Upgrade Advice

[Ryeleigh]

Budget (including currency): 370-390 USD

Country: ID

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Wuthering Waves, Monster Hunter Wilds, Rainbow Six Siege

Current Specs: 

Ryzen 5 5500

ASUS EX A320M Gaming

GTX 1660 Ti

XFX XT 400w

2560 x 1080 monitor

 

I’m planning a PC upgrade mainly for gaming, but I’d also like to explore or play around with AI (ML and Text Generation) to lighten my work, if it’s possible at all.

 

Planning to get RTX 5060 (~310 USD) and FSP Vita GD 650w (~50 USD), choosing 5060 over 9060 XT 8 GB (~310 USD) because I heard DLSS is widely supported and can yield better performance/quality overall when used.

Also, the game I plan to immediately try Ray Tracing on is Wuthering Waves that doesn't support AMD’s 9000 series yet.

 

But then, I read that having 16 GB is so worth it and can have better experience overall. The cheapest 9060 XT 16 GB I could find on my city is priced ~390 USD, is the price worth it? I really need to break the bank to get it, and at most, I can only get Cooler Master MWE V3 Bronze 550w 230V (~37 USD) for the PSU.

 

I also plan to upgrade my CPU to 5700x around next month, which have different budget.

 

Oh, and I heard that x8 PCIe lane on a PCIe 3 board is the main concern, is it that bad if I don't plan to play demanding titles in high quality settings?

 

So, should I just get the 5060 (or 9060 XT 8 GB if it’s that much better) or should I break the bank and bought the ~$390 9060 XT 16 GB?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to mention, I can't get power hungry card like 3070 because of the whole house power limit. And I want to avoid used card if possible.

[okkee]

4 minutes ago, Ryeleigh said:

But then, I read that having 16 GB is so worth it and can have better experience overall. The cheapest 9060 XT 16 GB I could find on my city is priced ~390 USD, is the price worth it? I really need to break the bank to get it, and at most, I can only get Cooler Master MWE V3 Bronze 550w 230V (~37 USD) for the PSU.

- The 9060xt 16gb is definitely worth it. Not just for the gaming experience but for the AI stuff (although search results show that it's mainly a linux only feature)

- The only question, really, is if you believe that the $80 difference is worth it. Don't break the bank if it means major sacrifices in other areas. 

- I will say that the 9060xt 16gb is not only just better but should yield better performance in most titles and just last longer. I'm not sure if RT for your specific game is a make or break issue tho.

[Ryeleigh]

34 minutes ago, okkee said:

- The 9060xt 16gb is definitely worth it. Not just for the gaming experience but for the AI stuff (although search results show that it's mainly a linux only feature)

- The only question, really, is if you believe that the $80 difference is worth it. Don't break the bank if it means major sacrifices in other areas. 

- I will say that the 9060xt 16gb is not only just better but should yield better performance in most titles and just last longer. I'm not sure if RT for your specific game is a make or break issue tho.

Right, I'll get the 16 GB If I'm able to.

 

But, suppose I can't get the 16 GB variant, which one is better among the 8 GB cards? including all those DLSS / FSR / FG / MFG things and not just raw performance, is the 9060 XT still the better choices?

[PDifolco]

3 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

Budget (including currency): 370-390 USD

Country: ID

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Wuthering Waves, Monster Hunter Wilds, Rainbow Six Siege

Current Specs: 

Ryzen 5 5500

ASUS EX A320M Gaming

GTX 1660 Ti

XFX XT 400w

2560 x 1080 monitor

 

I’m planning a PC upgrade mainly for gaming, but I’d also like to explore or play around with AI (ML and Text Generation) to lighten my work, if it’s possible at all.

 

Planning to get RTX 5060 (~310 USD) and FSP Vita GD 650w (~50 USD), choosing 5060 over 9060 XT 8 GB (~310 USD) because I heard DLSS is widely supported and can yield better performance/quality overall when used.

Also, the game I plan to immediately try Ray Tracing on is Wuthering Waves that doesn't support AMD’s 9000 series yet.

 

But then, I read that having 16 GB is so worth it and can have better experience overall. The cheapest 9060 XT 16 GB I could find on my city is priced ~390 USD, is the price worth it? I really need to break the bank to get it, and at most, I can only get Cooler Master MWE V3 Bronze 550w 230V (~37 USD) for the PSU.

 

I also plan to upgrade my CPU to 5700x around next month, which have different budget.

 

Oh, and I heard that x8 PCIe lane on a PCIe 3 board is the main concern, is it that bad if I don't plan to play demanding titles in high quality settings?

 

So, should I just get the 5060 (or 9060 XT 8 GB if it’s that much better) or should I break the bank and bought the ~$390 9060 XT 16 GB?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to mention, I can't get power hungry card like 3070 because of the whole house power limit. And I want to avoid used card if possible.

