Which GPU to upgrade.

[Kanna]

Hello, I’m thinking about finally retiring my GTX 1060 3GB from my PC with a ryzen 5 5600x and 32GB RAM, but of course I need a new GPU, but I have gotten tied between 2 GPUs that are in the same price range, but different generations. And I’m talking about a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 8GB vs a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. From what I’ve gathered these are great 1080p cards which is what I plan to run for at least 1 year more, and currently I don’t really run stuff over 144fps, I’m just not sure what to aim for, actual speed or a larger video memory for games that require it, give some input.

[will0hlep]

10 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Hello, I’m thinking about finally retiring my GTX 1060 3GB from my PC with a ryzen 5 5600x and 32GB RAM, but of course I need a new GPU, but I have gotten tied between 2 GPUs that are in the same price range, but different generations. And I’m talking about a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 8GB vs a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. From what I’ve gathered these are great 1080p cards which is what I plan to run for at least 1 year more, and currently I don’t really run stuff over 144fps, I’m just not sure what to aim for, actual speed or a larger video memory for games that require it, give some input.

What country? What prices?

Are you not considering AMD cards? they offer far better performance for the price atm (FSR is almost as good as DLSS and the raytracing performance isn't much worse)

If US: a RX6700XT would cost $300 and be an easily better card than the 4060 or 3060.

[ImWilly]

If the choice must be between RTX 3060 12GB or RTX 4060 8GB, I would take RTX 3060 12GB

Since it has more VRAM, and similar performance to 4060 counterpart

 

RTX 4060 does have features such as DLSS 3.0 or Frame Gen, but it's not significant bump because of minimalistic AI core, so I would choose the one with more VRAM

[Kanna]

6 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

What country? What prices?

Are you not considering AMD cards? they offer far better performance for the price atm (FSR is almost as good as DLSS and the raytracing performance isn't much worse)

If US: a RX6700XT would cost $300 and be an easily better card than the 4060 or 3060.

I’m in Sweden, and AMD cards Isn’t all that out of my area of interest, but I do rely a bit on NVIDIA Shadowplay, but alternatives exist, and also have their drivers been improving lately or is there still a risk of a larger instability?

3 minutes ago, ImWilly said:

If the choice must be between RTX 3060 12GB or RTX 4060 8GB, I would take RTX 3060 12GB

Since it has more VRAM, and similar performance to 4060 counterpart

 

RTX 4060 does have features such as DLSS 3.0 or Frame Gen, but it's not significant bump because of minimalistic AI core, so I would choose the one with more VRAM

Yeah when I compared these’s performance was quite similar, but the extra VRAM I have noticed is getting a little better to have nowadays.

[podkall]

10 minutes ago, Kanna said:

From what I’ve gathered these are great 1080p cards which is what I plan to run for at least 1 year more, and currently I don’t really run stuff over 144fps, I’m just not sure what to aim for, actual speed or a larger video memory for games that require it, give some input.

What do you mean by planning to run for at least 1 year more?

 

As for GPU, it depends what you do on your PC, what games you play, are you story game enthusiast that enjoys maxed out settings but doesn't need lot of fps, or Warzone gamer that would like a balance between lot of fps and good graphics for clarity.

 

Also as others noticed, AMD cards aren't terrible, do you require Nvidia GPU for one of their features? CUDA, Nvenc, RT cores?

[will0hlep]

3 minutes ago, Kanna said:

I’m in Sweden, and AMD cards Isn’t all that out of my area of interest, but I do rely a bit on NVIDIA Shadowplay, but alternatives exist, and also have their drivers been improving lately or is there still a risk of a larger instability?

Drivers are alot better now, only issue is: you don't get NVENC, maybe check out some benchmarks of how well the cards stream.

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, podkall said:

What do you mean by planning to run for at least 1 year more?

 

As for GPU, it depends what you do on your PC, what games you play, are you story game enthusiast that enjoys maxed out settings but doesn't need lot of fps, or Warzone gamer that would like a balance between lot of fps and good graphics for clarity.

 

Also as others noticed, AMD cards aren't terrible, do you require Nvidia GPU for one of their features? CUDA, Nvenc, RT cores?

