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

I´m thinking serioulsly on this.

Also, i was thinking on a used 4060 TI 16 GB, but i see when NOT putting every single game on ultra, makes it not that superior over the 5060 8 GB. I know 8 GB it´s doomed, but, this is sort of a temporary rig until RTX 60 line comes. Remember i´m mostly a console gamer, and probaby PS5 also will got me covered, and i´m not interested on +100 fps or even + 60 fps on any single game.




If i´m honest, i don´t like AMD RX GPUs too much, but also that can be a very good option, because i know budget/performance it´s perfect....But as someone said up above, you gotta pick your poison depending on what it´s your priority, and as console gamer, FPS it´s not my main priority, it´s RT and image detail, as far as the constrianed budget allows it (so i´m totally aware PT or Ultra settings -and sometimes high settings- on recent AAA are out of the equation).

Also i love this thread, so please feel free to post more good stuff. Want to gather as much info as possible and then take the best decision, taking into account all the valuable tech data you guys are kindly providing (thanks for that), the context of my own old rig, the Latin American context (everything harder to find and more expensive) and my own personal finances! :)

Probably by Dec 22 i´ll make the purchase, or maybe before. There won´t be a GPU increase in 12 days, right?

You really won't be able to take advantage of PT with the cards on your budget even if you lower resolution and stick to 30FPS.

But if you really want to, see if you can get a 4070 used, 12GB should be enough an it's going to be same speed and cheaper vs 5060Ti. Spend the rest of cash on a CPU.

Really best bet is 9060XT 16GB performance wise and it will give you similar RT lite as 5060Ti 16GB. You won't be able to run heavy RT anyways.
 
You don't have to do that in games if you have enough vram. Epic/Ultra High settings are usually stupid and not worth it over high but texture settings? Playing with shit textures is fucking pain, same goes with lowering resolution even if you don't need to ONLY because you don't have enough memory. And this is A.D. 2025, it will only get worse from now...
I feel that's where things like NVIDIA's Neural Texture Compression could come into play. It's supposed to cut usage down to 1/7th, while having something like a 5% performance hit.

For all the complaints about AI, fake frames, etc. NVIDIA is at least trying to take us beyond standard rasterization. There's only so much performance you and keep dragging out and you start needing more and more processing power for diminishing returns.
 
You don't have to do that in games if you have enough vram. Epic/Ultra High settings are usually stupid and not worth it over high but texture settings? Playing with shit textures is fucking pain, same goes with lowering resolution even if you don't need to ONLY because you don't have enough memory. And this is A.D. 2025, it will only get worse from now...

Thats what they said when I bought the card in 2020. Lmao

Never had any issues really.
 
Final option, do nothing, stick to the PS5 for current gen gaming, wait 1 or 2 years until RAM/VRAM crisis cease to buy new GPU and while then, upgrade the rest of the PC to have it ready for RTX 60 Series in the future.

Also, one final thought, since industry is starting to have this RAM crisis which will affect GPU market pretty soon (if not now as we speak), could it cause studios to release patches for current games in order to make them more optimized for 8 GB GPU? or quite the opposite? 8 GB it´s wasting the money. Period?
This is your best option I believe. The PS5 will serve you well for those 2 years or more. Ask yourself why you want a low budget 5050/5060 8GB in the first place. It's not going to be that much better (in a lot of cases worse).

You say this:

"I want to upgrade to have a modern budget configuration which can last at least a couple of years, and i wanna start with GPU."

But this would be true whichever time you decide to change configuration from your current GTX. Wait until at least 2027. You will get more bang for your buck 100%.
 
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Thats what they said when I bought the card in 2020. Lmao

Never had any issues really.

I bought it in 2020 and didn't have issues until 2023 (when first next gen only games released). When they appeared I jumped to 12GB GPUs...

VRAM available on PS5 and XSX is up to 10GB, while 8GB GPU has ~6.7GB or something available for games, with card like that you won't be able to experience the game even with CONSOLE settings in many cases. And 3070 is much stronger than PS5, close to PS5 Pro in power, Nvidia really fucked this GPU.

People also said that 3080 10GB didn't have enough memory and that is true as well. Look what happens when 3070 has 16GB of memory (A4000 is 16GB version of 3070 with lower clocks):



V6WVA1gUfPZ2CXe6.jpg
 
Depending on what your goals are, you might be better off selling the PS5 and buying a PS5 Pro. Of course, if you intend to do PC specific stuff or PC exclusives that won't work.

