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[ChoosableOne]

His current 1660super has 125W tdp, 16gigs 9060xt has 160W tdp, 16gigs 5060ti has 180W tdp(suggested psu 450W), so he will be still fine even when he upgrades to r5 5600 from his current r5 2600 in the future, thats 65W cpu xD

https://www.msi.com/blog/recommended-psu-table

MSI recommends 550 watts for a 3060(or anything better than it) + R5 combo on their website, but they might be exaggerating.

 

[cHinzo]

Ray Tracing is just tough on a budget GPU. I managed to snatch a 3070 RTX during covid and I was disappointed in the performance when playing Cyberpunk with Ray Tracing, combined with an i7 6700 which is also an old CPU.

The 4060/5060 has comparable performance to that card, so I wouldn't expect too much of it.

I know I ditched the 3070 quite soon, because I hit on a 3080 FE. My fps doubled when going from a 6700 to a modern 13700K CPU.

I would say, look at the used GPU market to get more bang for ur buck instead of buying brand new and settle with worse performance.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

I'm confused too, OP. This ram fomo really gets to you, doesn't it?

I hope it doesn´t catch me before making the purchase.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

Ray Tracing is just tough on a budget GPU. I managed to snatch a 3070 RTX during covid and I was disappointed in the performance when playing Cyberpunk with Ray Tracing, combined with an i7 6700 which is also an old CPU.

The 4060/5060 has comparable performance to that card, so I wouldn't expect too much of it.

I know I ditched the 3070 quite soon, because I hit on a 3080 FE. My fps doubled when going from a 6700 to a modern 13700K CPU.

I would say, look at the used GPU market to get more bang for ur buck instead of buying brand new and settle with worse performance.

Yes, i saw a used RTX 4060 TI 16 GB on a decent price. That could be a very viable option.

 

[icecold1983]

Just play on your PS5 TBH.

 

[MMaRsu]

Medium and low presets for many games, amazing. And many of them are MP, only SP games present issues with VRAM (most people play MP on low anyway). OP can just play on his current GPU in low settings and with 720p + FSR3...

OP wants to experience much better quality than he have now, including Ray Tracing. And for that he needs GPU with enough memory to handle it (not just raw power, 3070 has is but it shits itself when game goes out of memory). No one wants to play with shit textures, and for many games going to medium or low ruins their quality.

And all this "it worked on my machine" when I present shit ton of tests and graphs that show how demanding current games are? Yeah...

All you've shown is how the games perform on ultra.... Lmao

Dude is on a budget but w/e we talking in circles

 

[Bojji]

All you've shown is how the games perform on ultra.... Lmao

Dude is on a budget but w/e we talking in circles

He will be able to play with many settings on ultra if he buys GPU with enough memory (I posted MANY tests that confirmed it), he talks about being able to buy 9060XT 16GB or even 5060TI 16GB with his budget and yet you recommend him GPU that is worse in all aspects. With his "new" GPU (recommended by you 3070) he would have to cut settings in many new games, not knowing if problems with performance he sees are GPU related, CPU related or VRAM related.

With something like 9060XT 16GB he will have decent GPU for at least next 3 years.

 

[MMaRsu]

He will be able to play with many settings on ultra if he buys GPU with enough memory (I posted MANY tests that confirmed it), he talks about being able to buy 9060XT 16GB or even 5060TI 16GB with his budget and yet you recommend him GPU that is worse in all aspects. With his "new" GPU (recommended by you 3070) he would have to cut settings in many new games, not knowing if problems with performance he sees are GPU related, CPU related or VRAM related.

With something like 9060XT 16GB he will have decent GPU for at least next 3 years.

Im not recommending it to him if he wants to buy a 16gb thats great, but its a fairy tale that a 8gb card is bad for a budget build.