Well I’m mostly thinking I would run 1080p for at least 1 more year and perhaps upgrade to 1440p after that as it’s a neat middle resolution. I’m mostly playing competitive games I would say, mostly because I have my xbox series x if I really want performance, but this has of course led to many of my store games where graphics is to prefer on. PC have been left unplayed, I can’t really be more specific about which games other than like overwatch and CS2 which aren’t too heavy games, just mostly want something that would fair well over most games with like okay graphics and 60 fps. I’m not really locked behind any features, I do like my GeForce shadowplay, but there is always alternatives to that.

[Kanna]

3 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

Drivers are alot better now, only issue is: you don't get NVENC, maybe check out some benchmarks of how well the cards stream.

Oh right the nvidia encoder, yeah perhaps I should look into some of that, but hopefully it’s not horrible, but might be simpler going green side too if I know it will work as I expect.

[will0hlep]

4 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Oh right the nvidia encoder, yeah perhaps I should look into some of that, but hopefully it’s not horrible, but might be simpler going green side too if I know it will work as I expect.

I will work as expected, it just might not produce the same quality of stream. It will produce a far better gaming experiance though. It's annoyingly kind of a toss up: either good fps but lower quality stream, or lower fps with a better stream.

[podkall]

30 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Well I’m mostly thinking I would run 1080p for at least 1 more year and perhaps upgrade to 1440p after that as it’s a neat middle resolution. I’m mostly playing competitive games I would say, mostly because I have my xbox series x if I really want performance, but this has of course led to many of my store games where graphics is to prefer on. PC have been left unplayed, I can’t really be more specific about which games other than like overwatch and CS2 which aren’t too heavy games, just mostly want something that would fair well over most games with like okay graphics and 60 fps. I’m not really locked behind any features, I do like my GeForce shadowplay, but there is always alternatives to that.

I guess it depends really on the planned games you want to play,

 

if your pick is to play the brandest newest games, then maybe VRAM could be necessary,

 

I could potentially drag in someone for a second oppinion, nobody is online rn tho, but perhaps @PDifolco can jump in once he comes up,

 

3060 is very compelling for the 12GB VRAM that can really be crucial in very new games that might utilize the VRAM,

 

while 4060 is ~20% faster card, but with lower VRAM meaning in some games at 4k max settings the 4060 tanks huge fps drop due to not enough VRAM, though not sure which games (mostly new games) might start doing that at 1440p max settings on the same VRAM

 

I've looked at benchmarks online of 3060 vs 4060, and the 4060 won everytime, except few games in 4K, and that didn't cover many new titles, lot of benchmarks still include games that barely use half of GPUs VRAM at max settings

Edited November 19, 2023 by podkall
edit

[will0hlep]

2 minutes ago, podkall said:

I could potentially drag in someone for a second oppinion, nobody is online rn tho

This forum is very north america heavy. The busy time on here is always while I'm asleep .

[podkall]

1 minute ago, will0hlep said:

This forum is very north america heavy. The busy time on here is always while I'm asleep .

I can't blame them, LTT is an English entertainment/tech channel so the main audience is English speaking people,

 

and then through enthusiasm they can find their way on these forums, but same for me

[PDifolco]

6 minutes ago, podkall said:

I guess it depends really on the planned games you want to play,

 

if your pick is to play the brandest newest games, then maybe VRAM could be necessary,

 

I could potentially drag in someone for a second oppinion, nobody is online rn tho, but perhaps @PDifolco can jump in once he comes up,

 

3060 is very compelling for the 12GB VRAM that can really be crucial in very new games that might utilize the VRAM,

 

while 4060 is ~20% faster card, but with lower VRAM meaning in some games at 4k max settings the 4060 tanks huge fps drop due to not enough VRAM, though not sure which games (mostly new games) might start doing that at 1440p max settings on the same VRAM

 

I've looked at benchmarks online of 3060 vs 4060, and the 4060 won everytime, except few games in 4K, and that didn't cover many new titles, lot of benchmarks still include games that barely use half of GPUs VRAM at max settings

For FPS games you don't need any NVidia stuff (avoid DLSS in those games to shoot the target and not the ghost IA pixel, and RT out of question on these low tier cards), get ab AMD card, 6700XT or 6750XT

[podkall]

@Kanna what's your AMD equivalent for your budget? also what about used market or do you require brand new GPU?

