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Budget GPU upgrade advice/question...Its worth right now?




The RTX 5060 is definitely not a bad budget option. I might buy one next month instead of the 9060 XT 16gb to save some cash towards a 16gb module of DDR4 ram and a 2TB external SSD(Samsung T7, probably). I play on a 1080p 180hz monitor at 900p though, so 8gb VRAM is fine for my use case.
 



The RTX 5060 is definitely not a bad budget option. I might buy one next month instead of the 9060 XT 16gb to save some cash towards a 16gb module of DDR4 ram and a 2TB external SSD(Samsung T7, probably). I play on a 1080p 180hz monitor at 900p though, so 8gb VRAM is fine for my use case.

Makes sense to me. Even on 1440p i see it works well in vast majority of games.

Also, specially vs the 12 GB Intel Arc comparison, it´s crazy how the 5060 8GB stomps it on most games....So it´s proving 8 GB GDDR7 surpass higher amounts of VRAM on GDDR6!
 
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Makes sense to me. Even on 1440p i see it works well in vast majority of games.

Also, specially vs the 12 GB Intel Arc comparison, it´s crazy how the 5060 8GB stomps it on most games....So it´s proving 8 GB GDDR7 surpass higher amounts of VRAM on GDDR6!
no , it stomps intel arc because it is a newer and better gpu , if a game needs more than 8gbvram , it will struggle compared to the 12gb gpu
 
The 16GB model is absolutely fine on PCIe 3.0 Only the 8GB suffers from that bottleneck when running on 3.0.
Now i understand why. That PCIe bottleneck shows up basically when you go out of VRAM, which it´s very likely to happen on a 8GB model, than on a 16 GB. Am i right?
 
Makes sense to me. Even on 1440p i see it works well in vast majority of games.

Also, specially vs the 12 GB Intel Arc comparison, it´s crazy how the 5060 8GB stomps it on most games....So it´s proving 8 GB GDDR7 surpass higher amounts of VRAM on GDDR6!

5060 is just a faster GPU than Intel. GDDR7 doesn't matter here, most of those youtube tests are fake or tested with settings that stay within memory. Real test:



d2j2YiMuuwIShy0q.jpg

JP8e9HdfIK7vu6wj.jpg


Now i understand why. That PCIe bottleneck shows up basically when you go out of VRAM, which it´s very likely to happen on a 8GB model, than on a 16 GB. Am i right?

Yes, it doesn't make big difference when game stores everything in VRAM. But even if you have PCIE5 x16 you will still experience stutter city when game goes out of memory...
 
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Now i understand why. That PCIe bottleneck shows up basically when you go out of VRAM, which it´s very likely to happen on a 8GB model, than on a 16 GB. Am i right?
For the most part, but in that video above that does the comparisons. There are a few cases where the 8GB on PCIe 5.0 gets slightly better framerates than the 16GB on PCIe 3.0. When you are out of VRAM, textures are swapping around the PCIe bus, so the lower link speeds are easier to see. But note that the tests in that video are with an 9060XT. Those are all x16 cards while the 5060 and 5060ti are x8 cards which half the available bandwidth.


Of all the videos i´ve watched within this days, this seems to be the one with the better and more noob-friendly input

It's a good overview, but you still need to look at your local market and compare the advice being given.

In the $300-400 range he's recommending the 16GB 9060xt for $370 and says avoid the 16GB 5060ti. At MSRP where it's $60 more for the 5060ti that makes sense. But here the 16GB 5060ti has popped up multiple times for $370. That's an absolute buy over the 9060XT when at the same price. End of the day whatever card you get will give you a good experience and you'll have fun playing games. It's just down to don't spend and extra $70 over here it's not worth it. But maybe the difference it's $20 in your local currency and market? If you end up happy with what you purchased, enjoy it and have fun.
 
Another example of what can happen when you go out of VRAM, performance might remain good but you can see this beauty on display:

so47ZBbL0nMGJ4C9.jpg
 
Another example of what can happen when you go out of VRAM, performance might remain good but you can see this beauty on display:

so47ZBbL0nMGJ4C9.jpg
The Unreal engine does that even when it has VRAM. There's so much LoT load in where you get a shit low quality texture to visually see it get swapped 3-4 seconds later.