 

[tkscz]

I know GAF isn't fond of used GPUs but a used 2080 Ti would be a good upgrade for $200 since it's just a stop gap for you

 

[PeteBull]

I know GAF isn't fond of used GPUs but a used 2080 Ti would be a good upgrade for $200 since it's just a stop gap for you

Not ez to find used 2080ti at that price and in good condition, bro, OP is from columbia too, so gotta account for that, and 2080ti launched in 2018 so over 7years ago, tons of those cards already either are hella degraded, got 3rd user or stopped working unfortunately.
Specs wise ofc its solid, over 220% perf increase vs op's 1660super, 11gigs of vram too, it perform around 8gigs 9060xt.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

Hi folks, dropped by just to let you know: i guess i took the responsible decision...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9LN5VZ6?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I made my head even a bigger mess during the last days, but finally, it´s undeniable 9060 XT it´s the most balanced option and the one with better value on Budget-Mid range.

This is gonna be my first AMD desktop GPU ever, so hope it´s worth it. Saw some videos and didn´t like too much the FSR artifacts on certain games, like Wukong (at least on the video i saw), but also there are games in which FSR 4 seems to make a prettt good job, almost indistinguishable from DLSS.

Also, i read somewhere that Half Life RTX can work better on a 9060 XT installing the FSR 3.1 port to Portal RTX, which can help a lot improving performance for HL 2 RTX. And, also you guys showed me that Quake 2 RTX runs on this one without major issue and i highly doubt the Super Mario 64 PC Recomp (Render 96) has any issue on running RT with this 9060 XT...i mean, there are videos of people activating RT on this port with a RTX 2060...so...

Now, once it ships and it´s installed, will sell the GTX 1660 Super and will buy a newer CPU with that. I was focused on the RYZEN 5 5600X, but what do you think about this?



Seems like the 9060 XT performs almost as good with a RYZEN 5 5500...Kinda unbelievable!





PD: It by any chance Amazon cancel the order, i´ll take it as a life´s advice and will go full Nvidia, as planned lol!

 

[Bojji]

Hi folks, dropped by just to let you know: i guess i took the responsible decision...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9LN5VZ6?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I made my head even a bigger mess during the last days, but finally, it´s undeniable 9060 XT it´s the most balanced option and the one with better value on Budget-Mid range.

This is gonna be my first AMD desktop GPU ever, so hope it´s worth it. Saw some videos and didn´t like too much the FSR artifacts on certain games, like Wukong (at least on the video i saw), but also there are games in which FSR 4 seems to make a prettt good job, almost indistinguishable from DLSS.

Also, i read somewhere that Half Life RTX can work better on a 9060 XT installing the FSR 3.1 port to Portal RTX, which can help a lot improving performance for HL 2 RTX. And, also you guys showed me that Quake 2 RTX runs on this one without major issue and i highly doubt the Super Mario 64 PC Recomp (Render 96) has any issue on running RT with this 9060 XT...i mean, there are videos of people activating RT on this port with a RTX 2060...so...

Now, once it ships and it´s installed, will sell the GTX 1660 Super and will buy a newer CPU with that. I was focused on the RYZEN 5 5600X, but what do you think about this?



Seems like the 9060 XT performs almost as good with a RYZEN 5 5500...Kinda unbelievable!





PD: It by any chance Amazon cancel the order, i´ll take it as a life´s advice and will go full Nvidia, as planned lol!

I think this is a very good choice, 16GB card should also retain value when you will be selling it few years from now.

Problem with 5500 is PCIE3 limit (irrelevant with your mobo) and limited cache compared to 5600 parts. I would suggest 5600 (non x) as the best middle ground but even that 5500 will be a big jump compared to your current CPU.

Oh and if you can, hunt for another 16GB of RAM - exact same brand and model as you currently have. I don't think many games actually are going above 16GB but there are cases like that.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

Im not recommending it to him if he wants to buy a 16gb thats great, but its a fairy tale that a 8gb card is bad for a budget build.

Also, gotta add i agree with this. I mean, yes 16 GB it´s the new standard, BUT for a budget build, 8 GB on 2025 are still valid, specially the GDDR7 of the 50 Series. Yes, you´re gonna have to make cutbacks, but still pretty decent. Too bad Nvidia didn´t went 12 GB with the 5060.

