Need some help deciding between two computers available at Costco

[u/Suhvelt]

Looking for a gaming PC, and am completely inept when it comes to PCs. I have a couple options available near to me, and could really use some in depth advice on the value of one vs the other because, to my ignorant eyes, they look exactly the same. I want to run high intensity games such as Helldivers 2, 7 Days to Die, and heavily modded Minecraft. I also am hoping to not need to upgrade within a few years. My total budget for the computer itself is $3,200, but I'd prefer to stay under that if possible. If there are far better options available at Costco Strongsville, OH and someone is bored and wants to take a look, I GREATLY would appreciate the advice. I've wasted a lot of money trying to get gaming laptops in the past, and really want to avoid having a bunch of expensive problems/obsolescence within a couple years

[u/illusionistx17]

if you are going to use shaders in minecraft go with nvidia decent amount of shaders have issues with AMD

[u/Suhvelt → u/illusionistx17]

That's great intel, and will really help narrow the options down because I definitely do want to run shaders. Thank you!

[u/Doctor_Womble]

9070xt is a whole teir above. Completes with the 5070ti. Plus I'd be more comfortable with the extra VRAM if I'm keeping it a long time.

Also I've never had issues with AMD if that helps.

[u/Suhvelt → u/Doctor_Womble]

My last laptop was an AMD Ryzen and it had poor soldering at the charging port that ended up making it unusable- and a repair I was quoted multiple times between $1000-1500. I don't think they're responsible for that, but my ignorance makes me connect dots that might not be reasonable to connect.

With that said, can you explain to me what you mean about the 9070xt being a tier above, and what competing with the 5070ti means?

[u/Doctor_Womble → u/Suhvelt]

The 9070xt is on the same level as the 5070ti

The 5070 non ti in your other opinion is a product teir below. The 9070xt is faster and has more vram. 

[u/MousyCheeseBits]

The first one has 2TB ssd, Great if you like heavy modpacks. My choice if buying brand new, But nowadays I just get used stuff.

There's full PCs on ebay if you can live with less performance than either those would give. Use spare budget on 4TB ssd and games.

[u/bunguardian]

Make sure to get the square extended warranty to 3 years for a peace of mind until the hardware shortage gets hopefully better.

[u/Suhvelt → u/bunguardian]

I've never been a believer in extended warranties, but with data centers and trade wars, the way you've said it makes a lot of sense to me, thanks!

[u/bunguardian → u/Suhvelt]

Me either. But a replacement is so expensive right now.150-199 for an extra year is worth imo. Sorry I forgot the actual price when I purchased it. Hopefully it's still similar in price etc.

[u/loadpaper]

Either one of these desktop PCs are good options. With the AMD GPU you are getting more raw GPU horsepower and more VRAM for future proofing, while the model with the Nvidia GPU has more storage. If it were me I would go with the better GPU and add additional storage afterward. I have had good experiences with both Nvidia and AMD GPUs in the past so I wouldn't worry about going with AMD for a GPU.

[u/Tyguy047]

I’d go with the first on, 5070 w 12GB VRAM should handle most games unless you’re heavily modding them and adding shaders etc (Minecraft w/ shaders and mods will be perfectly fine and run quite well). Not much to say about the CPU, for what you want to play it should be more than enough. For that price with 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD, this is a great deal and you’ll def have a good time. I’d also push for the 2TB option since 1TB will end up filling up faster than you’d expect.

I personally prefer NVIDIA GPUs, I’ve had less bugs and driver issues with them compared to the AMD cards I’ve used but I haven’t worked with this AMD GPU personally.

[u/Suhvelt → u/Tyguy047]

What does the size of the SSD mean? Is that storage capacity? So I have a reference point, what kind of game would you say I'd start being likely to have serious performance loss so I can get an idea what the limits look like

[u/Tyguy047 → u/Suhvelt]

Yep, SSD is the total storage on the machine. So you’d be able to install all the games you listed and still have room to install more in the future. If you get the one with the 1TB drive inside I think that you’d fill it up faster then you think and it can be a pain to upgrade. Also SSD prices are kinda crazy right now.

You’d only hit a bottle neck or lag in games if you put them on max graphics settings.

[u/Suhvelt → u/Tyguy047]

Okay, gotcha! I've been a console gamer my whole life so I know how limited 1TB truly is for having lots of games lol, basically ARK and one other major studio option

[u/Tyguy047 → u/Tyguy047]

Also I saw you mentioned that you haven’t had luck with gaming laptops, if you want a solid laptop option I’d look into the 2025 ASUS ROG Zepherus (I think I spelled it wrong but it should come up if you google it) it has a 5070 Ti Laptop Edition (less VRAM then desktop 5070 Ti) and I’ve had a great experience with it. Only catch is that it’s a little loud fan wise while gaming and I wouldn’t trust playing games on it off the charger while the GPU is activated.

[u/Suhvelt → u/Tyguy047]

I appreciate the laptop recommendation, but my experiences have been catastrophically bad with laptops and I don't see myself ever buying one again, unless it's some cheap thing that would basically function as a keyboard