Static screenshots can also be cherry picked to show issues that someone playing will be less likely to notice as they are looking at the horde of enemies coming at you. Your example is low-mid range GPUs upscaling to 4K. What is the framerate even at for both those cards at that moment. Maybe NVIDIA's drivers are prioritizing giving a playable framerate versus Intel's giving a perfect resolution at a slideshow framerate.

Is more VRAM better? Yes. But that 5060ti will give you higher frames than the Arc B580 in more use cases. In a perfect world we'd all have 5090s with 32GB of RAM. But we live in a world were people are playing new games on 8 year old hardware with 6GB of VRAM.
 
Is more VRAM better? Yes. But that 5060ti will give you higher frames than the Arc B580 in more use cases. In a perfect world we'd all have 5090s with 32GB of RAM. But we live in a world were people are playing new games on 8 year old hardware with 6GB of VRAM.
I´m one of those lol, playing Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma, the new remaster of Gears of War and SH 2 Remake on my old GTX 1660 Super!

This is why i´m trying to upgrade, without changing the entire PC, and also all this RAM stuff makes it impossible to upgrade to DDR5 Mobo
It's a good overview, but you still need to look at your local market and compare the advice being given.
I forgot to update the OP, but i went with this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9LN5VZ6?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Amazon still haven´t charged me, hope they make the debit and send the card pretty soon. If the purchase gets cancelled by them, i´d probably aim for a used RTX 4060 TI 16 GB, i saw on my local marketplace (hope doesnt get sell soon) cheaper than the 9060 XT, because the a new RX 9060 XT here in Colombia it´s more expensive than the Amazon´s offer. Finally, the 5060 TI 16 GB here and also on Amazon it´s more expensive than 9060 XT, and also i will have to buy new PSU (mine it´s 500 W, it needs 650 W), while the RX 9060 XT works with the 500 W fine.

But all i gotta say it´s, 8 GB it´s just a viable option if you don´t wanna go more than 1080p and play more eSports stuff than SP experiences. And if you you with 8 GB, make sure it´s on a modern rig PCIe 5.0 and GDDR5.

For an older build like mine, if your budget doesn´t allow for a 9060 XT 16 gb or 4060/5060 ti 16 gb, i´d say go for a RTX 3060 12 GB,
 
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The Unreal engine does that even when it has VRAM. There's so much LoT load in where you get a shit low quality texture to visually see it get swapped 3-4 seconds later.

Static screenshots can also be cherry picked to show issues that someone playing will be less likely to notice as they are looking at the horde of enemies coming at you. Your example is low-mid range GPUs upscaling to 4K. What is the framerate even at for both those cards at that moment. Maybe NVIDIA's drivers are prioritizing giving a playable framerate versus Intel's giving a perfect resolution at a slideshow framerate.

Is more VRAM better? Yes. But that 5060ti will give you higher frames than the Arc B580 in more use cases. In a perfect world we'd all have 5090s with 32GB of RAM. But we live in a world were people are playing new games on 8 year old hardware with 6GB of VRAM.

Unreal doesn't do that when you have fast storage and enough memory. And if it does load textures it takes ~one second or something. In this case texture don't load AT ALL.

They summed (8GB GPUs) pretty nicely in the video I linked:

42ZSPZLExbkQ7Lye.jpg
F4vK6I0Ka5hZJMSz.jpg
 
Unreal doesn't do that when you have fast storage and enough memory. And if it does load textures it takes ~one second or something. In this case texture don't load AT ALL.

They summed (8GB GPUs) pretty nicely in the video I linked:

42ZSPZLExbkQ7Lye.jpg
F4vK6I0Ka5hZJMSz.jpg
Nvidia should had put that 5060 on 10 GB and that 5060 TI on 12 GB. Greedy mfs...And also stupid, they would had sell that shit like pancakes, before the RAM crisis.
 
Nvidia should had put that 5060 on 10 GB and that 5060 TI on 12 GB. Greedy mfs...And also stupid, they would had sell that shit like pancakes, before the RAM crisis.

Yep, 10GB is the absolute minimum now, in theory it should be able to play all games on console settings in 1080p.

They were this cheap when VRAM was cheap, imagine what they will do now...
 
We're probably hitting a period of stagnation for a bit. If you get something mid at this point you'll probably be fine for a while would be my guess.
 
Unreal doesn't do that when you have fast storage and enough memory. And if it does load textures it takes ~one second or something. In this case texture don't load AT ALL.