 

[cHinzo]

Hi folks, dropped by just to let you know: i guess i took the responsible decision...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9LN5VZ6?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I made my head even a bigger mess during the last days, but finally, it´s undeniable 9060 XT it´s the most balanced option and the one with better value on Budget-Mid range.

This is gonna be my first AMD desktop GPU ever, so hope it´s worth it. Saw some videos and didn´t like too much the FSR artifacts on certain games, like Wukong (at least on the video i saw), but also there are games in which FSR 4 seems to make a prettt good job, almost indistinguishable from DLSS.

Also, i read somewhere that Half Life RTX can work better on a 9060 XT installing the FSR 3.1 port to Portal RTX, which can help a lot improving performance for HL 2 RTX. And, also you guys showed me that Quake 2 RTX runs on this one without major issue and i highly doubt the Super Mario 64 PC Recomp (Render 96) has any issue on running RT with this 9060 XT...i mean, there are videos of people activating RT on this port with a RTX 2060...so...

Now, once it ships and it´s installed, will sell the GTX 1660 Super and will buy a newer CPU with that. I was focused on the RYZEN 5 5600X, but what do you think about this?



Seems like the 9060 XT performs almost as good with a RYZEN 5 5500...Kinda unbelievable!





PD: It by any chance Amazon cancel the order, i´ll take it as a life´s advice and will go full Nvidia, as planned lol!

Great choice! Price-quality wise u will get a lot plus it's a modern card. If only u could find a 5700X3D, then u would have the endgame setup with ur current rig.
The 5600 is preferred over the 5500 because of the extra L3 cache which should help out in games.

 

[StereoVsn]

Great choice! Price-quality wise u will get a lot plus it's a modern card. If only u could find a 5700X3D, then u would have the endgame setup with ur current rig.
The 5600 is preferred over the 5500 because of the extra L3 cache which should help out in games.

Yeah and price difference between 5500 and 5600 shouldn't be that much. I would prioritize CPU over more RAM as 16GB should be alright for now.

 

[Spyxos]

Pragmata Demo. Mix of high and medium settings already over 8gb on a 1080p resolution....

 

[StereoVsn]

Pragmata Demo. Mix of high and medium settings already over 8gb on a 1080p resolution....

That is nuts. Do developers actually look at Steam GPU surveys?

 

[PeteBull]

That is nuts. Do developers actually look at Steam GPU surveys?

The devs simply assume if some1 is rocking 8gigs vram gpu today, they are too poor to buy new fully priced AAA and even AA games(aka will only buy old/heavily discounted games or pirate the shit out of it ;p) so not much point to optimise towards those specs anyways.
They arent completely wrong either since we had access to 12gigs rtx 3060 with 330$ msrp for almost 5 years now(ofc its half of year was nasty crypto boom but still that leaves over 4 years of time to upgrade anyways)

About steamsurvey, almost 90% of pc gpu's is weaker from ps5pr0 gpu but guess what, majority of those 90% of users are csgo/fortnite/moba/minecraft and that other lowspecs f2p multiplayershit players, in terms of ppl who can afford buying at least 1 fully priced AAA game per 2 months aka proper paying customers- those guys defo can afford at least rtx 3060 from few years back and nowadays 16gigs 9060xt(380$ streetprice) or rtx 5060ti 16gigs(430$ streetprice) models

I know that coz im from poland, huge majority of ppl got laptops and desktops that can barely play or not even launch current gen games, and no- they arent spending premium prices monthly or even bi-monthly to buy new AAA games- yet ofc they are included in steamsurvey.
OP is from poor country too- columbia so i am sure he can attest to exacly same thing- high end desktop players are extremly rare in his country too, avg lowspec pc gamer is quite common, but they simply arent playing/buying newest AAA games

 

[Spyxos]

That is nuts. Do developers actually look at Steam GPU surveys?

Probably console first development. And we'll worry about the PC port later.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

I would say that OP should also buy the 5700X3D... but it appears it's not available anymore.

