Looking for gpu upgarde

[Rockystonehammer]

Budget (including currency): £300-400

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: CK3 , Total War, Skyrim

Other details 

GPU GTX1060

CPU Ryzen 7 3700X

RAM 16GB

 

As the title said I’m looking to upgrade just my gpu I’m a little out of the loop with tech stuff as I’ve not kept up since last upgrading my pc a few years ago. I don’t want the hassle of a full upgrade I just wanted to know if there were any better GPUs I could just drop into my current set up I don’t need anything too flashy as I play on a 1080p 60Hz monitor. Mainly I’m playing strategy games mixed in with modded Skyrim and fallout. I will admit I’m a bit of an nvidia fan boy so unless there’s a drastically better amd card I’d rather stick with nvidia. Does anyone have any suggestions or would I not be likely to see any performance increases without upgrading the rest of my system. Thanks

 

[Catbattle]

Hi there!

 

Well, within your budget, there should be plenty of options for you. The only major problems I forsee would be if your PSU can support a modern card with a higher power draw, and if it has the necessary PCIE cables. If you're coming from a 1060, it may have not needed that and relied solely on motherboard power. 

Either way, for your needs at 1080/60, an older 3060/3070 would more than suffice and run you well under budget. Well, I'm not too familiar with UK pricing, I suppose. If you're buying a brand new card, you'll get better value for money with an AMD card, but again, a current gen card might be overkill. If you must, for Nvidia a 4060 will do fine, but the 8gb of RAM won't last that long for new games (if you're wanting to play GTA6 at all, you may want to look at a card with 12 or 16gb, though we don't know the specs reqs yet)

 

Hope this helps. You can't really go wrong with anything from the last few gens, especially if you're coming from a 3 or 6gb vram 1060 card. Again, consider your PSU and what it will support, as well as case dimensions (GPUs are way bigger these days).

[Rockystonehammer]

4 hours ago, Catbattle said:

Hi there!

 

Well, within your budget, there should be plenty of options for you. The only major problems I forsee would be if your PSU can support a modern card with a higher power draw, and if it has the necessary PCIE cables. If you're coming from a 1060, it may have not needed that and relied solely on motherboard power. 

Either way, for your needs at 1080/60, an older 3060/3070 would more than suffice and run you well under budget. Well, I'm not too familiar with UK pricing, I suppose. If you're buying a brand new card, you'll get better value for money with an AMD card, but again, a current gen card might be overkill. If you must, for Nvidia a 4060 will do fine, but the 8gb of RAM won't last that long for new games (if you're wanting to play GTA6 at all, you may want to look at a card with 12 or 16gb, though we don't know the specs reqs yet)

 

Hope this helps. You can't really go wrong with anything from the last few gens, especially if you're coming from a 3 or 6gb vram 1060 card. Again, consider your PSU and what it will support, as well as case dimensions (GPUs are way bigger these days).

Thank you for the suggestions I’ve had a look and seen a 4060 and 3060 12gb at about the same price what would you say is more important the higher clock speed on the 4060 or 12gb vram on the 3060 instead of the 8 on the 4060

[Catbattle]

50 minutes ago, Rockystonehammer said:

Thank you for the suggestions I’ve had a look and seen a 4060 and 3060 12gb at about the same price what would you say is more important the higher clock speed on the 4060 or 12gb vram on the 3060 instead of the 8 on the 4060

Well, let's break it down

 

On the side of the 3060:

The games you play won't benefit as much from higher clock speeds and direct FPS performance of the 4060 (which is about 10-20% better than the 3060)
Modded games, especially bethesda titles, can chew through VRAM more, especially with upscaled models, textures, etc. 
Modern games are requiring more than 8gb, meaning even if the 4060 clocks higher with more CUDA cores, it might be obsoleted in some games sooner.

For hitting 60fps at 1080p, it's more than capable and in most titles, especially the ones you've named, you should be able to hit that fully maxed (except ray tracing) no problem.

Extra RAM will help with AI workloads if you possibly care

The ongoing RAM crisis means it's unlikely new 12/16gb cards will be going down in price at all

On the side of the 4060:

At 1080p, it's unlikely to run into as many problems with VRAM, as it won't be using more VRAM for a HD output.

The higher clock speeds/performance may be necessary for more demanding titles at high fidelity, or high FPS

It will get support and drivers for longer

Extra compute will help with rendering speed for blender, davinci, etc.

