Need Recommendations for New Graphics Card

[EonityLuna]

I am currently seeking to upgrade from a GTX 1060 6GB here. My intended use cases are:

• accelerating creative applications (raster and vector graphics)
• video encoding/decoding, including the new AV1 standard
• possibly 3D modelling in Blender (not sure about this one yet)
• improving graphics performance in modded Cities: Skylines (I use a ton of high-quality/high-tris assets)
• play Portal RTX on medium-to-high settings

My current PC specs are:

• Asus Z590 TUF Gaming Plus WiFi
• Intel Core i5 11500
• 64GB of RAM
• MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD (this is my system drive where Windows and apps are installed)
• Toshiba 3TB mechanical hard drive (this is mainly used for file storage)
• Currently using a 1440p (2560x1440) monitor

Now, this part may contain a bit of venting, but bear with me:

I have had been considering getting an RTX 4060 Ti initially, but after seeing all the reviews that pours nothing but scorn for that card, I had started considering the RTX 4070 as well. Then I start seeing not-very-favourable reviews for that card as well, and I begun to consider going with AMD; problem is, checking the local shops here (I'm from Singapore), I see mostly Nvidia's cards on offer. For AMD, the selection I have been able to find are much more paltry, and I have not been able to find any RX 6800/RX 6800 XT and very few RX 6750 XT cards.

 

Then there's also the problem of third-party graphics card makers; I had seriously considered getting a first-party graphics card, but all of the cards I have been able to find here are third-party cards. I'm reluctant to go with the big three - Asus, MSI, Gigabyte - as they have (or had) been embroidered in scandals or other things that just don't give me confidence. There's Asus with that whole AMD motherboards burning up and warranty confusion mess recently, MSI getting their cryptographic signing keys stolen, and not too long ago there was Gigabyte with their power supplies literally blowing up and them trying to dodge responsibility or even admit it was happening. With those three out of the picture, I'm left with Zotac and Galax as my remaining available options here, and I'm not very confident with these two brands either.

 

As well, there's the problem of my budget - the RTX 4070 is already pushing its limits, and I don't think I will be able to afford anything above that.

 

I'm not that hot on getting a second-hand card, and I'm kind of reluctant to get a last-generation card as well (I want something that can last me many years as possible).

 

At this point I had like to ask: what's the best way forward for me? Which card should I buy, and are Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte even still trustworthy? Heck, should I even go with Nvidia given just how bat-poop insane their CEO seems to have gone?

 

Someone please guide me, I'm totally lost.

Edited May 31, 2023 by EonityLuna
Edited to add my screen resolution, which is important for this discussion.

[Bob__]

XFX 7900 XT(X) seems to avoid everything

[EonityLuna]

2 minutes ago, Bob__ said:

XFX 7900 XT(X) seems to avoid everything

And it's also way out of my budget lol. As I said, I can already barely afford the RTX 4070, and anything better would be overbudget for me.

[Agall]

10 minutes ago, EonityLuna said:

I am currently seeking to upgrade from a GTX 1060 6GB here. My intended use cases are:

• accelerating creative applications (raster and vector graphics)
• video encoding/decoding, including the new AV1 standard
• possibly 3D modelling in Blender (not sure about this one yet)
• improving graphics performance in modded Cities: Skylines (I use a ton of high-quality/high-tris assets)
• play Portal RTX on medium-to-high settings

My current PC specs are:

• Asus Z590 TUF Gaming Plus WiFi
• Intel Core i5 11500
• 64GB of RAM
• MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD (this is my system drive where Windows and apps are installed)
• Toshiba 3TB mechanical hard drive (this is mainly used for file storage)

Now, this part may contain a bit of venting, but bear with me:

I have had been considering getting an RTX 4060 Ti initially, but after seeing all the reviews that pours nothing but scorn for that card, I had started considering the RTX 4070 as well. Then I start seeing not-very-favourable reviews for that card as well, and I begun to consider going with AMD; problem is, checking the local shops here (I'm from Singapore), I see mostly Nvidia's cards on offer. For AMD, the selection I have been able to find are much more paltry, and I have not been able to find any RX 6800/RX 6800 XT and very few RX 6750 XT cards.

