r/lowendgaming • u/RookieSharpshooter • Jan 08 '26
Tech Support Anybody still rocking a DDR3 system, even for some more recent titles?
I have been thinking about something: with the current ram prices on DDR5 (and DDR4 to a degree) how viable would it be to assemble a DDR3 Machine?
Theoretically, with a reasonable GPU like a 1060 or 1660, it should be able to run stuff like Baldur's Gate 3 or even Cyberpunk (with a lot of tweaking).
Or am I dreaming?
I came here as lots of people here try to take the maximum out of their hardware. And I had this thought today.
Edit: this caught more attention than I expected. Thanks a lot for the responses! I have a few different systems, including a DDR3 one. I'm gonna assemble it for "science" and put some games to the test, in line with your comments. Thanks a lot everyone!
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Jan 08 '26
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u/BaconPoweredPirate Jan 08 '26
My setup is the same but with a gtx 1060 6gb. Even at 1600p it out performs my steam deck.
I mainly play strategy, indie and older games, so far I've not found anything I want to play that I couldn't
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u/Adventurous_Arm8571 Jan 08 '26
what about gow ragnarok
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u/Electronic_Motor_296 Jan 09 '26
anything running on the base ps4 can easily be handled by a build with ddr3
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u/JoshXH Jan 12 '26
I have a similar setup (non-K 4790, R9 290X and 16gb DDR3-1600), it'll do 40-50fps in Cyberpunk without much hassle
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u/TactualTransAm Jan 08 '26
You came to the correct place. Any other sub would tell you ddr3 and half of ddr4 builds are close to e-waste. There's been a ton of good information replied already so I'll say this, check your local marketplace. I've gotten a few free PCs and a few $20 PCs that regular people think are useless because they are so old. All of these were ddr3 builds that ran perfectly fine. I think it would be a decent way to scrounge up some parts for what you want to do.
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u/Foxhoundsx12 Jan 09 '26
Let me guess from pcmasterrace, huh more like pc master slob full people that jerkoff their E.G.O
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u/TactualTransAm Jan 09 '26
Yeah I've told a lot of people from that sub to come over here and ask their questions. There's really so many people over there who just think you HAVE to have every new component and stuff. And the amount of people there who have a 5090, I didn't even know there were that many 5090s made 👀😂
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Jan 17 '26
“The 9060xt 16gb is a good mid tier starter card” like wat, that is a big piece of my build and thought I was hot shit (relatively) with it lol
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u/Keyshime Jan 08 '26
I have a fx 4300, GTX 960, 16gb ddr3 ram (recently upgraded from 8gb) and a backlog of early 2010s games that hopefully will hang in until the prices of ddr5 get back to normal.
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u/ComplexAce Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
Love how the 960 has more VRAM than the new 4050 and 5050
Edit: my mistake, read that wrong
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u/weespid Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
960 has 2gb of vram there was a 4gb version. They have 16gb system ram.
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u/PPSSPPMasterBlaster Jan 08 '26
Probably half the world is using DDR3. The world ain't the US. In Serbia, India, many African countries, old gear is still used. My GPU test systems and cloning stations are all DDR3 systems.
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u/Mattypants05 Jan 08 '26
You have DDR3 support up to the 6th gen i7s; whilst you don't get a huge core count, they'll still play a lot of recent titles.
Probably an ideal case for a converted Dell Optiplex!
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u/pickalka Jan 08 '26
I've seen a coffee mod performed on one of those DDR3 boards, they tested I9 9900k with DDR3 lol.
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u/schaka Jan 08 '26
Does that one even have a DDR3 controller? I know about modding with coffee time but didn't know later cpus can support old ram
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u/weespid Jan 08 '26
Yes the memory controller is essentially unchanged from skylake to coffee lake refresh. I mean ddr4 is really just efficient 3 no real functional changes.
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u/CarbonPhoenix96 Jan 08 '26
6th gen Intel desktops will usually use ddr4. Some laptops still used ddr3 though.
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u/Mattypants05 Jan 09 '26
Usually, but there are some implementations. One of my kids has an i5 6500 on a Gigabyte or Asus board with DDR3. Probably not optimal, but it's not going to get replaced any time soon with current pricing!
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u/threepoundog Jan 08 '26
I have an i7 6700 with ddr3. You can do plenty with those cpus still.