I'm personally a 1440p gamer who's rocked with a 1050ti, a 6600 (amd equivalent to the 3060) and now the 4060. The 6600 was showing its age slightly in some games when cranked, especially fast paced current gen shooters, but has no problem keeping up with more demanding titles with a slower pace, especially at 1080p. The 4060 handles 1440p 144hz admirably, and I can say the switch got me about 15% better fidelity for my money. But it's almost always being underused outside of shooters I play, so for your use case, likely also true. The 8gb of VRAM hasn't shown a lot of issues for me yet, but with 12/16 I could afford to crank up textures more, esp with mods.

 

Either way you really can't go wrong, both will be a huge upgrade from a 1060. Don't overthink it too much! Also, check on your PSU. If you're bumping up against its capacity, or care about your electric bill, the 4060 is significantly more efficient. Both need a 12 pin power connector. Also, for cases like in game AI turn speed, simulation effectiveness, etc. a lot of that will be bottlenecked by your CPU. Actually, your CPU will have some bottlenecking on either of these, so really, it probably doesn't matter much which you pick. If I was you, I'd pick the cheaper one.

 

Also, general review consensus is the 4060 and 5060 provide weak value for money, esp the 8gb card. We're on the LTT forums, so obviously I have to mention their review, which should compare performance to the 3060 (if I recall, it was often quite negligible). 

Hope this was of some help. Grain of salt, my opinion, etc etc. 

[Rockystonehammer]

4 hours ago, Catbattle said:

Well, let's break it down

 

On the side of the 3060:

The games you play won't benefit as much from higher clock speeds and direct FPS performance of the 4060 (which is about 10-20% better than the 3060)
Modded games, especially bethesda titles, can chew through VRAM more, especially with upscaled models, textures, etc. 
Modern games are requiring more than 8gb, meaning even if the 4060 clocks higher with more CUDA cores, it might be obsoleted in some games sooner.

For hitting 60fps at 1080p, it's more than capable and in most titles, especially the ones you've named, you should be able to hit that fully maxed (except ray tracing) no problem.

Extra RAM will help with AI workloads if you possibly care

The ongoing RAM crisis means it's unlikely new 12/16gb cards will be going down in price at all

On the side of the 4060:

At 1080p, it's unlikely to run into as many problems with VRAM, as it won't be using more VRAM for a HD output.

The higher clock speeds/performance may be necessary for more demanding titles at high fidelity, or high FPS

It will get support and drivers for longer

Extra compute will help with rendering speed for blender, davinci, etc.

I'm personally a 1440p gamer who's rocked with a 1050ti, a 6600 (amd equivalent to the 3060) and now the 4060. The 6600 was showing its age slightly in some games when cranked, especially fast paced current gen shooters, but has no problem keeping up with more demanding titles with a slower pace, especially at 1080p. The 4060 handles 1440p 144hz admirably, and I can say the switch got me about 15% better fidelity for my money. But it's almost always being underused outside of shooters I play, so for your use case, likely also true. The 8gb of VRAM hasn't shown a lot of issues for me yet, but with 12/16 I could afford to crank up textures more, esp with mods.

 

Either way you really can't go wrong, both will be a huge upgrade from a 1060. Don't overthink it too much! Also, check on your PSU. If you're bumping up against its capacity, or care about your electric bill, the 4060 is significantly more efficient. Both need a 12 pin power connector. Also, for cases like in game AI turn speed, simulation effectiveness, etc. a lot of that will be bottlenecked by your CPU. Actually, your CPU will have some bottlenecking on either of these, so really, it probably doesn't matter much which you pick. If I was you, I'd pick the cheaper one.

 

Also, general review consensus is the 4060 and 5060 provide weak value for money, esp the 8gb card. We're on the LTT forums, so obviously I have to mention their review, which should compare performance to the 3060 (if I recall, it was often quite negligible). 

Hope this was of some help. Grain of salt, my opinion, etc etc. 

Thank you for all the detail yeah I probably need to check on my psu as the 1060 only uses an 8 pin connector. You’ve been very informative thank you.

[Dedayog]

46 minutes ago, Rockystonehammer said:

Thank you for all the detail yeah I probably need to check on my psu as the 1060 only uses an 8 pin connector. You’ve been very informative thank you.

Once you know your PSU, then you can narrow your decision.

 

Arguably, your best bet is a 9060XT 16GB if you plan on getting a new monitor with a higher refresh rate or move up to 1440p.  I have one, and even on a 1440p UW it delivers performance above its price point.

 

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Video Card: PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB Video Card  (£349.99 @ Scan) 
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