They summed (8GB GPUs) pretty nicely in the video I linked:

42ZSPZLExbkQ7Lye.jpg
F4vK6I0Ka5hZJMSz.jpg
If you say so, I see garbage like this in released games all the with plenty of free VRAM. Since Unreal Engine 3, streaming has been trash and you get weird crap like that.

 
If you say so, I see garbage like this in released games all the with plenty of free VRAM. Since Unreal Engine 3, streaming has been trash and you get weird crap like that.



Space Marine 2 isn't even using Unreal Engine. And I don't see unloaded textures in my games.
 
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Is $105 for a used EVGA 2060 super a good deal? I own an RX580 currently and all I really do these days is watch Twitch. I would like to get back into streaming. So I wanted this card for the NVENC encoder. I was able to use a setup with a 1660 super and my stream looked fantastic. It was pretty pixelated on my RX580
 
Is $105 for a used EVGA 2060 super a good deal? I own an RX580 currently and all I really do these days is watch Twitch. I would like to get back into streaming. So I wanted this card for the NVENC encoder. I was able to use a setup with a 1660 super and my stream looked fantastic. It was pretty pixelated on my RX580
Yes. That's about as good as you'll see a regular 2060, let alone the Super.
 
Yes. That's about as good as you'll see a regular 2060, let alone the Super.
Thank you! The same seller had the 2070 super for $20 more so I went with that. I've seen people say it is 11% faster than a 2060. I figure the 2070 will run games better at 1080P but it will be used mostly for streaming. I went with the EVGA model over MSI.
 
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Another example of what can happen when you go out of VRAM, performance might remain good but you can see this beauty on display:

so47ZBbL0nMGJ4C9.jpg
Oh yeah, this reminds me a lot of Forspoken, i had a 3060ti at that point with 8gb vram and that is exactly how it looked on this gpu.
 
I didn't read all the thread so apologies if it ha sbeen already answered:
for 1080p budget gaming and eventually 3D engine fiddling, what is the best/least worst card for around 200 bucks? Absolute max is 230 bucks.

Yes i know, but i don't need more than that. No Ray tracing or fancy stuff, no 1440p, no 144hz, no nothing.
 
I didn't read all the thread so apologies if it ha sbeen already answered:
for 1080p budget gaming and eventually 3D engine fiddling, what is the best/least worst card for around 200 bucks? Absolute max is 230 bucks.

Yes i know, but i don't need more than that. No Ray tracing or fancy stuff, no 1440p, no 144hz, no nothing.
A used RTX 3060 12gb or RX 6600 8gb should be around 200 and ok for 1080p. The 6600 has better pure raster performance, but the 3060 has dlss and more VRAM, which I think comes into play for 3d engine stuff but I'm not too familiar with those so I could be wrong.

3050 6gb are new for right around $200, but that low VRAM is worrying. But maybe it's ok for 1080p.
 
I didn't read all the thread so apologies if it ha sbeen already answered:
for 1080p budget gaming and eventually 3D engine fiddling, what is the best/least worst card for around 200 bucks? Absolute max is 230 bucks.

Yes i know, but i don't need more than that. No Ray tracing or fancy stuff, no 1440p, no 144hz, no nothing.
What's the rest of the PC it will be put in? You also need some level of raytracing support as games are starting to require it. Ray tracing and path tracing are two very different things.

You should look and see what used cards are available around you. $230 is a very difficult budget. There are RTX 5060 cards down to $250, but you said absolute cap for $230. Would you be willing to go to $250 for an Arc B580 that bundles your choice of:
  • Battlefield 6
  • - Assassin's Creed Shadows
  • - Dying Light: The Beast
  • - Sid Meier's Civilization VII
 
So, this turned out to be the outcome of my story.

Amazon cancelled the order of the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT; then, i tried to purchase an Asus Dual RX 9060 XT, and also nothing happened with the order....So i came up with a plan B and search on local PC Gaming Facebook groups for a 4060 ti 16 GB, and found this one for 450 USD with a local reliable guy, so took the chance with that one, which has been used barely, just a couple of months (i verified on GPU Z) ...Also upgraded the PSU for a Cooler Master 750 W certified.

Now gotta upgrade the Ryzen 5 2600, so i´m selling the GTX 1660 Super.

But even with the humble good ol´ 2600 i could get Cyberpunk 2077 running with Path Tracing enabled at 70/80 fps, on 1440p, with DLSS performance with FG.