 

Then there's also the problem of third-party graphics card makers; I had seriously considered getting a first-party graphics card, but all of the cards I have been able to find here are third-party cards. I'm reluctant to go with the big three - Asus, MSI, Gigabyte - as they have (or had) been embroidered in scandals or other things that just don't give me confidence. There's Asus with that whole AMD motherboards burning up and warranty confusion mess recently, MSI getting their cryptographic signing keys stolen, and not too long ago there was Gigabyte with their power supplies literally blowing up and them trying to dodge responsibility or even admit it was happening. With those three out of the picture, I'm left with Zotac and Galax as my remaining available options here, and I'm not very confident with these two brands either.

 

As well, there's the problem of my budget - the RTX 4070 is already pushing its limits, and I don't think I will be able to afford anything above that.

 

I'm not that hot on getting a second-hand card, and I'm kind of reluctant to get a last-generation card as well (I want something that can last me many years as possible).

 

At this point I had like to ask: what's the best way forward for me? Which card should I buy, and are Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte even still trustworthy? Heck, should I even go with Nvidia given just how bat-poop insane their CEO seems to have gone?

 

Someone please guide me, I'm totally lost.

City Skylines is absurdly CPU bound. Even on my rig, it'll generally run at 60 fps at 1080p or 4k unmodded, so I wouldn't expect a new GPU to do much if you're already around there in performance.

 

RT outside of an RTX 4090 is a compromising feature, where you're trading other settings and/or a lot of your framerate for it.

 

If you opt for a Radeon card, Asrock has been playing their cards right to get more product out, generally having the lowest prices and I haven't seen anything major with them occur. I've personally bought an Asrock rx 6750xt and Arc A380 from them and neither have had issues.

 

RTX 4060ti is an equivalent bin to the RTX 3050 8GB, just a sub-par piece of silicon for $400. If you need AV1 encoding, running an Intel Arc A380 as a cheap drop in is actually not a bad idea. Amusingly, its close to a GTX 1060 6GB in performance, though requires PCIe 4.0 and resizeable-bar support on the CPU/mobo side to get full performance.

 

Considering your CPU, I'd recommend budgeting for a whole new system and not just swapping out your card. An i5 11500 is going to limit any new-higher end card, especially in the applications you've described.

[191x7]

Radeon RX 6700 10GB would be the card for you. The CPU wouldn't bottleneck, has more than 8GB of VRAM and it's affordable.

Eventually, the 6700XT or 6750XT, based on price, if the regular 6700 is not affordable. They have 12GB of VRAM but the CPU would bottleneck a bit more.

 

Nvidia cards are harder to drive, the card in the same performance range as AMD Radeon requires about a 20% stronger CPU. That's a bad thing for you.

It would mean you'd be limited to an RTX 3060 12GB.

If you were to upgrade the GPU now and the platform in a couple of months' time, then the RX 6800.

Oh, wait, the RTX 3000 and RX 6000 don't have AV1. You're limited to Intel Arc A750, A770, RTX 4060Ti, or RX 7600.

[bezza...]

11 minutes ago, EonityLuna said:

And it's also way out of my budget lol. As I said, I can already barely afford the RTX 4070, and anything better would be overbudget for me.

get the 6800xt has more vram and performs better

[Agall]

2 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Radeon RX 6700 10GB would be the card for you. The CPU wouldn't bottleneck, has more than 8GB of VRAM and it's affordable.

Eventually, the 6700XT or 6750XT, based on price, if the regular 6700 is not affordable. They have 12GB of VRAM but the CPU would bottleneck a bit more.

 

Nvidia cards are harder to drive, the card in the same performance range as AMD Radeon requires about a 20% stronger CPU. That's a bad thing for you.

It would mean you'd be limited to an RTX 3060 12GB.

If you were to upgrade the GPU now and the platform in a couple of months' time, then the RX 6800.

Oh, wait, the RTX 3000 and RX 6000 don't have AV1. You're limited to Intel Arc A750, A770, RTX 4060Ti, or RX 7600.

'CPU bottlenecking' is far more complicated than whether a given CPU will or won't.

 

 

I made this as an example that doesn't involve a whole TEDtalk on whether a scenario will be CPU/GPU/or engine limited in a given scenario, even in the same game.