 

[Bojji]

Probably console first development. And we'll worry about the PC port later.

There is always requirement increse because of consoles:

PS3/360 - jump to multi core CPUs and GPUs with unified shaders (consoles had pitiful amount of memory back then so no memory jump)
PS4/X1 - now, 2GB GPUs that everyone was recommending in 2011/2012 are obsolete. Same story with 2 core CPUs. 4GB is the new minimum with 6GB being optimal and 8GB allowing native 4K gaming
PS5/XSX - WHAT A SUPRISE, with native PS5 games 8GB VRAM often isn't enough, who would have thought that consoles having more memory would allow devs to use it? 10GB is the absolute minimum now, 12GB is reasonable and 16GB is optimum. Everything above is aimed for high end users.

Of course we can blame nvidia for always scumming people on VRAM, they 100% know what happens when new consoles launch.

 

[yurinka]

Hi dear Gaffers!! I updated the original post!

I need please your wisdom and advice for a budget GPU upgrade here in Colombia:

i currently have an old and low budget rig:

GTX 1660 Super.
Ryzen 5 2600
16 GB RAM DDR 4 @ 3000 MHz
regular SSD and old HDD
Mobo: Gigaybite B450M DSH3 PCIe Gen3
EVGA 500 W 80+ Bronze
LG 1440P monitor.

Which is the recommended RT GPU i can get to replace my curret GTX 1660 Super which can get the best of this build and have less bottleneck and stutters while i upgrade the CPU to a R5 5600X or R7 5700x (best case scenario) or, in the worst case scenario a R5 5500, and slap another 16 GB RAM on it?

Change the entire rig it´s not an option. I´m upgrading GPU to turn this old rig into a temporary rig until 27/28, when RTX 60 Series shows up and then i will upgrade the entire PC.

Also context: i own a PS5, so it´s not like PC it´s my only option to have the latest AAA releases and i´m mainly a console gamer, so i give zero fucks on playing 2025 and beyond AAA stuff on ultra +100 fps or even +60 fps. I can live with 30 fps if i have to. I just wanna enjoy 2025 PC games on 1440p Mid to High settings (i know Ultra for 2021-25 AAA stuff it´s OUT OF THE EQUATION) if possible have RT on some +2020 AAA, and play Quake 2, Half Life 2, Render 96 and other old stuff with RTX (which it´s something i´m very stoked, even more than having the same games i can play on my PS5 with more quality). I´m up to manage settings, use DLSS and frame generation mandatory, etc.

Also remember i´m in latin america, my budget for GPU isn´t big and changing the entire build it´s not an option.

For example, how about a RTX 3060 12 GB, will it work decently with the rest of the rig (yes, that old R5 2600 included)?

And keeping in mind all what i´m explaining, a regular RTX 5060 8 GB would be that horrible? And also, will it drop stutters due to that PCIe Gen3 stuff?

Also, if i go with a 16 GB GPU (RX 9060 XT 16 GB which i can afford) or 5060 TI 16 GB, would it show stutters and a horrible experience, even if i upgrade the CPU to the mentioned above (R5 5600X, R7 5700X, R5 5500)?

AI stuff (including scaling and framegen stuff like DLSS, or to generate your own porn pics or videos using genAI locally) and RT are very VRAM dependent, and in general Nvidia is better for anything AI related and some AI stuff is even Nvidia exclusive.

So I'd choose keep the 8GB and 12GB cards out of the question and I'd go for Nvidia. Now, which Nvidia?

Some AI stuff (like DLSS) are dependent on the architecture/generation of the GPU (if it's a 3000, 4000, 5000 card), so the higher the better. If possible, a 4000 or 5000 card (second hand to reduce prices), not only because of the current stuf, but also considering new DLSS and AI stuff to be released during 2026-2028.

These cards will be bottlenecked because both the PCIe 3 and the CPU, but will be the case of any new powerful GPU you'd put there. But well, you should notice a big jump compared to the current 1660 Super.