Edit: Sorry, you did mention RT mods and such. My bad.
 
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This is your best option I believe. The PS5 will serve you well for those 2 years or more. Ask yourself why you want a low budget 5050/5060 8GB in the first place. It's not going to be that much better (in a lot of cases worse).


But this would be true whichever time you decide to change configuration from your current GTX. Wait until at least 2027. You will get more bang for your buck 100%.
But 5060 isn´t gonna be a much better option than my current GTX 1660 Super?

Also, i see this upgrade as temporary, while in 27 i´ll go full mid or mid high tier rig with the RTX 60 series.

Depending on what your goals are, you might be better off selling the PS5 and buying a PS5 Pro. Of course, if you intend to do PC specific stuff or PC exclusives that won't work.

Edit: Sorry, you did mention RT mods and such. My bad.
Thing is i also hate PS5 Pro with passion lol. Isn´t anywhere as good upgrade as PS4 Pro (which i had before PS5) was back in the day.
 
But 5060 isn´t gonna be a much better option than my current GTX 1660 Super?

Also, i see this upgrade as temporary, while in 27 i´ll go full mid or mid high tier rig with the RTX 60 series.
The 5060 will be much better than your current GTX. I meant over your current PS5. The 8GB 5060 or 5050 would perform worse. I recommend that you wait until 2027 where consoles will push the cost of low tier GPUs like the 5050/5060 way down (and RAM crisis might have settled). You will get a lot more bang for your buck then when upgrading the GTX.
 
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Watch the video 1, video 2, video 3. You talked about two UE5 games, UE5 has low vram usage thanks to virtual textures, no luck like that with non UE5 games...

mguVfrPsyBRE5p1C.jpg
7W0plzcbB8ZoVWtY.jpg
LZDcDWuz1fhfuhy5.jpg
z8nsgSOPuNr7L0iB.jpg
mLfPjfr4mOj4QwtN.jpg
aMsF8gTVd8oneWdP.jpg
e4vFX6IjbLSIzOPL.jpg
OJtff7PJc6Uw2sRZ.jpg


Fucking 1080p... Only difference between two models of 4060ti and two models of 5060ti is VRAM, specs are completely the same. You pay some more for big performance increase in many games and FUTUREPROOFF.



You can play most games in max settings on 16GB versions of 4060ti/5060ti but you can't on 8GB versions (at least in 1080p, check screenshots above). Why limit yourself like that? And when consoles with more than 20GB of memory launch in 2027, 8GB cards will be good only for displaying desktop.
Nice lineup however only 2 out of these 8 are from _this year_ and in case of Doom TDA you're not loosing much by not using the UN preset while you are running well on an 8GB GPU.
Which leaves us only with Oblivion Remastered - a well known greatly optimized game with pin sharp textures everywhere.
So the point which you're trying to disprove actually stands. Even now it's rather hard to bottleneck on VRAM even on a 8GB GPU.
 
Nice lineup however only 2 out of these 8 are from _this year_ and in case of Doom TDA you're not loosing much by not using the UN preset while you are running well on an 8GB GPU.
Which leaves us only with Oblivion Remastered - a well known greatly optimized game with pin sharp textures everywhere.
So the point which you're trying to disprove actually stands. Even now it's rather hard to bottleneck on VRAM even on a 8GB GPU.

Yup thats what I keep saying and posting videos as evidence but he doesnt believe me
 
Nice lineup however only 2 out of these 8 are from _this year_ and in case of Doom TDA you're not loosing much by not using the UN preset while you are running well on an 8GB GPU.
Which leaves us only with Oblivion Remastered - a well known greatly optimized game with pin sharp textures everywhere.
So the point which you're trying to disprove actually stands. Even now it's rather hard to bottleneck on VRAM even on a 8GB GPU.

Lineup of games with problems on 8GB cards is longer. Games from 2023 and 2024 are still very recent.

Unless all games in the future will be done on UE5 (VRAM friendly) there always will be titles that will fuck up 8GB GPUs. 8GB is good only if you want to play older games or just CS, Valorant, Fortnite etc.
 
Meanwhile you don't post any evidence and keep suggesting someone to buy 8GB GPU in 2025. One of the worst decisions that can be done...
Lmao I posted multiple videos showcasing more than viable gameplay on a 3070.