 

[PDifolco]

20 minutes ago, EonityLuna said:

I am currently seeking to upgrade from a GTX 1060 6GB here. My intended use cases are:

• accelerating creative applications (raster and vector graphics)
• video encoding/decoding, including the new AV1 standard
• possibly 3D modelling in Blender (not sure about this one yet)
• improving graphics performance in modded Cities: Skylines (I use a ton of high-quality/high-tris assets)
• play Portal RTX on medium-to-high settings

My current PC specs are:

• Asus Z590 TUF Gaming Plus WiFi
• Intel Core i5 11500
• 64GB of RAM
• MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD (this is my system drive where Windows and apps are installed)
• Toshiba 3TB mechanical hard drive (this is mainly used for file storage)
• Currently using a 1440p (2560x1440) monitor

Now, this part may contain a bit of venting, but bear with me:

I have had been considering getting an RTX 4060 Ti initially, but after seeing all the reviews that pours nothing but scorn for that card, I had started considering the RTX 4070 as well. Then I start seeing not-very-favourable reviews for that card as well, and I begun to consider going with AMD; problem is, checking the local shops here (I'm from Singapore), I see mostly Nvidia's cards on offer. For AMD, the selection I have been able to find are much more paltry, and I have not been able to find any RX 6800/RX 6800 XT and very few RX 6750 XT cards.

 

Then there's also the problem of third-party graphics card makers; I had seriously considered getting a first-party graphics card, but all of the cards I have been able to find here are third-party cards. I'm reluctant to go with the big three - Asus, MSI, Gigabyte - as they have (or had) been embroidered in scandals or other things that just don't give me confidence. There's Asus with that whole AMD motherboards burning up and warranty confusion mess recently, MSI getting their cryptographic signing keys stolen, and not too long ago there was Gigabyte with their power supplies literally blowing up and them trying to dodge responsibility or even admit it was happening. With those three out of the picture, I'm left with Zotac and Galax as my remaining available options here, and I'm not very confident with these two brands either.

 

As well, there's the problem of my budget - the RTX 4070 is already pushing its limits, and I don't think I will be able to afford anything above that.

 

I'm not that hot on getting a second-hand card, and I'm kind of reluctant to get a last-generation card as well (I want something that can last me many years as possible).

 

At this point I had like to ask: what's the best way forward for me? Which card should I buy, and are Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte even still trustworthy? Heck, should I even go with Nvidia given just how bat-poop insane their CEO seems to have gone?

 

Someone please guide me, I'm totally lost.

Can't you find some 3080?

Then if you insist on avoiding cash grab shady companies you can't buy anything...

[SorryBella]

7 hours ago, EonityLuna said:

including the new AV1 standard

You pretty much have to include A380 with this, accept that you wont get it and have to stick to h.264 encoding, or go for the current gen GPU which as everyone say is currently an ass backward cash grab.

 

6800XT, RTX 3080(Ti) used, and 6750XT would be it.

[Ex14]

So as a fellow Singaporean You should know a few things and maybe some friendly advice.

19 hours ago, EonityLuna said:

I have had been considering getting an RTX 4060 Ti initially, but after seeing all the reviews that pours nothing but scorn for that card, I had started considering the RTX 4070 as well. Then I start seeing not-very-favourable reviews for that card as well, and I begun to consider going with AMD; problem is, checking the local shops here (I'm from Singapore), I see mostly Nvidia's cards on offer. For AMD, the selection I have been able to find are much more paltry, and I have not been able to find any RX 6800/RX 6800 XT and very few RX 6750 XT cards.

So First thing first AMD cards are not really sought after by both the consumers and shops here, further more you're probably looking at the 6000 Series AMD cards. As a rule of thumb in our small country we rarely if ever have previous gen card brand new once the new gen releases and even if they are available dont expect them to be rock bottom prices. This typically applies to Nvidia as well but this gen is wonky so you probably can still find SOME 30 series 3070 or 3080 but 3090/3090ti would be really hard to find new. TLDR; i would never expect to find situations where you find cards going for clearance prices here in SG. 

 

Quote

Then there's also the problem of third-party graphics card makers; I had seriously considered getting a first-party graphics card, but all of the cards I have been able to find here are third-party cards. I'm reluctant to go with the big three - Asus, MSI, Gigabyte - as they have (or had) been embroidered in scandals or other things that just don't give me confidence. There's Asus with that whole AMD motherboards burning up and warranty confusion mess recently, MSI getting their cryptographic signing keys stolen, and not too long ago there was Gigabyte with their power supplies literally blowing up and them trying to dodge responsibility or even admit it was happening. With those three out of the picture, I'm left with Zotac and Galax as my remaining available options here, and I'm not very confident with these two brands either.