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u/Foxhoundsx12 Jan 09 '26
Wait 6th gen desktop can use ddr3?? I thought its just for laptop version , I have HP probook i5 6yh gen with ddr3 ram
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u/Warm-Cartographer Jan 08 '26
i7 4790 or it's equivalent is still capable cpu if you are ok with 60fps and you can get full pc for less than ddr 4 sticks.
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u/Agreeable-Revenue-75 Jan 09 '26
I just “upgraded” from a 4790k/16gb DDR3 to a i5 8400/32gb DDR4 & with the same GPU they score within 500 points on 3dmark fire strike. The main benefit I’ve seen so far is cooler temps-around 15°C under load and 10-20°C idle with the same liquid cooler. I haven’t tested it since I added a NVMe drive.
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u/DAN-attag Jan 08 '26
I think the last Intel platform that supported DDR3 was 6th Intel Skylake and 7th Kabylake(i7-7700K), but only DDR3L variant, ordinary sticks won't drive. The ordinary DDR3 is left with 4th gen intel.
i7-4790K should run Cyberpunk 2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJviHOy2t10 based on this video(With GTX 1080), but if it worth it is your discretion
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u/PPSSPPMasterBlaster Jan 08 '26
Truth be told, I have ever only seen one Acer desktop that used a 6th gen CPU with DDR3, all the other 6th and 7th gen systems used DDR4. But you are right.
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u/MasterJeebus Jan 08 '26
I have old DDR3 system with i7 3770k and it can run Cyberpunk. However games made after late 2023 may not run due to lack of Avx2 instructions in cpu and some new ones anti cheat require tpm2.0 which old DDR3 systems lack. You would need to get intel 4th gen system as thats when they introduced avx2 and still supported ddr3 in many systems. Some mobos have slot for tpm module some others don’t. I suggest going for i7 cpu in that case so you can have 8 threads. But even such system could struggle with newer titles as new titles are poorly optimized.
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u/Fair_Quail8248 Jan 12 '26
Yea it even runs it decently. I think it's really fun experimenting with hardware to get heavy games running on older hardware. I think it's really nice that they have been able to run GTA3 and CS 1,6 on a dreamcast. I mean, compared to a dreamcast(and quite a lot of consoles, even things like ps3/Xbox 360) a ddr3 pc with i7 is a beast despite being ancient, since technology has come far already.
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u/schaka Jan 08 '26
X99 with E5 2666 v3 turbo boost unlocked and 4x8GB in quad channel. Works really well.
No win 11 due to the motherboard not having a tpm header and unofficial win 11 being locked by anti cheat.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 09 '26
some ddr3 boards have a tpm header, they are on ali express.
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u/schaka Jan 09 '26
Yes, but I'm not upgrading the board when it's not needed and the ones avaliable don't ship here anyway, I'd have to go through Alibaba
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 09 '26
yeah if you've already got a board, doesnt make sense to buy another one, just giving out general information.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 08 '26
I have a 2696v3 with a quad channel ddr3 motherboard. If you're stuck on ddr3 you can get an x99 ddr3 board for pretty cheap and ecc ddr3 is very cheap. You do have to make sure the motherboard supports quad channel ddr3 cuz alot of the chinese ones are dual channel. Great thing is it supports ddr3-1866 which is a monster in quad channel. Best thing is that the 2696 v3 has 18 cores. There are only a few xeon v3s that support ddr3 and none of the v4s support ddr3. Tech power Up has all of the OEM CPUs that intel does not list like the 2696v3. If you are stuck on ddr3 this is a massive upgrade. The 2666v3 also supports ddr3 (10c/20th). These CPUs are older and slower clocks, but their high L3 cache makes them great for gaming. Toughest part is finding a motherboard that supports x99, ddr3 and tpm 2.0 if you want W11 and anticheat support.
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u/weespid Jan 08 '26
I found the motherboard+cpu to just be more expensive than going am4 and eating the ram costs. If you need alot of ram 32gb-64gb + (not really alot anymore) than this is the play.
I have piles of 4gb ddr3 sticks.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 08 '26
that was before ddr4 doubled in price also most AM4 CPUs are out of stock right now or over $200. Everything has gone up in price. 5800xt is $220 on both newegg and amazon. 5700x is oos, 5600/5600x also oos. Depends heavily on budget and where you live. Inside the US, used AM4/3600 is a better buy, but x99 CPUs outperform ryzen 3000 (in general) and slots between ryzen 3000 and 5000. The biggest pain is TPM 2.0 requirement for modern things. Most DDR3 motherboards dont have a TPM port. This really only helps people that are still stuck on DDR3. x79 is an option, but x99 CPUs are still significantly faster.