Cmon man. Open your eyes.

An 8gb card is FINE in 2025 IF you dont think you can run games at ultra settings
 
Lmao I posted multiple videos showcasing more than viable gameplay on a 3070.

Cmon man. Open your eyes.

An 8gb card is FINE in 2025 IF you dont think you can run games at ultra settings

Spider Man 2, 1080p with RT. Basically base PS5 settings. Look how much VRAM it uses:

2JEc9nK.png


Almost 11GB reserved and 9.5GB actually used right now. How can you play this on 8GB GPU? 3070 is much stronger with RT than PS5 but can't fucking use it thanks to castrated memory. And there are many games like that.



That was 2 years ago, there are many more games with problems now.
 
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Just going to say that I recently upgraded to a 5070ti after running a 3070 for a few years but I was able to play pretty much any game at high/ultra settings at 1440/60fps.

Wouldn't buy that today but it's also not a death sentence.
 
Spider Man 2, 1080p with RT. Basically base PS5 settings. Look how much VRAM it uses:

2JEc9nK.png


Almost 11GB reserved and 9.5GB actually used right now. How can you play this on 8GB GPU? 3070 is much stronger with RT than PS5 but can't fucking use it thanks to castrated memory. And there are many games like that.



That was 2 years ago, there are many more games with problems now.

Yes one game among hundreds of ones that run perfect on an 8gb card.
 
Yes one game among hundreds of ones that run perfect on an 8gb card.

Hundreds (mostly old) games run good, dozen(s) of newer games have problems. Guess what will happen with future games?

I don't want to convince you (or any other happy 8GB GPU owner), but PLEASE don't recommend anyone GPUs with memory configuration from 2015. Market rejects GPUs like that for a reason:

 
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Just don't go with 8gb in 2025.
It already happened before and will happen again. That's exactly the kind of cost-cutting that's not worth doing.

Is the same as it happened with the 1060 6/3gb, and with the 1650 normal vs super almost a decade ago.

Those who bought the 3/4gb got a medium textures then paper weight with less than 2-3 years. Those who bought the 6gb/8gb still could play "modern games" until last year (7-8 years).
 
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An 8GB GPU is already bad in 2025, but with only 8 lanes of PCIe, especially if it's not on gen5, it's going to be terrible.
And if he still uses that 2600 to play games, then it's locked to PCIe Gen3. This is asking for constant stutters.
 
An 8GB GPU is already bad in 2025, but with only 8 lanes of PCIe, especially if it's not on gen5, it's going to be terrible.
And if he still uses that 2600 to play games, then it's locked to PCIe Gen3. This is asking for constant stutters.
So this is why i´m getting confused, so everyone says i should go for a 16 GB GPU, but at the same time, because of my old and weak CPU (R5 2600) and Mobo (B450M which is PCIe Gen3) i will have stutters, and therefore a horrible experience if i go for that.

Yes, i´m planning to upgrade the CPU pretty soon to a R5 5600X or R7 5700x (best case scenario) or, in the worst case scenario a R5 5500, but still gonna be tied to PCIe Gen3 and DDR4 Ram; so, i´m seeing that having this old rig will be a kinda obstacle anyways for a 16 GB GPU, yes it will be a better investment for future proofing, but the same time it will ask me to change the entire built to work properly...Which it´s something i´m planning to do in around 2 years with the RTX 60 family.

So, i should rework my question:

With an old and extremely low budget rig which i have

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 while i upgrade the CPU to one of the mentioned above, and slap another 16 GB of DDR4 RAM?

Remember, i own a PS5 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 and other old stuff with RTX . 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. This is a temporary rig until 27/28

For example, how about a 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 5060 8 gb would be that horrible? And also, will it drop stutters due to that PCIe Gen3 stuff?

Thanks to all who have provided me valuable info, by the way. I love this thread, i insist!
 
So this is why i´m getting confused, so everyone says i should go for a 16 GB GPU, but at the same time, because of my old and weak CPU (R5 2600) and Mobo (B450M which is PCIe Gen3) i will have stutters, and therefore a horrible experience if i go for that.

