Upgrading RTX 3080 to 6950XT?

[PopsicleHustler]

Hello everyone

 

I have a possibility of upgrading my RTX3080 to a 6950XT. Do you think that upgrade is justified? It would cost me around 100 euros because I would instantly sell my 3080 to a friend who already offered me a good price.

 

I've seen quite a few comparisons of two cards, and 6950XT is on par or even beats 3080Ti in some cases, and is clearly faster than 3080. I'm running on 3840 x 1600 monitor, so an upgrade even of 10FPS in some games would be very noticeable for me.

 

Also, all the comparisons are using "older" AMD drivers, and AMD has a history of improving performance with driver updates. So what do you guy think?

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, my 3080 is 10GB model, not a 12GB one. 

[RONOTHAN##]

I made that exact switch (or more accurately, a 6900 XT that I've overclocked to the same performance level of a 6950 XT) about 6 months ago, and I've been fine with it. It's not super noticeably better or worse, I more did it because the price difference was only $50 and I was bored, so keep that in mind. If going by a pure price to performance standpoint, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but IMO the 6950 XT is the more fun card to mess around with, so if you like tinkering with hardware I'd do it, but if not I wouldn't say it's really worth the extra 100 Euros unless you know for a fact you play a game that heavily favors AMD GPUs. 

[Shimejii]

No. Its pretty much a sidegrade rather then an upgrade. But if you think your 100 euro is worth that tradeoff, with the games you play, then it may be worth it to you. Also really depends on the Model of GPU you are getting, if you get the Basic model from AMD its probably not worth it.

[PrometheusAwoken]

It would be nice to know what you do with your PC.

 

While the 6950XT is certainly faster in normal games, is raytracing performance somthing you care about? because the 3080 will be a much better card for ray tracing than the Radeon card. 

 

Also consider that you'll be giving up features such as DLSS.

 

Do you do any workstation tasks with the PC (video editing, 3d modelling, etc? Nvidia tends to ourpace AMD in workstation stuff, and many professional programs utilize NVidia's CUDA and wont work well, or somtimes at all, on AMD cards. 

 

However, if you don't care about any of that, if the performance gains are enough to justify the 100 euros for you, then I would say go for it. 

[PopsicleHustler]

25 minutes ago, PrometheusAwoken said:

It would be nice to know what you do with your PC.

 

While the 6950XT is certainly faster in normal games, is raytracing performance somthing you care about? because the 3080 will be a much better card for ray tracing than the Radeon card. 

 

Also consider that you'll be giving up features such as DLSS.

 

Do you do any workstation tasks with the PC (video editing, 3d modelling, etc? Nvidia tends to ourpace AMD in workstation stuff, and many professional programs utilize NVidia's CUDA and wont work well, or somtimes at all, on AMD cards. 

 

However, if you don't care about any of that, if the performance gains are enough to justify the 100 euros for you, then I would say go for it. 

I use it purely for gaming at 3840 x 1600p. RTX and DLSS are not important to me. RTX kills the performance and DLSS in my experience makes resolution noticeably blurry, so I don't use that.

 

Hence why I'm looking for raw performance without RTX or DLSS. But doesn't AMD have something similar to DLSS?

[PrometheusAwoken]

12 minutes ago, PopsicleHustler said:

I use it purely for gaming at 3840 x 1600p. RTX and DLSS are not important to me. RTX kills the performance and DLSS in my experience makes resolution noticeably blurry, so I don't use that.

 

Hence why I'm looking for raw performance without RTX or DLSS. But doesn't AMD have something similar to DLSS?

AMD does have FSR, which is similar, but its generally considered to not be as good as DLSS. FSR works on NVidia cards as well.

 

If you don't care about ray tracing, and only game the decision is up to you, is that peformance diffrenece worth 100 euros? If so, then I would say go for it.

[PopsicleHustler]

18 hours ago, huilun02 said:

I take you are not looking at raytracing if just 10fps makes a noticeable difference in smoothness. DLSS seems exactly what you need to run high resolution. Although I understand not all games support DLSS so you may not want to count on it.

 

That aside, if you livestream with the same card or use any work application the favors an Nvidia GPU, might want to reconsider.

 

Also look up on how they compare with regards to power consumption and thermals, if it matters to you.

 

Here a comparison video that includes 6950XT and 3080 10GB variant, including 1440p and 2160p for every game tested. Is 5 months old, not too long ago so it will account for most of the post launch driver optimizations.

 

I didnt make that video. I dont have a 6950XT or 3080Ti or 3080

 

Good luck

DLSS in my experience does not provide any real world benefit. In my instances it either does not provide any benefit when set to "quality", and when going beyond to balanced or even performance mode, it downgrades resolution so much, it simply defeats the purpose of playing on a high resolution monitor in the first place. Hence why I never really used it, which is why I'm looking for an upgrade. I even stumbled upon some nice 3090 deals of 800ish euros (Used).