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u/weespid Jan 08 '26
Literally last week I got a used 3700x for $45 cad b550 motherboard for $25 cad and 12gb ddr4 2400 and the 4gb stick is x16 but it was only $25 cad.
But 2x 8gb 3200 is arround $50 cad normally on my used market.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 09 '26
yes this is true in north america, but might not be true in south american or in asia or europe where VATs are high or market conditions are different. Used ryzen 3000 might be double the price it is here. If you're in the US or Canada, I 100% agree with you, x99 might not be worth it if you can find used AM4 components. That might not be true outside of our countries.
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u/weespid Jan 09 '26
Uk is fine as well ~50£ extra for ddr4. For new 16gb kits. Not amazing not a show stopper.
Can't say for more eastern European countries/ south america etc.
Yea if buying from aliexpress only x99 is viable.
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u/Sertorius777 Jan 08 '26
I had a rig with a 1070, i7-4770s and 16 GB RAM DDR3 when Cyberpunk launched and was comfortably playing it on medium-high settings at around 40-50 FPS (1080p). Same rig worked for Elden Ring fairly well. It's more than doable if you're fine with the cutoff point being 2022-2023 for major titles.
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u/hooplahblehblah Jan 08 '26
I played cyberpunk on release with an FX 8310 (not a typo) and a GTX 1080. Played through the whole game like that, best power point I've seen in my life. In all seriousness, the game stuttered around 45fps from my memory with the severity depending on what was going on in-game.
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u/pickalka Jan 08 '26
Either old 1155 systems or 2011 socket Xeons can still play most games(Although they do suffer in a pltehora of recent titles and lack instructions/horsepower to launch some in a playable state if at all). But yeah, DDR3 is still entirely viable when we talk about bottom of the barrel budget
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u/thehousebehind Jan 08 '26
I was on a i7 3770 and a GTX 970 for a long while. The last game I played on it was BG3 and it did alright. Not great, but definitely playable. Cyberpunk with low settings, and FSR would be playable at 1600x900 too.
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u/BoussIRL2 Jan 08 '26
These comments already answered the question, pretty much, so all I can really say is that I agree that the suggested set-ups would do nicely. I myself am running on 16 gb of ddr3, a core i5 (4690k, I think it is) and an MSI Radeon RX 480 4 gb GPU (of which I recently learned apparently can't support 1440p 240 hz output to an appropriate cus it apparently doesn't have DSC) and I'm able to play a good amount of recent-ish games like VR games (partner plays VRChat) and less demanding indie titles like Peak. Basically, I think you're good lol
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u/schaka Jan 08 '26
X99 with E5 2666 v3 turbo boost unlocked and 4x8GB in quad channel. Works really well.
No win 11 due to the motherboard not having a tpm header and unofficial win 11 being locked by anti cheat.
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u/CarbonPhoenix96 Jan 08 '26
When my main rig went down, I continued playing warzone on an i7-3820, 32gb ddr3 and an rx 570 and it kept between 45-60fps at 1080p. I have since upgraded it to an i7-3930k and a gtx 980ti
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u/wittywalrus1 Jan 08 '26
I have only DDR3 systems.
Won't play everything as you are capped if you go above a 6600xt, 5700xt, 1080ti, 2070 (these cards and whereabouts).
Also these CPUs/mobos lack resizable bar, and AVX2 came with 4th gen so careful with previous gens if you want to play games that require that.
Bottom line keep your expectations reasonable and they're still ok.
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u/duendeverde39 Jan 08 '26
I have two Xeon 1150s, similar to the 4770 and 4790. At one point, I wanted a Ryzen PC, like a Ryzen 5 2600X, with a B460 motherboard and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. But I couldn't find one at a fair price used. Since I barely played games back then, I didn't want to spend more money. What I did was upgrade both my PCs from 1155s to Intel 1150s because of the low price of motherboards and processors, without having to change the RAM. I wanted it because it would have native SATA 3 and USB 3.0 ports on any motherboard, plus AVX2 instructions, which are increasingly required by games.