Yes, i´m planning to upgrade the CPU pretty soon to a R5 5600X or R7 5700x (best case scenario) or, in the worst case scenario a R5 5500, but still gonna be tied to PCIe Gen3 and DDR4 Ram; so, i´m seeing that having this old rig will be a kinda obstacle anyways for a 16 GB GPU, yes it will be a better investment for future proofing, but the same time it will ask me to change the entire built to work properly...Which it´s something i´m planning to do in around 2 years with the RTX 60 family.

So, i should rework my question:

With an old and extremely low budget rig which i have

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 while i upgrade the CPU to one of the mentioned above, and slap another 16 GB of DDR4 RAM?

Remember, i own a PS5 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 and other old stuff with RTX . 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. This is a temporary rig until 27/28

For example, how about a 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 5060 8 gb would be that horrible? And also, will it drop stutters due to that PCIe Gen3 stuff?

Thanks to all who have provided me valuable info, by the way. I love this thread, i insist!

Yes, the B450M will probably still only work at Gen3. That means a GPU like the 5060 will only have 8GB/s of bandwidth to transfer data from the CPU to the GPU.
The lower amount of vram a GPU has, the less data it can cache in vram. And that means more accesses to system memory, over the PCIe bus. And with such a thin bus, it will mean slow performance and stutters.

The advantage with the 9060XT is that it has the full 16 lanes. And it has 16Gb of vram.
This means that even at PCIe Gen3, it will have double the bandwidth of the 5060. Still not ideal. But a lot better.
And with more vram, it means it can cache more data in vram and have to access system memory less often.
Adding more ram, could help. But the limitation will always be the PCIe bus.
RDNA4 made significant strides in RT performance. And is one hair away from a 5060Ti in RT performance. You can check that in this article.
Also consider that RT uses up more vram. And that means more data that will go through the PCIe bus. So the 5060 will suffer more performance losses than the 9060XT.
If you are picking a GPU for the next 2-3 years, without major changes for the rest of your PC, the 9060XT will be your best choice.
One caveat is DLSS4 vs FSR4. In terms of quality they are very similar, though DLSS4 still has a small advantage.
The big advantage with DLSS4 is that it has much greater support. At least officially.
But this narrows to almost nothing, if you use a tool such as Optiscaler. This tool is easy to use an allows injecting FSR/DLSS/XeSS into any game that has support for any other of these techs.

 
Nice lineup however only 2 out of these 8 are from _this year_ and in case of Doom TDA you're not loosing much by not using the UN preset while you are running well on an 8GB GPU.
Which leaves us only with Oblivion Remastered - a well known greatly optimized game with pin sharp textures everywhere.
So the point which you're trying to disprove actually stands. Even now it's rather hard to bottleneck on VRAM even on a 8GB GPU.
The video posted earlier by Bojji is from six months ago but are all 2025 PC releases.
7 out of 8 had problems with 8GB at 1080p. The only one that dind't show problems at 1080p was FFVII Rebirth, but it can still be an issue after a longer play session instead of a few minutes for a benchmark run.
At 1440p all had problems with the 8GB card.
Yes, you can lower your settings to fit under 8GB but the point is that it is the exact same GPU, only difference being the amount of VRAM.


Benchmarks usually stick to presets but having enough VRAM also allows you to max out texture quality with no performance hit if you keep the rest at medium/high or even low.
This one is a bit of an anomaly but illustrates what being VRAM constrained can do in some instances.
HZD Remastered at medium shows performance increase across several generations, as is expected.

HZD.png


But when using "Very High" settings, which includes higher texture quality, this happens.

HZD-2.png
 
Yes, the B450M will probably still only work at Gen3. That means a GPU like the 5060 will only have 8GB/s of bandwidth to transfer data from the CPU to the GPU.
The lower amount of vram a GPU has, the less data it can cache in vram. And that means more accesses to system memory, over the PCIe bus. And with such a thin bus, it will mean slow performance and stutters.

The advantage with the 9060XT is that it has the full 16 lanes. And it has 16Gb of vram.
This means that even at PCIe Gen3, it will have double the bandwidth of the 5060. Still not ideal. But a lot better.
And with more vram, it means it can cache more data in vram and have to access system memory less often.
Adding more ram, could help. But the limitation will always be the PCIe bus.
RDNA4 made significant strides in RT performance. And is one hair away from a 5060Ti in RT performance. You can check that in this article.
Also consider that RT uses up more vram. And that means more data that will go through the PCIe bus. So the 5060 will suffer more performance losses than the 9060XT.
If you are picking a GPU for the next 2-3 years, without major changes for the rest of your PC, the 9060XT will be your best choice.
One caveat is DLSS4 vs FSR4. In terms of quality they are very similar, though DLSS4 still has a small advantage.
The big advantage with DLSS4 is that it has much greater support. At least officially.
But this narrows to almost nothing, if you use a tool such as Optiscaler. This tool is easy to use an allows injecting FSR/DLSS/XeSS into any game that has support for any other of these techs.