[--SID--]

1 hour ago, Kanna said:

my PC with a ryzen 5 5600x and 32GB RAM

What's the brand and model of the PSU?

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, --SID-- said:

What's the brand and model of the PSU?

It’s a seasonic focus gx 650W 80+ gold, so I didn’t include it as both these GPUs were within that range.

[--SID--]

Just now, Kanna said:

It’s a seasonic focus gx 650W 80+ gold, so I didn’t include it as both these GPUs were within that range.

The one 650w PSU isn't the like the other. There are really bad 650w PSUs that can't run a 3060 but the Focus GX is fine.

[Kanna]

13 minutes ago, podkall said:

@Kanna what's your AMD equivalent for your budget? also what about used market or do you require brand new GPU?

Well the RX 6700 XT is priced like $20 higher on a sale if I go to the store, as for the used market I live quite in a bad spot so market is quite inactive here, usually get old GPUs for sale that are before RTX series at a price which is often only like $180 less than my two options in the OP.

15 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

For FPS games you don't need any NVidia stuff (avoid DLSS in those games to shoot the target and not the ghost IA pixel, and RT out of question on these low tier cards), get ab AMD card, 6700XT or 6750XT

Do you think the AMD card would do sufficient in recording stuff while playing games while delivering good performance to make it worth the small price increase. As for the NVIDIA feats I didn’t really plan on using DLSS and similar tbh and ray tracing isn’t really a focus either. But I took a look at some benchmarks also and I don’t really think I will be all that limited by the 8GB VRAM if I were to go with the 4060 for the games I play / plan to play.

23 minutes ago, podkall said:

I guess it depends really on the planned games you want to play.

It’s a though question for me to answer really. Because I don’t play much more than the 3 same games on my PC due to me knowing I can’t really play much more / I can play it on my series x for example. 

[Kanna]

5 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

The one 650w PSU isn't the like the other. There are really bad 650w PSUs that can't run a 3060 but the Focus GX is fine.

Yeah I don’t regret buying a focus gx as they have really good quality.

[will0hlep]

3 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Yeah I don’t regret buying a focus gx as they have really good quality.

I've got a focus GX 550W in my secondary machine, it has given me no issues so far .

[--SID--]

Just now, Kanna said:

Yeah I don’t regret buying a focus gx as they have really good quality.

It's a decent unit but compared to a Corsair RMx for example it's not that good. 40 degree rating, lower quality fan, thinner wire gauge PCI-e cables, rudimentary fancontrol without hysteresis so the fanspeed is ramping up pretty quickly.

[will0hlep]

Just now, --SID-- said:

It's a decent unit but compared to a Corsair RMx for example it's not that good. 40 degree rating, lower quality fan, thinner wire gauge PCI-e cables, rudimentary fancontrol without hysteresis so the fanspeed is ramping up pretty quickly.

To me those improvements are all pretty minimal. They both get 10 year warrenties and they both get Tier A status on the tier list. The only difference to me is I pay an extra $25 for the PSU (comparing the 750W models).

[podkall]

31 minutes ago, Kanna said:

It’s a though question for me to answer really. Because I don’t play much more than the 3 same games on my PC due to me knowing I can’t really play much more / I can play it on my series x for example. 

you can check Epic Games or Steam library if you have such games you'd want to try

[Kanna]

7 minutes ago, podkall said:

you can check Epic Games or Steam library if you have such games you'd want to try

Yeah I own a lot of games through steam and epic, but ofc have been limited due to my GPU 

[podkall]

1 hour ago, Kanna said:

Yeah I own a lot of games through steam and epic, but ofc have been limited due to my GPU 

I think some of them could be playable on Low (with your current GPU), I had 1050 GTX and it surprised me how many games it could run, even if they had to be dialed down to Low graphics, I was even more limited on CPU than GPU before, making for example Battle Royale games unplayable