a GPU upgrade (call it a late birthday present ^_^), so I started looking at 5080 series cards. I considered waiting for a 5080 Ti or Super to come out, but my research suggested they weren’t going to hit the shelves anytime soon, or at an attractive price point.
Instead, I started looking at value and settled on a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC 16G, which was a good combination of cost ($1,500 + tax), performance, cooling, and noise. I looked at some more expensive 5080s, but as far as I could tell, the performance was comparable (or even a little worse), and they were asking $200-500 more for slightly cooler/quieter fans.
###
I figured since I was splurging on a fancy new GPU, I may as well upgrade my RAM as well, but after going down the voltage/timing rabbit hole, I realize things aren’t like they used to be, and I can’t just slap another two identical sticks in the spare sockets and call it a day without risking a hit to performance and/or stability, but not before pulling the trigger on the purchase (another $300), which I’m just going to have to turn around and return.
What I also failed to realize is that my 850W PSU would be the bare minimum for an RTX 5080 and would need a 12V-2×6 (16-pin) connector instead of the triple 8-pin connectors I’m using now for the RTX 3080… Yes, I could just use the adapter that comes with the GPU, but if I was already spending $1,500 on a GPU, what’s another $200 for some peace of mind… I ended up purchasing another Corsair RM1000x ATX 3.1 (1000W), which should give the card plenty of headroom.
At this point, I started thinking about what it would cost to just go ahead and upgrade the motherboard, RAM, and CPU as well… if I were to go that route, and that’s a BIG if, I’d be looking at…
- $200 for a new Z890 Motherboard
- $370 for an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K Processor
- $750+ for 64GB of DDR5 6000 RAM
~$1,320 + Tax…
What about the CPU AIO Cooler? I have an old Corsair iCUE 100i Elite Cappelix – it fits on an LGA1700, and should fit on an LGA1851, but if it doesn’t, that could be an issue! I’d be looking at another $200 to replace it…
Is it worth it? Probably not… I think I’ll hold out until 2028, when the chip/GPU shortage calms down. If it calms down…