I´m not much into AMD, but this makes lotta sense. How will it work with HL, Quake 2 and other RTX mixed stuff? Because i saw some videos with Half Life 2 RTX and it performed horrible, and that folk from the video had a way better PC tan mine.

Also, how about the RTX 3060 12GB or the RTX 4060 TI 16 GB, i saw a second hand one with a reasonable price (less than the RX 9060 XT new).

If you want cheap option, used 3060 12GB is a good choice. But it's 37% slower than 9060XT:

qBhPRCE8uymqsTS0.jpg
Bojji Bojji kindly shows that the 3060 it´s slower than the 9060 xt, but it´s cheaper and could match better with my old rig...or am i wrong?
 
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The video posted earlier by Bojji is from six months ago but are all 2025 PC releases.
7 out of 8 had problems with 8GB at 1080p. The only one that dind't show problems at 1080p was FFVII Rebirth, but it can still be an issue after a longer play session instead of a few minutes for a benchmark run.
At 1440p all had problems with the 8GB card.
Yes, you can lower your settings to fit under 8GB but the point is that it is the exact same GPU, only difference being the amount of VRAM.


Benchmarks usually stick to presets but having enough VRAM also allows you to max out texture quality with no performance hit if you keep the rest at medium/high or even low.
This one is a bit of an anomaly but illustrates what being VRAM constrained can do in some instances.
HZD Remastered at medium shows performance increase across several generations, as is expected.

HZD.png


But when using "Very High" settings, which includes higher texture quality, this happens.

HZD-2.png


100% truth.

I´m not much into AMD, but this makes lotta sense. How will it work with HL, Quake 2 and other RTX mixed stuff? Because i saw some videos with Half Life 2 RTX and it performed horrible, and that folk from the video had a way better PC tan mine.

Also, how about the RTX 3060 12GB or the RTX 4060 TI 16 GB, i saw a second hand one with a reasonable price (less than the RX 9060 XT new).


Bojji Bojji kindly shows that the 3060 it´s slower than the 9060 xt, but it´s cheaper and could match better with my old rig...or am i wrong?

3060 is still 50% better than your current GPU:

SIS4i0a7kldahL4O.jpg


You get access to DLSS 3/4 and RT (but don't expect miracles from this GPU). I still think the best option right now is 9060XT 16GB.

You NEED to change CPU at some point, to 5600 at least (5500 sucks, forget about it). Even with 3060 12GB you will see big performance jump with that CPU change (massive change with 9060XT).
 
I´m not much into AMD, but this makes lotta sense. How will it work with HL, Quake 2 and other RTX mixed stuff? Because i saw some videos with Half Life 2 RTX and it performed horrible, and that folk from the video had a way better PC tan mine.

Also, how about the RTX 3060 12GB or the RTX 4060 TI 16 GB, i saw a second hand one with a reasonable price (less than the RX 9060 XT new).

Bojji Bojji kindly shows that the 3060 it´s slower than the 9060 xt, but it´s cheaper and could match better with my old rig...or am i wrong?


The HL2 RT remix is an nvidia project so it probably will run bad on AMD GPUs.
The 3060Ti can do little over 20 fps at 1080p. LTT tested it on this video. The 3060 will probably be under 20 fps.
So forget about this game. Neither a 5060, nor 3006, or 9060XT will run it well enough.



I tried Quake 2 RTX with my 9070 and it ran very well. So it will also run well on a 9060XT.
Just keep in mind that this game has no support for FSR, nor DLSS. It only has TAAU.

This is the game running on my PC, 1440p. Native res, RT high, TAA.

vUV38w9d4DsrD99G.jpg
 
8gb gaming gpusbhave been out since nov 2013 290x 8gb version)... they have been on the chopping block for years at this point... 16gb is bare minimum these days if you are going to bother buying new.
 