What I'd do would be:

• Get now a second hand 16GB VRAM GPU as good as possible (I have no idea about prices, but I'd say the best one you find with your budget between 4060, 5060, 4070 or 5070) and as fast as possible, before the price increase
• Then somewhere later (depending on your budget, maybe 2027/2028) to get the full potential of the GPU and to remove CPU, PCIe and RAM bottlenecks (maybe 2027 or 2028, or earlier if you can) get new motherboard + CPU + RAM (new Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs use a new socket and require DDR5 RAM, so can't reuse in a new board your current CPU or DDR4 memory). If price of this goes to high, a shorter term alternative would be to get the max you can put in your current board: something like the maximum CPU you can put there (as of now I'd say AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D) and 16GB more of DDR4 3000

Regarding stutters, it's something even people with full high end rigs have in PC (in many cases it's game/engine depending), but obviously having lower end stuff bottlenecking doesn't help. Some protip for the rig you already have: use the SSD for "C:" and the game you are playing and virtual memory, leave the HDD for the other things like emulator roms, savedata, docs, non-gaming apps etc. Make also sure you aren't using virtual memory in the HDD, that also causes performance issues in games.

HDD is an important bottleneck nowadays and SSD work way better. Format and reinstall Windows (if possible one of these less bloated versions) if you haven't done it for many years if the SSD is too full, there's a lot of crap left there from installed and uninstalled stuff, windows backups stuff, no longer needed temp files and so on.

 

[StereoVsn]

AI stuff (including scaling and framegen stuff like DLSS, or to generate your own porn pics or videos using genAI locally) and RT are very VRAM dependent, and in general Nvidia is better for anything AI related and some AI stuff is even Nvidia exclusive.

So I'd choose keep the 8GB and 12GB cards out of the question and I'd go for Nvidia. Now, which Nvidia?

Some AI stuff (like DLSS) are dependent on the architecture/generation of the GPU (if it's a 3000, 4000, 5000 card), so the higher the better. If possible, a 4000 or 5000 card (second hand to reduce prices), not only because of the current stuf, but also considering new DLSS and AI stuff to be released during 2026-2028.

These cards will be bottlenecked because both the PCIe 3 and the CPU, but will be the case of any new powerful GPU you'd put there. But well, you should notice a big jump compared to the current 1660 Super.

What I'd do would be:

• Get now a second hand 16GB VRAM GPU as good as possible (I have no idea about prices, but I'd say the best one you find with your budget between 4060, 5060, 4070 or 5070) and as fast as possible, before the price increase
• Then somewhere later (depending on your budget, maybe 2027/2028) to get the full potential of the GPU and to remove CPU, PCIe and RAM bottlenecks (maybe 2027 or 2028, or earlier if you can) get new motherboard + CPU + RAM (new Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs use a new socket and require DDR5 RAM, so can't reuse in a new board your current CPU or DDR4 memory). If price of this goes to high, a shorter term alternative would be to get the max you can put in your current board: something like the maximum CPU you can put there (as of now I'd say AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D) and 16GB more of DDR4 3000

Regarding stutters, it's something even people with full high end rigs have in PC (in many cases it's game/engine depending), but obviously having lower end stuff bottlenecking doesn't help. Some protip for the rig you already have: use the SSD for "C:" and the game you are playing and virtual memory, leave the HDD for the other things like emulator roms, savedata, docs, non-gaming apps etc. Make also sure you aren't using virtual memory in the HDD, that also causes performance issues in games.

HDD is an important bottleneck nowadays and SSD work way better. Format and reinstall Windows (if possible one of these less bloated versions) if you haven't done it for many years if the SSD is too full, there's a lot of crap left there from installed and uninstalled stuff, windows backups stuff, no longer needed temp files and so on.

Thanks ChatGPT!

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

I just finished (this am) building and testing a pc for a friends 13 year old using parts I had laying around and when I say old I mean old from a gaming perspective.

The unit performs better at 1440p 60fps+ than it does at 1080p 100fps+ just due to shifting work load to the GPU and giving the CPU some breathing room.