Mario 64 Render 96 running perfect with RT.

Quake 2 RTX running 60 fps 1440p

HL 2 RTX around 40/50fps 1440p DLSS Quality

Doom Eternal with RT 1440p and everything maxed out more than 100 fps.

And will let you know more once i test more games and of course will update once i upgrade the CPU.

Sorry AMD, i really tried :(

Also i´m happy i didn´t gave my money directly to Nvidia (i love their tech, but they really have gone pretty much anticonsumer recently)


GsqLeQP3bNIowaZZ.jpeg
 
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So, this turned out to be the outcome of my story.

Amazon cancelled the order of the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT; then, i tried to purchase an Asus Dual RX 9060 XT, and also nothing happened with the order....So i came up with a plan B and search on local PC Gaming Facebook groups for a 4060 ti 16 GB, and found this one for 450 USD with a local reliable guy, so took the chance with that one, which has been used barely, just a couple of months (i verified on GPU Z) ...Also upgraded the PSU for a Cooler Master 750 W certified.

Now gotta upgrade the Ryzen 5 2600, so i´m selling the GTX 1660 Super.

But even with the humble good ol´ 2600 i could get Cyberpunk 2077 running with Path Tracing enabled at 70/80 fps, on 1440p, with DLSS performance with FG.

Mario 64 Render 96 running perfect with RT.

Quake 2 RTX running 60 fps 1440p

HL 2 RTX around 40/50fps 1440p DLSS Quality

Doom Eternal with RT 1440p and everything maxed out more than 100 fps.

And will let you know more once i test more games and of course will update once i upgrade the CPU.

Sorry AMD, i really tried :(

Also i´m happy i didn´t gave my money directly to Nvidia (i love their tech, but they really have gone pretty much anticonsumer recently)


GsqLeQP3bNIowaZZ.jpeg

Good GPU, even better than 9060XT when it comes to features and 16GB will future proof you for next few years.
 
450 for a 4060ti? and the ventus is crap
oh well have fun
Op is from colombia, bro, they gotta include vat and have overall pretty disgustingly high prices for anything gaming related compared to the US, both software and hardware.
16gigs 4060ti is at same performance tier than rx 9060xt 8gigs/rtx 5060 or from older gens rtx 3070/2080ti, 165W tdp, dlss and rt is even above that obviously.

Considering colombian prices OP got solid deal, and he is at ps5pr0 lvl of power now(depending on the game obviously +-5% in raster, definitely better if we include rt and ai upscaling capabilities), with 16gigs of vram and relatively new card(it only came out mid 2023) he is futureproofed at least till ps5/ps6 xgen period ends so around 2032.
 
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450 for a 4060ti? and the ventus is crap
oh well have fun

4060ti 16GB is just few % worse than 9060XT 16GB on average (and better in heavy RT). When OP don't have that much choice this was one the best GPUs he could have bought, even not so good Ventus cooling should be ok with card that don't draw that much power.
 
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4060ti 16GB is just few % worse than 9060XT 16GB on average (and better in heavy RT). When OP don't have that much choice this was one the best GPUs he could have bought, even not so good Ventus cooling should be ok with card that don't draw that much power.
MSRP prices of the 4060ti 8GB at $400 and 16GB at $500 were bad. That card itself was good. I grabbed an 8GB Ventus near launch for $330 and it's a amazing 1080p card.

It's fun seeing the tech Youtubers eating some crow with the current RAM crisis. Hardware Unboxed which was one of the biggest anti-8GB drum thumpers latest Q&A video had the host admit that they'd prefer 8GB cards not exist. But they run, and going for med to high settings versus ultra and you'll fine for a few years.

So many people have been running with 1060 or 1660 cards. The 3060 and 4060 are starting to take over. Being that those are well over the required specs, if not hitting recommended spec levels for most games. Most people will be able to squeeze out many years of gaming out of those cards.
 
My "hot take" unless you are spending $1000 minimum on the full build PC gaming offers little/zero gaming improvement over the $400 console
 
MSRP prices of the 4060ti 8GB at $400 and 16GB at $500 were bad. That card itself was good. I grabbed an 8GB Ventus near launch for $330 and it's a amazing 1080p card.

It's fun seeing the tech Youtubers eating some crow with the current RAM crisis. Hardware Unboxed which was one of the biggest anti-8GB drum thumpers latest Q&A video had the host admit that they'd prefer 8GB cards not exist. But they run, and going for med to high settings versus ultra and you'll fine for a few years.