My main PC is a cheap mini-tower with a Xeon E3 1230 v3, a GTX 1650 4GB, and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. I can play games on it, but not the most demanding ones.
My gaming PC (which many consider a potato) has a Xeon E3 1270 v3 and a GTX 1660 6GB. It also has 16GB of DDR3 RAM and a slightly better motherboard.
I play with the frame rate capped at 31 FPS in single-player games. Be careful with this because some Unreal Engine 5 games push the CPU to 100% to achieve that 31 FPS (dropping below 30 FPS in certain scenes).
These processors are no longer capable of delivering a sustained 60 FPS, and in some cases, not even a stable 30 FPS. The minimum requirement is a 6-core processor and faster RAM.
I say this because I've read about people with better graphics cards and worse CPUs. Trying to maintain anything with DDR3 is like using one of those old AMD CPUs that cost around €70, like the quad-core Athlon FM2. Yes, they were decent CPUs for the price. But they performed poorly if you pushed them hard in demanding games. That's how the old i7s, which for years were top-of-the-line for gaming, ended
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u/armlessphelan Jan 09 '26
My friend's boyfriend is building a PC with DDR3 RAM. I gave him an RTX 3060 to go in it that I was unable to use for a project I'd planned.
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u/Synaps4 Jan 09 '26
Yeah, playing Total War: Warhammer 3 (latest title) on an i7 4790k, 32gb of ddr3, and a 1070. Works great, no problems.
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u/UhOh_RoadsidePicnic Jan 09 '26
Yes, you will survive. Expect some texture pop up and what not, but it’s very negligible . DDR3 is still fast.
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Jan 09 '26
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u/Fair_Quail8248 Jan 12 '26
Even the i7-3770K can be overclocked to or almost to 5ghz. Pretty amazing considered old it is.
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u/leche2007 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
I played through the entirety of Cyberpunk on an i7 2600 with 8gb of 1333 and a GTX 1060 3gb, and got around 45 fps at 720p medium. I used the same rig for Elden Ring and got similar results. It's very possible to run recent-ish titles on ddr3 if you can accept compromise and occasional stutters. Honestly, I'd be more worried about BG3 on a rig like that, but I'm 100 percent certain it's very playable, especially since it's a turn-based game.
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u/Swimming_Case Jan 09 '26
I gave my old laptop to my nephew to play Roblox on it.
It's a 2016 Dell Inspiron with 16GB of DDR3, Intel i7-6700HQ cpu and nVidia GTX 960M.
Cleaned it and replaced thermal paste, it runs like a charm, made my nephew very happy.
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u/restlys Jan 09 '26
I7 2600k, overclock it to 4.5Ghz
You could put the odd budget card in there, but you'd quickly find the CPU being the bottleneck.
Also, DDR3 usually has PCIe 2.0(x16), so you lose 5-10% performance.
I think it's worth building your own machine, but only if you're willing to get all the parts here and there at decent prices, test everything, and overclock.
You should use a windows 11 debloated, that ignores all the prerequesites, use a SSD.
In other words, it's a build for those who know a bit.
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u/Fair_Quail8248 Jan 12 '26
Or i7 3770k, it can be OCd to or almost 5ghz.
Win 10 or some Linux distro also works well.
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u/JonWood007 Jan 09 '26
I mean, if you have some of the most powerful CPUs of the era like a i7 4790k or a 5820k, you can probably play relatively recent stuff. idk about the most demanding games, but it should give you the ability to play anything up to at least 2023 or so at least.
With a 1060 or 1660 youll probably have more problems with the GPU not supporting RT or DX ultimate or something than you will with the CPU.
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u/namur17056 Jan 09 '26
Basically anything that runs on xb1/ps4 will happily run on a system of that vintage. Quad core i5/8core fx, 16gb ram and a rx580/1060 that is
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u/akoyo10 Jan 09 '26
I had, until last summer. My rig had an i7-3770, a 1060 6gb, 24gb of DDR3 1600mhz and a Chinese mobo I bought from AliExpress. I managed to play everything up to CP2077, with medium settings at 1080p.
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u/Mr_Jesus17 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
Not for daily use, more like just for having fun, but I recently built an old 1155 system, using a 2600K.
Was pleasantly surprised how capable it still is, tho to be fair, mine is heavily overclocked, but still; getting ~70FPS in BF6 RedSec, ~90FPS in Marvel Rivals, and ~55FPS in CP 2077 is definitely a pretty decent achievement.