So this is why i´m getting confused, so everyone says i should go for a 16 GB GPU, but at the same time, because of my old and weak CPU (R5 2600) and Mobo (B450M which is PCIe Gen3) i will have stutters, and therefore a horrible experience if i go for that.

Yes, i´m planning to upgrade the CPU pretty soon to a R5 5600X or R7 5700x (best case scenario) or, in the worst case scenario a R5 5500, but still gonna be tied to PCIe Gen3 and DDR4 Ram; so, i´m seeing that having this old rig will be a kinda obstacle anyways for a 16 GB GPU, yes it will be a better investment for future proofing, but the same time it will ask me to change the entire built to work properly...Which it´s something i´m planning to do in around 2 years with the RTX 60 family.

So, i should rework my question:

With an old and extremely low budget rig which i have

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 while i upgrade the CPU to one of the mentioned above, and slap another 16 GB of DDR4 RAM?

Remember, i own a PS5 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 and other old stuff with RTX . 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. This is a temporary rig until 27/28

For example, how about a 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 5060 8 gb would be that horrible? And also, will it drop stutters due to that PCIe Gen3 stuff?

Thanks to all who have provided me valuable info, by the way. I love this thread, i insist!

See my last post bro.
I'm in Latin America too so take a look at the performance/$ that I posted here or on the 9070 XT topic (you can get a equivalency comparing to Brazilian prices e.g.)

For performance, specially on the RtX remix, take a look at some yt videos. I think the only cards that will give some headroom to play on rtx Remix are at the 4070/5070 level.

That said

Economy mode: used 3060 (12gb, probably won't have the same problem as the 5060 in your pcie 3.0. Will give you a taste of RT)

My pick: 9060 Or 9060xt 16gb. (Less RT performance, no PCIE Problem, way more future proof)

Plus on both cases you get cheaper games on Steam or something else.

But yeah, when possible, upgrade your CPU.
 
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Yes, the B450M will probably still only work at Gen3. That means a GPU like the 5060 will only have 8GB/s of bandwidth to transfer data from the CPU to the GPU.
The lower amount of vram a GPU has, the less data it can cache in vram. And that means more accesses to system memory, over the PCIe bus. And with such a thin bus, it will mean slow performance and stutters.
And how about a 4060 TI 16 GB?
 
So this is why i´m getting confused, so everyone says i should go for a 16 GB GPU, but at the same time, because of my old and weak CPU (R5 2600) and Mobo (B450M which is PCIe Gen3) i will have stutters, and therefore a horrible experience if i go for that.

Yes, i´m planning to upgrade the CPU pretty soon to a R5 5600X or R7 5700x (best case scenario) or, in the worst case scenario a R5 5500, but still gonna be tied to PCIe Gen3 and DDR4 Ram; so, i´m seeing that having this old rig will be a kinda obstacle anyways for a 16 GB GPU, yes it will be a better investment for future proofing, but the same time it will ask me to change the entire built to work properly...Which it´s something i´m planning to do in around 2 years with the RTX 60 family.
I'm on way older and weaker CPU and also limited to PCIe 3.0. I went for a 9060XT 16GB because of the VRAM amount, the full 16 PCIe lanes, AMD drivers seem to have lower CPU overhead than Nvidia drivers and it was over €100 less expensive than the 5060Ti 16GB, in fact it was even cheaper than the cheapest 5060Ti 8GB.
It was €349 (≈US$410) when I bought it while the cheapest 5060Ti 16GB avalilable at that moment was around €470(≈US$552).

I didn't have that much time to test and I rarely play the latest "AAA" releases. I did a bit of testing with GTAV Enhanced using RT max settings the little I tried it worked fine, better than I was expecting. But I have to do more testing in several parts of the map and probably tweak some settings due to the CPU, not the GPU.
The Witcher 3 with maximun RT is very demanding, especially on vegetation dense areas and also seems to hit the CPU harder than GTAV. At times it loads a single thread while GTAV seems to spread the workload better across all available threads.
It looks different, but I wouldn't say it (always) looks better. The performance hit and power consumption increase is not worth it for me.
I use RTSS to lock the framerate at 60 in this case.
SSR High
mRm5i9HoHkqkhqy2.jpg


RT Max (Quality, RT GI, RT reflections, RT shadows and and RT AO enabled)
MTIAO52dO6cqGxvH.jpg


Here I was messing around with VSR so that's why it is 3200x1800. I can get 60FPS with no RT but it drops hard when enabling ray tracing.
witcher3-2025-12-09-18-54-57-460.jpg

RT max...
witcher3-2025-12-09-18-54-38-786.jpg

Your current motherboard only supports PCIe 3.0 but the 5600X and 5700X can support PCIe 4.0 on a compatible motherboard. The R5 5500 is still limited to PCIe 3.0 no matter what motherboard you use.
 