If you;re really gonna start blacklisting companies for every mistake they make you can really forget about getting a computer cause you won;t have anyone to buy from given enough time. 

Especially with Graphics card. we have NEVER gotten a Founders edition card from nvidia here. Except MAYBE during the 10 series, but those only exsisted in limited quantities as first batch stock AND they were made by AIB partners too (not direct from nvidia) [eg. https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1080-founders-edition]

AMD Too, most of our SG stock while will use AMD reference designs (7000 Series, they're typically made by the AIB Partners, not direct from AMD etc.) And Once again they too follow nvidia where the "reference" models tend to get superseded  and fall out of our already small market for amd gpus.

This is not gonna be very popular I think, but frankly if the 4060ti is what you can afford... maybe stick to it? Like I agree when you look at it from an enthuasist pov, its not great comapritively speaking, but it HAS decent performance. and fits your needs. Any other suggestion right now, you will have to compromise (no AV1, Less efficient, more  heat being dumped into your system (in our already troopical climate) ) 

So unless you can find a 3060ti/3070(ti)/3080 ( or 6700XT or higher AMD card) I would say unfortuantely the 4060ti might just be the best card for you at this present time. Or heck maybe you want to wait to see the 4060 before you make a decision.

About the Brands, I would say go look up the distributors of said brand and cards instead of the brands themselves here as you'll be dealing with them if (touch wood anything goes wrong). If you think its a wash I would then say find cards at your budget then from whatever is left just pick on whatever looks best or performas best thermally (depends on what you're going for) You CAN also get the cards from amazon etc but warranty there is abit of a question mark sometimes... so. yea.

 

 

[EonityLuna]

4 hours ago, Ex14 said:

So as a fellow Singaporean You should know a few things and maybe some friendly advice.

So First thing first AMD cards are not really sought after by both the consumers and shops here, further more you're probably looking at the 6000 Series AMD cards. As a rule of thumb in our small country we rarely if ever have previous gen card brand new once the new gen releases and even if they are available dont expect them to be rock bottom prices. This typically applies to Nvidia as well but this gen is wonky so you probably can still find SOME 30 series 3070 or 3080 but 3090/3090ti would be really hard to find new. TLDR; i would never expect to find situations where you find cards going for clearance prices here in SG. 

 

If you;re really gonna start blacklisting companies for every mistake they make you can really forget about getting a computer cause you won;t have anyone to buy from given enough time. 

Especially with Graphics card. we have NEVER gotten a Founders edition card from nvidia here. Except MAYBE during the 10 series, but those only exsisted in limited quantities as first batch stock AND they were made by AIB partners too (not direct from nvidia) [eg. https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1080-founders-edition]

AMD Too, most of our SG stock while will use AMD reference designs (7000 Series, they're typically made by the AIB Partners, not direct from AMD etc.) And Once again they too follow nvidia where the "reference" models tend to get superseded  and fall out of our already small market for amd gpus.

This is not gonna be very popular I think, but frankly if the 4060ti is what you can afford... maybe stick to it? Like I agree when you look at it from an enthuasist pov, its not great comapritively speaking, but it HAS decent performance. and fits your needs. Any other suggestion right now, you will have to compromise (no AV1, Less efficient, more  heat being dumped into your system (in our already troopical climate) ) 

So unless you can find a 3060ti/3070(ti)/3080 ( or 6700XT or higher AMD card) I would say unfortuantely the 4060ti might just be the best card for you at this present time. Or heck maybe you want to wait to see the 4060 before you make a decision.

About the Brands, I would say go look up the distributors of said brand and cards instead of the brands themselves here as you'll be dealing with them if (touch wood anything goes wrong). If you think its a wash I would then say find cards at your budget then from whatever is left just pick on whatever looks best or performas best thermally (depends on what you're going for) You CAN also get the cards from amazon etc but warranty there is abit of a question mark sometimes... so. yea.

 

 

That explains a lot. Thanks for the advice; I will weigh all of the advice I have received here (and maybe also wait for the RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti 16GB) before I make a considered decision. In the meantime I will be patient and see how things change, and will be leaving all my options on the table for now.