[PopsicleHustler]

On 1/3/2023 at 5:47 AM, PrometheusAwoken said:

It would be nice to know what you do with your PC.

 

While the 6950XT is certainly faster in normal games, is raytracing performance somthing you care about? because the 3080 will be a much better card for ray tracing than the Radeon card. 

 

Also consider that you'll be giving up features such as DLSS.

 

Do you do any workstation tasks with the PC (video editing, 3d modelling, etc? Nvidia tends to ourpace AMD in workstation stuff, and many professional programs utilize NVidia's CUDA and wont work well, or somtimes at all, on AMD cards. 

 

However, if you don't care about any of that, if the performance gains are enough to justify the 100 euros for you, then I would say go for it. 

So I managed to snatch myself a used RTX3090 for less than expected 6950XT price. Now the upgrade is just mere 30 euros. Yes, its a used card, but from a trustworthy lad who sells alot of used PC components around here. He says there are no issues and the card was used in his gaming rig running games and nothing else, so I should be golden.

 

My EVGA 750" GQ power supply though will be even closer to its limits. But according to reddit users and my own math, it should be enough to power 9900k and 3090

[PrometheusAwoken]

20 hours ago, PopsicleHustler said:

So I managed to snatch myself a used RTX3090 for less than expected 6950XT price. Now the upgrade is just mere 30 euros. Yes, its a used card, but from a trustworthy lad who sells alot of used PC components around here. He says there are no issues and the card was used in his gaming rig running games and nothing else, so I should be golden.

 

My EVGA 750" GQ power supply though will be even closer to its limits. But according to reddit users and my own math, it should be enough to power 9900k and 3090

Great find! Theoretically 750 watts should be fine, but the issue with the 30 series is transient power spikes. There are times when your GPU suddenly draws FAR more power than what its supposed to draw, for fractions of a second. This mainly affects PSUs that are just on the edge of your total system power requirements (like yours), and/or ones that are high enough wattage and good quality, but are older and not built with these transisent spikes in mind. Gamers Nexus did a great video about them. I would really recommend going and getting a good quality, higher wattage PSU for your 3090.

[PopsicleHustler]

7 hours ago, PrometheusAwoken said:

Great find! Theoretically 750 watts should be fine, but the issue with the 30 series is transient power spikes. There are times when your GPU suddenly draws FAR more power than what its supposed to draw, for fractions of a second. This mainly affects PSUs that are just on the edge of your total system power requirements (like yours), and/or ones that are high enough wattage and good quality, but are older and not built with these transisent spikes in mind. Gamers Nexus did a great video about them. I would really recommend going and getting a good quality, higher wattage PSU for your 3090.

Well currently my total power draw should be around 600 watts or even a little less. 200W 9900k, ~320W 3080 and rest of the components. Reference 3090 "shouldn't" draw much more power compared to my Asus 3080.

 

I have some faith in my 750W GQ. But getting a 1000W PSU will be on my radar as well as my plan to switch on AM5 platform

[PopsicleHustler]

On 1/5/2023 at 7:31 PM, PrometheusAwoken said:

Great find! Theoretically 750 watts should be fine, but the issue with the 30 series is transient power spikes. There are times when your GPU suddenly draws FAR more power than what its supposed to draw, for fractions of a second. This mainly affects PSUs that are just on the edge of your total system power requirements (like yours), and/or ones that are high enough wattage and good quality, but are older and not built with these transisent spikes in mind. Gamers Nexus did a great video about them. I would really recommend going and getting a good quality, higher wattage PSU for your 3090.

So I got it this morning and already played with it for quite some time. Thing is a monster. There is alot more performance gain than I expected. It really stretches its legs on 3840x1600 monitor. 

 

So far playing demanding games like BF2042, which is AVX load + it pins the GPU at max load, I didn't have issues with the power delivery. PC works fine and looks to be stable.  One annoying thing is GPUs temp target. It does everything to keep itself at 69-70C. Right now its fine with ambient temp around 20C, it idles at 30C with fans off and holds 70C at max load with fans at around 1400RPM which isn't noticeable, especially wearing headphones. But come the summer time with temps reaching 30C outside + humidity, it will get louder.

 

Next up is upgrading to Ryzen 7000 series. Will probably get 7800X3D, 32 gigs of DDR5 and a decent motherboard for moderate overclocking. 

 

Oh and by the way, this is a TIGHT fit if I ever seen one. Literally no space between it and the fans. Also having fan on top of the GPU is very unusual, but I gotta say, this thing is sexy. I always loved Nvidia's reference designs.