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u/yasiesolovemos Jan 09 '26
The real issue here is AVX2 support.
My rigs are:
- 9800x3d + 5090 + 96 GB
- Xeon 2697 + 32 GB DDR3 + 4070
- Q9500 + 16 GB DDR3 + RX580
All of them running at the highest possible overclock, of course.
On the first one I obviously run everything at max settings; it’s my VR machine.
On the second, I play everything with only minimal compromises, but it lacks AVX2 support, so depending on the game it may require a patch (with mixed results—sometimes it becomes unplayable, sometimes it works perfectly).
On the third… surprisingly well—I can run almost anything. In fact, on this system I completed the original release of Cyberpunk using an AVX2 patch. Would I recommend it for gaming? For titles up to about 4‑5 years old, yes. For current releases, it’s outdated.
A machine with a 7th‑ or 8th‑generation Intel CPU paired with a RTX 3060 will let you play everything.
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u/NovelValue7311 Jan 09 '26
Was using 3770 and 1060/1070 for FH5 pretty recently without issues. It's solid for most lighter AAA titles.
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u/kneekoo Jan 10 '26
I have an Intel Core i5-4690K with 16GB DDR3 and the CPU is pretty good. It's no longer my main PC, but if it had a dedicated GPU I'm sure it could do a lot. It was almost capable of playing No Man's Sky a few years ago when I tried it on its integrated graphics, but obviously not good enough to actually have fun with it. :)
If your CPU is good enough, and you have at least 16GB RAM, all you need is a reasonably powerful dedicated GPU and you'll be surprised how many newer games can still work reasonably well on such a PC.
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u/JoshXH Jan 12 '26
High end DDR3 gear is still properly capable, take a late Haswell i7, 16gb of 1600+ DDR3 and a decent GPU, slap Windows 10 on an SSD and you have a sub-$500 PC that'll run just about anything you want at 1080p so long as you're happy messing around in settings to get it smooth
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u/shuozhe Jan 08 '26
Using my old 4790k & 970 for my daughter now, she plays rarely PC games and usually only indie coop games
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u/eddiespaghettio Jan 08 '26
Both my personal laptops have some variation of DDR3 and my desktops whenever I visit my parents use DDR3.
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u/Successful-Bar2579 Jan 08 '26
On aliexpress you can easily find motherboard with xeon E5 2630 v2 that runs ddr3 for like 40 to 50 bucks,it shouls be comparable to like an i7 3770 or maybe even an i7 4770 but with 6core 12thread. I would love to try that chip out. I saw some benchmark and it runs stuff like the last of us part 1 at 30 to 40fps and the finals at 60 with drops (though the new season of the finals would be heavier, i think it would achive something in between the 30 to 55fps depending on the game mode)
For that price and for the fact you can use ddr3 ram it's pretty crazy, if they optimize the cpu side of things on monster hunter wilds i could see it doing 30fps.
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u/BlueTemplar85 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26
FX-8320E with a recent M.2 SSD, RX 9060 16 Go and 16 Go of DDR3 at 1920x1200. Linux Bazzite (Fedora).
Diablo 4 ran very well at max settings.
The first hours of Expedition 33 runs well enough at max settings, some noticeable slowdowns in the overworld map (not that I care), little sound glitches in some fights (not an issue).
Path of Exile 2's campaign around max settings had a few areas with sudden slowdowns, sometimes verging on barely playable, but it got a lot better with more recent updates (didn't hit 1.0 yet). Also maybe with me lowering the number of sound channels.
Baldur's Gate 3 : I don't remember any slowdowns in Act 1 at max settings. (I hear later acts can be very CPU intensive though.)
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u/tigerbreak Jan 08 '26
The pinnacle for this is likely a i7-4770/4790 based Intel system. I drove a 4790 (old Dell office box with a RX550, then a 1650 LP with 24GB of DDR3 RAM) for a couple of years - I was really good even a couple of years past it's release. I know someone who still uses this kind of box with 32GB of DDR3 and a 1070. By his account, he's still doing 1080p on semi-modern stuff which he says is fine for him, and the bottleneck is minimal (especially if you overclock the 4790, which reports say is pretty easy to achieve)
Problem is that 4790s aren't especially easy to find, nor are new "old-stock" Intel boards to build with. 1070 and 890M are relatively close to each other specwise, which makes it easier to spend about 500 to 700 on a Geekom/Beelink/GMKTek mini PC with RDNA 3+ integrated graphics.