So many people have been running with 1060 or 1660 cards. The 3060 and 4060 are starting to take over. Being that those are well over the required specs, if not hitting recommended spec levels for most games. Most people will be able to squeeze out many years of gaming out of those cards.

8GB cards shouldn't exist - starting with 20xx series, 2080 should be 10GB minimum. Nvidia released 12GB xx60 card in 2021 and next two series are locked to 8GB?
8GB was not enough since PS5 and XSX appeared, normally next generation of low-mid cards get enough memory for console ports but it didn't happen this time (3060 had that but 4060 and 5060 didn't).

This RAM crisis is a new thing but GPU creators (both Nvidia and AMD) fucked up consumers for years now. Don't defend 8GB cards, they fucking appeared in 2015 - you think that is enough 10 years later?

My "hot take" unless you are spending $1000 minimum on the full build PC gaming offers little/zero gaming improvement over the $400 console

Free online, cheaper games, mods, settings in games (you are not stuck to developer "vision" that can suck), emulators, many store fronts, better performance and image quality (for pcs that are 1000$+) and probably more that I don't remember now...

Your "hot take" is more like uninformed take.
 
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450 for a 4060ti? and the ventus is crap
oh well have fun

Welcome to Latin America.

For the 4060ti guy. It's a good choice but just check if you are not being PCIE bottlenecked like we told you some pages ago.

For the other guy asking for a 200usd one.... 3060 12gb. Forget the 6600.

Ps. Just for reference (Brazil) I've paid about 800usd (good price, not the cheapest possible) on a 9070xt last month.
 
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My "hot take" unless you are spending $1000 minimum on the full build PC gaming offers little/zero gaming improvement over the $400 console
The thing is, now ps5pr0 costs 750$, u not gonna get base/peasant model anyways, and 750 vs 1000 bucks isnt that big of a difference anymore especially if we know on pc online is free and we overall got better deals on new and older games- the more u buy games the less of a difference those 250$ make.
Back in the previous gen even midgen upgrade ps4pr0 was only 400$ while base ps4 was 300$, now u get cheap cpu(yup ram prices skyrocketed so for budget build u go something like r5 5500/5600 and 32gigs of much cheaper and older ddr4), midrange gpu and u are at/above ps5pr0 lvl already.
Something like this:
Still under 950 usd, 32gigs of ddr4 fast ram, cpu and gpu both at least ps5pr0 grade, 1tb ssd (few months ago this build would be around 850 but ram/ssd prices went crazy).
 
With extra 250 you get the entire flexibility of a PC in a open system, innumerous Stores, cheaper games prices, innumerous Indies exclusives, mods, Rtx remix, "backward compatibility" on anything from 360 era and below, exclusive genres, real flight sims real racing Sims (and their controllers), trackIR etc.

All of that for the price of "4" new games.
 
Welcome to Latin America.

For the 4060ti guy. It's a good choice but just check if you are not being PCIE bottlenecked like we told you some pages ago.

For the other guy asking for a 200usd one.... 3060 12gb. Forget the 6600.

Ps. Just for reference (Brazil) I've paid about 800usd (good price, not the cheapest possible) on a 9070xt last month.

As far as i know, the PCIE bottleneck shouldn´t be too much of a problem, since the 16 GB VRAM would prevent the system "choke"like the 8 GB models, which would go out of RAM faster, and would need to use system DRAM and then would show up the PCIE Bottleneck.

Also, keeping in mind i´m CPU bottlenecked (R5 2600), 4060 TI has worked pretty good with the games i´ve tested so far. Seems there´s a chance i could exchange my old GPU and PSU for a Ryzen 5 5600X with a friend of mine. We will check if that deal can be done next week.

Just put all the broken games aside and everything will become easy for you. If you couldn't resist from waiting just play the console version.
What do you mean by "broken games"?
 
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What do you mean by "broken games"?
Games that requires the 4090/5090 in order to function properly but without an official statement from these studios who made these games. Jensen Hwang himself have made it clear that you don't need these GPUs but these games clearly says otherwise, he made it clear the X090 from every series are off the charts from games requirements and he's right technically but these games don't scale correctly. I don't understand PC gamers who call themselves PC gamers and don't want to get deep technical on what they've purchased.
 
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