See my last post bro.
I'm in Latin America too so take a look at the performance/$ that I posted here or on the 9070 XT topic (you can get a equivalency comparing to Brazilian prices e.g.)

For performance, specially on the RtX remix, take a look at some yt videos. I think the only cards that will give some headroom to play on rtx Remix are at the 4070/5070 level.

That said

Economy mode: used 3060 (12gb, probably won't have the same problem as the 5060 in your pcie 3.0. Will give you a taste of RT)

My pick: 9060 Or 9060xt 16gb. (Less RT performance, no PCIE Problem, way more future proof)

Plus on both cases you get cheaper games on Steam or something else.

But yeah, when possible, upgrade your CPU.
For RT it´s 3060 12 GB better than 9060 xt?
 
Hundreds (mostly old) games run good, dozen(s) of newer games have problems. Guess what will happen with future games?

I don't want to convince you (or any other happy 8GB GPU owner), but PLEASE don't recommend anyone GPUs with memory configuration from 2015. Market rejects GPUs like that for a reason:



Which are the new games that actually have serious problems at high/medium settings, dlss4 at 1440p

???? Please enlighten me brother, because as someone who owned the card for 5 years im pretty sure this card is still a great card as a budget option. 200€ is not nothing and you still have 250+ left for cpu upgrade
 
I´m not much into AMD, but this makes lotta sense. How will it work with HL, Quake 2 and other RTX mixed stuff? Because i saw some videos with Half Life 2 RTX and it performed horrible, and that folk from the video had a way better PC tan mine.

Also, how about the RTX 3060 12GB or the RTX 4060 TI 16 GB, i saw a second hand one with a reasonable price (less than the RX 9060 XT new).


Bojji Bojji kindly shows that the 3060 it´s slower than the 9060 xt, but it´s cheaper and could match better with my old rig...or am i wrong?
To give you an idea compared to consoles - RTX 3060 performs similar to the PS5 GPU but with better ray tracing and DLSS. 9060 XT performs right around the PS5 Pro in all aspects.

The PS5 CPU tends to perform around a Ryzen 3600, which is between your Ryzen 2600 and a Ryzen 5600.
 
Which are the new games that actually have serious problems at high/medium settings, dlss4 at 1440p

???? Please enlighten me brother, because as someone who owned the card for 5 years im pretty sure this card is still a great card as a budget option. 200€ is not nothing and you still have 250+ left for cpu upgrade

Here. Data from 1.5 years ago (more games with problems now). They even added convenient lines for 8GB and 12GB cards:



8ChOl4zONcIS6VHW.jpg
55YK87YJcWeHBB58.jpg
GAo0qP8ixF1aJmqo.jpg
cM4fLuNpyrRypsPt.jpg
z2Nd8bOspS4581zY.jpg
15ISqOeR1oc2i8wb.jpg
VjclURXecAshEXRW.jpg
VwQEdF6e70kcv0kW.jpg
nLupzrukfMwgVumY.jpg
eI9sBSDAk5QG1ypX.jpg


Keep recommending people 8GB cards...
 
So, with that Mobo i have, which GPU can i put without the risk of great sttutter or performance loss?
The thing is that "CPU bottleneck" is not an absolute metric.
It varies from game to game and some games can be CPU limited in specific places depending on what's happening while in most parts can keep 60FPS without issue. If you are fine with 30FPS you still have a greater range than I can tolerate for the most part.

For example, in Death Stranding driving fast on the road in some parts of the map would make my framerate drop to the 40s and sometimes briefly into the 30s while my GPU usage dropped and CPU utilization was practically maxed out, it dependes on the amount of structures in the area. With this GPU I haven't seen it yet but I expect it to happen aswell, maybe a bit less because of the lower driver CPU overhead. But now I can max out graphics settings, all the textures load correctly, I can play at four times the resolution and for this game this GPU still has performance and VRAM to spare. And it consumes less power doing so that the card I was using before.
In Doom 2016 my CPU seems to be the bottleneck for around 200FPS. If I'm fine playing that game at 60FPS I can lock it and have a smooth and consistent framepacing. This GPU allows me to bump the resolution to "5K" (5120x2880) with maximum settings and still be in the 60+ range.