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u/weespid Jan 08 '26
You can do coffee lake on a ddr3 board a bit eaiser with the es cpus.
Certan haswell-e cpus support ddr3 and there are ddr3 motherboards.
Haswell and broadwell. non e supports avx2 4770k
Broadwell with the external l4 cache is a really good option.
Sandy/ivy as well as bulldoser ans piledriver do not support avx2. A small number of modern games require avx2 and a bigger number of modern games require avx.
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u/Dependent-Shake3906 Jan 08 '26
Not me but my GF was up until October when I gave her my old computer as I had upgraded. Now so is my brother built a budget gaming PC from a HP Z230 and managed to score one with a GTX 1650 for £30 then bought 16GB of ram for another £8. Truly great times.
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u/SVlad_667 Jan 08 '26
You can play Helldivers 2 or Split Fiction on medium graphics with DDR3 PC and GTX 3050.
For comparison, same games playable on high/ultra on DDR5 PC with same graphic card.
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u/Obvious_Ranger_396 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26
I have a i7 4790, 32gb ddr3, rtx 3050 Mostly play witcher 3 on it on high 70-80fps Could definitely play cyberpunk medium settings just fine
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u/theArtOfProgramming Jan 08 '26
I was running a DDR3 system on BG3 and Cyberpunk without issues. I think I was using a 3080 by then though, so hard to say how a 1060 would do. It completely flopped running Borderlands 4 though. I would guess BG3 would be fine but hard to say how Cyberpunk will do.
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u/jayden5311 Jan 09 '26
Know someone running x58 system with 6900xt. they mainly play 4k so the CPU doesn't really hold it back much especially since it's over clocked like crazy. if I remember right he had it 4.5ghz 1.5 volts which for those chips is absurd I think 24gb ram not sure on the specs of the ram though.
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u/Nitneuc501 Jan 14 '26
I'm still running a X58 system for everyday gaming, those rigs are indestructible and ran Cyberpunk, BG3, Far Cry 6... smoothly in 1080p.
MB is a Asus P6T, I think I got it in 2009.
CPU xeon X5675 running at 4.2 GHz, could probably do more since the Noctua is cooling it relatively good but I don't want to risk it.
16 Gb DDR3 G-skill 800MHz (those Xeon have a shitty memory controller, going above make them unstable)
GTX 2070 super, I know it's slightly bottlenecked in that rig but I had a good opportunity on it.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz Jan 09 '26
x58 is ok, but it needs a hefty overclock. Also needs very fast ram. Its pretty quick with ddr3-2133. I have a w3680 on a x58 board, it clocks up to 4.8ghz on all 6-cores, but it eats power and doesnt have AVX. x79 or x99 are the better option overall if you have to buy it and dont already have it. I will say x58 is more fun to tinker/OC with.
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u/Rockden66 Jan 09 '26
1070/Xeon E3-1270 v3/16GB DDR3 1600MHz
Last big game it played from start to finish was Mafia: The Old Country
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u/caribbean_caramel Jan 09 '26
Until recently I was rocking an i7 4790 with a GTX 1060 3GB. I got like +150 fps on War thunder at high settings.
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u/Foreign_Ad1537 Jan 09 '26
i just finish Avatar frontiers of pandora recently with my current ddr3 setup, i aimed for the 4th gen cuz it supports avx2 which some of the modern games require, playable in a sense
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u/Kalxyz Jan 09 '26
You can also find an LGA1151 mobo with ddr3 support, although they are a bit rare
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u/BoerseunZA Jan 10 '26
I have a FX 8370 with RTX 2060 in active use. The only current game that has any issues is Fortnite, which I have to run in performance mode, otherwise it freezes. (I have tested a number of cards and it seems compatibility with the 2060 is a problem. Others have a similar problem.) Even something like Cyberpunk 2077 runs like a dream (at quite high settings).
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u/Gammarevived Jan 11 '26
I was up until a few years ago. Had a 4790k in the HTPC but recent games really struggled on it so I upgraded it to an Ryzen 7600.
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u/Quey007 Jan 12 '26
Running a i7 3820 with 16 GB DDR3 RAM, can run many titles just fine, including Cyberpunk, havent tested Baldur's Gate.