At 1080p the video card usage peaks between 42% and 53% "utilization". but the CPU really gets bogged down when it has to package all the game logic at 100+ times per second.

Upping the resolution to 1440p and targeting 60fps+ the video card has a much higher utilization and the CPU can still work on the game logic at 100fps+ but since the fps is lower (say I can only hit 70fps+) the CPU gets a bit of a break while the GPU is doing all of its processing, CPU usage drops (so she can stream stuff for example if she wants to...she has head room enough on the CPU side now) and gets rid of gross stuttering since the CPU isn't the bottle neck/over taxed.

Anyway, just wanted to share that in case folks might find themselves in a similar position.
Machine specs and everything below, overall I was happy to help them save $500+ especially since their teenager doesn't really care about AAA games.

Spoiler: The REST of the story

What she wants:
To play roblox, minecraft, sims, FN, and a few fashion designer apps.

What they were going to buy for $649 as part of Best Buy's Black Friday deals:

https://www.bestbuy.com/product/cyberpowerpc-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5500-amd-radeon-rx-6500-xt-4gb-16gb-memory-1tb-pcie-4-0-ssd-black/J3L7GQWGC6

Ryzen 5 5500
Radeon RX 6500 (4gb)
16gb memory
1tb
real shit PSU

I picked up a wifi 6 card with bluetooth and a cheap mini-itx case off of amazon that has so much rgb crap in it that my retinas turned to jelly:
All in (not including the parts below...again they were just old things I had around)
$72

Here are the specs of the hardware I gave them.
16gb DDR4 3200
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU
RX 5700 XT 8gb
1 tb nvme pcie 4
750 watt psu
B550 flavor mother board.

 

[PeteBull]

Of course we can blame nvidia for always scumming people on VRAM, they 100% know what happens when new consoles launch.

Yups, nvidia launches 8gigs 5060 and 5060ti models on purpose, same way they did with 3070, 3060ti and 4060/ti not that long ago- just so less knowledgeable ppl dont realise and buy those models bit cheaper.
Then when inevitably while playing newer/more demanding game those cards run out on vram customers are forced/preasured to upgrade early.

3060 owners having 12gigs of vram can patiently wait till 60xx series of cards shows up in 2027(or amd's rdna5 cards) and those will have 16gigs models even on lowend models, while much newer 4060ti(and almost 50% faster, unless vram starved) card owner is either forced to upgrade already or to reduce settings/play at lower res/not use rt/skip games that demand bigger vram pool- and again guys we are actual players here, 1-2minutes of heavy curated benchmark run is far from same experience vs playing game for 2h+ where in many cases 8gigs vram pool is simply too small.

Last food for thought- gtx 1070(mid 2016 launch 380$msrp card) had 8gigs of vram already, yet over 2x stronger 4060ti still has 8gigs of vram too...

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Specs

NVIDIA GP104, 1683 MHz, 1920 Cores, 120 TMUs, 64 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR5, 2002 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

U gotta connect the dots there, over 2x faster card(launched 7 years later too) shouldnt have same amount of vram unless there is a catch in there, and ai upscaling/rt eat up some vram too, u want to have enough of it to simply be able to comfortably use those features after all

 

[dgrdsv]

That is nuts. Do developers actually look at Steam GPU surveys?

It's nuts but not because of developers, it's nuts because people still don't understand that you can't make any assumptions on VRAM usage using one GPU for another GPU with a different VRAM size.
Then again it's Capcpom. Their tech savvy levels are at about negative figures these days so I wouldn't be surprised if they'll fuck up again with Pragmata.

 

[Spyxos]

Pragmata Demo. Mix of high and medium settings already over 8gb on a 1080p resolution....

Correction: I started it again and saw that textures were set to max. If you set it to high, you're under 8 GB.

 

[yurinka]

Thanks ChatGPT!

Go fuck yourself

 

[SScorpio]

Go fuck yourself

Sorry to miss AI you.

Thanks Claude.

 

[StereoVsn]

Go fuck yourself

Ahh, it's Grok! My apologies I didn't mean to be rude to our AI overlords!