Could get a 5060 16GB, ideal for AI/LLM and DLSS

But your board sucks indeed, if I were you I won't upgrade on AM4 and do it later to AM5

Not sure what you mean by " whole house power limit", 100W more or less is like a couple bulbs ??

[okkee]

5 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

But, suppose I can't get the 16 GB variant, which one is better among the 8 GB cards?

It's still the 9060xt but if Nvidia's frame gen/upscalers are important for what you want, then you can go for the 5060. It's very difficult to recommend an 8gb card tho. The way that games are going, especially as they move towards RT and other features, 8gb just isn't gonna cut it. Even right now, it's not enough for "High" presets at 1080p for some of the more popular titles.

[Tetras]

9 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

But then, I read that having 16 GB is so worth it and can have better experience overall. The cheapest 9060 XT 16 GB I could find on my city is priced ~390 USD, is the price worth it? I really need to break the bank to get it, and at most, I can only get Cooler Master MWE V3 Bronze 550w 230V (~37 USD) for the PSU.

Yes, the 16GB versions (of the 9060 XT/5060 Ti) are definitely worth it and they also help to mitigate any impact of limited PCI-E gen/lanes (since the impact is much worse if you run out of VRAM).

 

If you were only planning to keep the card a few years as a stopgap then meh, I guess that's fine, but otherwise I'd just avoid the 8GB versions.

 

9 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

I’m planning a PC upgrade mainly for gaming, but I’d also like to explore or play around with AI (ML and Text Generation) to lighten my work, if it’s possible at all.

Worth checking how well that would play with amd versus nvidia.

 

9 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to mention, I can't get power hungry card like 3070 because of the whole house power limit. And I want to avoid used card if possible.

You do know that these cards are still fairly high draw, right? The 3070 isn't that far off a 9060 XT 16GB (around 160-190 watts gaming). 5060 Ti 16GB is less, around 140-170 watts.

 

9 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

I really need to break the bank to get it, and at most, I can only get Cooler Master MWE V3 Bronze 550w 230V (~37 USD) for the PSU.

There are 5060 Ti 16GB models that only use a single 8-pin, I'd be more inclined to buy one of those and keep your PSU until you save up a bit more.

[Ryeleigh]

7 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Not sure what you mean by " whole house power limit", 100W more or less is like a couple bulbs ??

2 hours ago, Tetras said:

You do know that these cards are still fairly high draw, right? The 3070 isn't that far off a 9060 XT 16GB (around 160-190 watts gaming). 5060 Ti 16GB is less, around 140-170 watts.

The houses here have fairly low power limit, like 900 VA and 1300 VA are the majority, appliances draw a bit more when first turned on right? it's just a safeguard for those kind of things so it doesn't trip the breaker.

 

2 hours ago, Tetras said:

There are 5060 Ti 16GB models that only use a single 8-pin, I'd be more inclined to buy one of those and keep your PSU until you save up a bit more.

Nah, the Ti version, even the 8GB ones are already ~$420, so it's simply out of budget.

 

5 hours ago, okkee said:

It's still the 9060xt but if Nvidia's frame gen/upscalers are important for what you want, then you can go for the 5060. It's very difficult to recommend an 8gb card tho. The way that games are going, especially as they move towards RT and other features, 8gb just isn't gonna cut it. Even right now, it's not enough for "High" presets at 1080p for some of the more popular titles.

2 hours ago, Tetras said:

Yes, the 16GB versions (of the 9060 XT/5060 Ti) are definitely worth it and they also help to mitigate any impact of limited PCI-E gen/lanes (since the impact is much worse if you run out of VRAM).

 

If you were only planning to keep the card a few years as a stopgap then meh, I guess that's fine, but otherwise I'd just avoid the 8GB versions.

Okay, I'll try to get the 16 GB version first, if it's not possible, I'd probably get the 9060 XT 8 GB version.

 

Thanks.

[okkee]

18 hours ago, Ryeleigh said:

The houses here have fairly low power limit, like 900 VA and 1300 VA are the majority, appliances draw a bit more when first turned on right? it's just a safeguard for those kind of things so it doesn't trip the breaker.

 

Nah, the Ti version, even the 8GB ones are already ~$420, so it's simply out of budget.

 

Okay, I'll try to get the 16 GB version first, if it's not possible, I'd probably get the 9060 XT 8 GB version.

 

Thanks.

I'd also recommend you watch this video from Hardware Unboxed. It's a "fair" review of these 8gb cards so it doesn't show too many recent titles but it does show the difference between the 5060 and 9060xt 8gb, and why the 9060xt is the better 8gb card for certain titles (pcie x16 vs x8). It's also got the 9060xt 16gb so you can see how it performs relative to them. 

NB: This isn't really a review as much as it is a retrospective but it does highlight some of the most important differences between the low budget cards