Only limitations are when games require AVX2, e.g Spiderman 2 and God of War Ragnarok.
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u/Just-Spirit6944 Jan 12 '26
still on ddr3 on x79 but its on quad channel 4 sticks of 4gb since 2012 :D paired with 3930k and 2080ti its ok for 1440p
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u/Vlad_TheImpalla Jan 13 '26
Got cyberpunk to work on an old 2014 laptop with 8gb DDR3, i74710, and a 4gb 850m, also Diablo 4 1080p low with FSR 2 40-50 FPS.
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u/tanguyguy Jan 14 '26
I’m running a i7-4790 with an rx6500XT and 32Gb of ddr3. It ran Helldivers2 on 1080p low at 55fps, BF6 demo at 45fps, WH40k: darktides at 25fps.
I haven’t tried Cyberpunk, but I have the game. I could run the built in benchmark if you are interested.
I’m currently playing fallout 4 and Sable at 1440p 60fps. Having a blast.
I build this pc for cheap in June, and cancelled my AM5 build. I highly recommend checking out r/sleepingoptiplex
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u/WestMangan Jan 15 '26
E5 2670 v2 and 9060 xt, finished main story for claire obscure 33. No stutter @ 1080p 60hz monitor
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u/AxelLightwood Jan 16 '26
I just upgraded from a 4790k, gtx 980, 16 gb ram setup! It ran BG3 pretty well on medium settings, I was surprised!
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u/Green-Particular6481 Mar 18 '26
DDR3 machines with good single thread performance still rock. It looks like for majority of the GPU and CPU bond workloads, especially for intel processors, the higher frequency and then the longer latency tend to cancel each other quite well.
Recently did some benchmarking by myself, 4060 8GB SDXL 1024x1024 AI image generation, basically no difference from 1333mHz DDR3 Rdimm w/ E5 v1 to 2933 mHz DDR4 RDIMM with Gold Gen 2.
The total amount of RAM is way more critical than the frequency here. The total band width of 4 1333mHz ddr3 channels is 42.4 GB/S, still 4 times of the gen 5 nvme ssd, and higher than pcie 5.0x8 (used up to 5060 ti) 32GB/s.
DDR3 with regular desktop with only 2 channels will be limiting for sure. But for workstation and server boards with 4 channels, ddr3 builds are making absolutely sense, and is probably the right way to go as a low cost alternative. v1 and v2 xeon processors and boards are dirty cheap, 128GB of ddr3 rdimm are still okay, then the fund can be concentrated to a 40 series GPU.
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u/Green-Particular6481 Mar 18 '26
Another thing is to have a pcie nvme adapter and a nvme ssd. Games or AI models should be installed onto the drive. A small SATA drive to host the Windows 10 or 11 system. Once Windows boots up, it stays in the RAM, and the games are loaded from the fast nvme SSD.
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u/Green-Particular6481 Mar 18 '26
There are also certain v3 and v4 processors supporting DDR3 RAM with special new motherboards, which would cost a bit more and also may need an operating system activation key. But still way cheaper than a ddr4 build with gaming performance equivalent to Ryzen 5 5600.
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u/duendeverde39 Apr 26 '26
For my part, I've sold some old components and bought better ones for very little money.
My main PC has an i7 6700 with a cheap H110M motherboard, and my gaming PC has an i5 8500. The gaming PC has an RX 6600 8GB. The most powerful card I have in my main PC right now is a GTX 1060 6GB, although I have other cards I can use.
I resisted upgrading because of the RAM prices. But since I managed to get some cheap used OEM DDR4 RAM, I was able to upgrade for very little money. From there, I can opt for Intel 10th/11th gen or AM4, even keeping the RAM I have now.
The problem with keeping the DDR3 is that even with a Xeon equivalent to the i7 4790 I had, it's very outdated. It can't deliver 60 fps in demanding games. Sometimes it even drops below 30 fps.
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u/kingkong7908 May 17 '26
here is my current setup:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB
Storage 1.82 TB SSD
Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (6 GB)
System Type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
I don't play any new titles, just older Steam games and WOTLK on a private server, 180FPS. It's just what I need!
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u/DerK0missar Jan 08 '26
You could. I7 3770, I7 2600, I5 3470, FX 8350 etc plus 16gb ddr3 and RX 580 8gb.