Which is the most appropriate graphics card for my system...? Which graphics card should I buy?

[GuruMeditationError]

I've decided not to impulse purchase a 3080 but I still need a video card.

Should I wait for a 3070 or 3060 or will something less powerful do?

It has to be an Nvidia card because I use 3D vision.

Here's my spec:

 

Monitor:

 

 Asus ROG Swift PG278QR (2560 x 1440) 165Hz

 

System:

4790k with a 4.7GHz overclock
32GB 2666 MHz RAM
Asus Z97-WS (Motherboard)
Samsung 960 Evo 1TB NVMe M.2
EVGA Supernova 850 T2 (PSU)


What's the most appropriate card? Which should I buy?

 

[Archerr]

What will you use the system for?

for gaming: 3070 or 3080

for work: 3060 (if they release one) or 3070

[Chris Pratt]

Unless you're planning to try to do true 4K at 60fps+ you don't need more than a 3070. The performance should be on par with a 2080Ti, which is still a totally capable card, obviously. As for right now, if you just can't wait, but you still plan to eventually get a 30 series card, I'd just shoot for the cheapest Nvidia card that will meet your minimum requirements. You didn't specify exactly what you need the card for, but you can just grab a 1660 super, and then flip it for a little cash later. If you don't plan to upgrade, then I'd try to get a 2070 super or 2080. It won't be as good as a 30 series, obviously, but it'd still be fine for most of what you'd do.

[jones177]

What ever you get it will be your CPU holding you back.

 

My i7 6700k uses a GTX 1080 ti and it will be getting one of my 2080 tis for encoding in a few days. It will not be a balanced system but it will do until the 4 core is replaced with a 6 or 8 core.

 

Get what you like then after Zen 3 is out Zen 2 will be a lot cheaper and there is always the i5 or 7 from intel so lots of choices.

[GuruMeditationError]

3 hours ago, Archerr said:

What will you use the system for?

for gaming: 3070 or 3080

for work: 3060 (if they release one) or 3070

 

2 hours ago, Chris Pratt said:

Unless you're planning to try to do true 4K at 60fps+ you don't need more than a 3070. The performance should be on par with a 2080Ti, which is still a totally capable card, obviously. As for right now, if you just can't wait, but you still plan to eventually get a 30 series card, I'd just shoot for the cheapest Nvidia card that will meet your minimum requirements. You didn't specify exactly what you need the card for, but you can just grab a 1660 super, and then flip it for a little cash later. If you don't plan to upgrade, then I'd try to get a 2070 super or 2080. It won't be as good as a 30 series, obviously, but it'd still be fine for most of what you'd do.

Thanks for responding, it's most appreciated.

I should have said it's purely for gaming, nothing else. 90% of the usage will be for Nvidia 3D vision gaming which is locked at 120fps. The monitor in the specs list is 3D capable. 

Right now I'm gaming on a GTX 970 and I'm pretty desperate to get onto more or less any other card, but if a 3070 or 3080 would be suitable, then I guess I'll just hold out for one of those. The thing is my motherboard is PCIe 3.0 but I can't afford to upgrade motherboard, RAM, CPU right now, I just need a new graphics card.

[Chris Pratt]

13 hours ago, GuruMeditationError said:

The thing is my motherboard is PCIe 3.0 but I can't afford to upgrade motherboard, RAM, CPU right now, I just need a new graphics card.

The 30 series cards will work with PCIe 3.0. It's backwards compatible. The AMD cards were already PCIe 4.0, but you can still run them on Intel machines, obviously, which are all limited to PCIe 3.0.

 

However, the secret sauce to that was that the AMD cards weren't actually even using more than PCIe 3.0, so it made no functional difference. We don't know yet, and probably won't know until some solid reviews, how much PCIe 4.0 is going to matter to the Nvidia cards. If it's the same situation as current gen AMD, no problem. If not, then the card will still work, but you won't get the full performance out of it until you get a board (and CPU) with PCIe 4.0. in either case, you're fine, you just might not get your money's worth without some system upgrades. We'll just have to see.

[GuruMeditationError]

1 hour ago, Chris Pratt said:

The 30 series cards will work with PCIe 3.0. It's backwards compatible. The AMD cards were already PCIe 4.0, but you can still run them on Intel machines, obviously, which are all limited to PCIe 3.0.

 

However, the secret sauce to that was that the AMD cards weren't actually even using more than PCIe 3.0, so it made no functional difference. We don't know yet, and probably won't know until some solid reviews, how much PCIe 4.0 is going to matter to the Nvidia cards. If it's the same situation as current gen AMD, no problem. If not, then the card will still work, but you won't get the full performance out of it until you get a board (and CPU) with PCIe 4.0. in either case, you're fine, you just might not get your money's worth without some system upgrades. We'll just have to see.

Thanks so much. :0)