I don't know how is the hardware market in your region but if I were in your place I'll still go for a the graphics card, 9060XT or 5060Ti 16GB. Also if you are goint to upgrade the whole system in a couple of year a 16GB card will hold greater resell value than an 8GB card, if you choose to go that route.
As you already own an AM4 motherboard I'll keep an eye for some good deals or second hand 5600/5600x. Even a 3600 could give you a decent uplift in some cases when paired with a 9060XT/5060Ti performance level GPU. But if you are willing to tolerate 30FPS I'll probably hang in there hoping that the RAM situation returns to normal prices and then make the jump to a new platform, AM5/6 or whatever Intel has at the time.
 
Here. Data from 1.5 years ago (more games with problems now). They even added convenient lines for 8GB and 12GB cards:



8ChOl4zONcIS6VHW.jpg
55YK87YJcWeHBB58.jpg
GAo0qP8ixF1aJmqo.jpg
cM4fLuNpyrRypsPt.jpg
z2Nd8bOspS4581zY.jpg
15ISqOeR1oc2i8wb.jpg
VjclURXecAshEXRW.jpg
VwQEdF6e70kcv0kW.jpg
nLupzrukfMwgVumY.jpg
eI9sBSDAk5QG1ypX.jpg


Keep recommending people 8GB cards...


Yes so no problem at all at High/medium settings which is usually better than console equivalent.



8GB card getting 90fps in Battlefield 6, 100fps in Arc Raiders

Nobody gaming with a 8GB card is using Ultra presets or high RT lmao

You keep trying to push this sort of 'data' which nobody will logically use in normal everyday use.
 
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But the performance hit seems not being that huge on PCIe 3.0


A few caveats to consider. That test is 2 years old, and still several games lost performance with Gen3. Newer games are heavier on the PCIe bus and future games will be even worse. And RT games even worse.
The other thing to consider is what most of us have been telling you, with 16GB the GPU doesn't need to go to system memory as much. And why 8GB is not enough.
For example, this is the test with the 5060Ti, on a PCIe Gen3 vs Gen4 vs Gen5.
As you can see, having only 8GB of vram and PCIe 8X Gen3 is really bad.

 
You got a 500w psu OP, you probably need an upgrade there as well. Ti variants usually need 600-650watts? 3060 needs 550 watts? Check those out before picking one.

I'm also in a shitty situation with my 3060ti. I'm managing with 8gb for now, but I really want one of those 16gb cards. But for the same money, I could probably buy a PS6 in two years, or get a PS5(Pro?) right now. My card will probably last at least another two years anyway; it performs "well" in every game, even with my shitty 9700k cpu(latest ex. Bf6 1440p high/ dlss quality/ 90 ish fps). I'm confused too, OP. This ram fomo really gets to you, doesn't it?
 
For RT it´s 3060 12 GB better than 9060 xt?

Nope.
9060xt trade blows with the 5060ti.
3060 is 2 generations + a Tier behind.

It could have some advantages in rtx remix because of dlss optimization but I doubt it.(Again search on yt)

The thing is that the 3060 cost probably 60% of a 9060xt.
 
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You got a 500w psu OP, you probably need an upgrade there as well. Ti variants usually need 600-650watts? 3060 needs 550 watts? Check those out before picking one.

I'm also in a shitty situation with my 3060ti. I'm managing with 8gb for now, but I really want one of those 16gb cards. But for the same money, I could probably buy a PS6 in two years, or get a PS5(Pro?) right now. My card will probably last at least another two years anyway; it performs "well" in every game, even with my shitty 9700k cpu(latest ex. Bf6 1440p high/ dlss quality/ 90 ish fps). I'm confused too, OP. This ram fomo really gets to you, doesn't it?
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
 
Yes so no problem at all at High/medium settings which is usually better than console equivalent.



8GB card getting 90fps in Battlefield 6, 100fps in Arc Raiders

Nobody gaming with a 8GB card is using Ultra presets or high RT lmao

You keep trying to push this sort of 'data' which nobody will logically use in normal everyday use.


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...
 
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