1y ago

The landscape of PC gaming is confusing and expensive.

So, the time has come to upgrade my i7 4790k and GTX 760.

I'm looking at getting the following, but I'm stuck on what graphics card to get (this is something I am happy to replace in a couple of years, if I was to get something like the 4060)

PC specs that I have landed on.

AMD 7800X3D
32gb of DDR5 6000Mhz CL36 rammy boys
Gigabyte B650 ATX motherboard
Noctua 140mm CPU cooler

I am carrying over the following from my old PC

Case (Fractal Disign Pop)
SSD storage
EVGA 850w gold PSU

I am having difficulty picking a graphics card, I'm looking at the 4060, is there anything as good as from team Red that I could consider? I do plan on upgrading in a couple of years time.

40 comments

I would look at the Radeon 6700 XT if you only plan on gaming. Despite being a last gen GPU, it outperforms the 4060 for around the same price. The 6700 XT is more comparable to the 4060 Ti. And it also includes Starfield if that is a game you are interested in. Here is a good ranking from Tom's Hardware showing how most GPUs compare to each other.

You’ve been out of the loop for a while, but you picked some good specs to start. I have some general thoughts below:
Cooler- don’t forget some of the new ultra competitive HSF options from competitors around the $50 price point. Check out Gamersnexus and some of their recent cooler reviews for alternatives. The space has gotten extremely competitive.
Motherboard- you want B650. B660 is intel’s socket.
CPU- So AM5 is going to be a fairly long-lived platform. You may want to consider the 7600 as an alternative, as by the time you’ll want to upgrade your (4060-tier) GPU you’d probably overshoot a 7800X3D anyway. AM5 is likely going to last long enough that a theoretical 9800X3D will blow both the 7600 and 7800X3D out of the water.
GPU- if you’re shooting for value and are wanting to have a build you can upgrade into, nothing beats the 6700XT/6750XT right now. Just search both those in PCPartPicker and sort pricelow-high. Grab the cheapest one.
- Just checked out the Gamers Nexus video on the Thermalright Peerless Assassin, half the price and potentially better performance. This is very interesting. Thank you.
- corrected, I did Kean B650.
  I'll check out the 6700/6750, thanks.

PCPartPicker is very useful, especially for browsing compatible parts and cost comparing.
A number of good build guides are also available. But as with everything, trust but verify.
My lateat PC was designed with everything except the GPU, which I awaited until I found a good cheap second-hand card. As soon as I got the card, I verified the design and ordered everything.
- Can we just talk about how great PCPartPicker is? I built my first machine with their help almost ten years ago and my build plan is still there, which was incredibly useful when it came time to upgrade. I could copy the plan and swap out components and it all still just worked.
  They don't charge for anything, they don't block adblockers, they don't constantly make changes trying to increase engagement, they're not trying to sell components. They just take some referral fees and keep a very useful site running.
  
  I love PC part picker, I have my past builds all saved on there with photos.

The main reasons to go with Nvidia, in my opinion, are DLSS & Ray-tracing. If you aren’t going to use those features, or play games that use them, you’d probably be able to buy something better for less money from AMD. I’d google “Tom’s hardware GPU charts” and pick a comparable AMD card.

I'll chime in with a build tip. DDR5 can take a super long time to post on first boot. Like a long time. Like a looooooong time. Like "RMA the board thinking it has memory issues" long. It's only on the initial boot during memory training and shouldnt happen again unless you reset the bios but just keep that in mind.
Also DDR5 is more sensitive than previous gens about being seated properly. Try not to touch the contacts whatsoever or wipe them off with microfiber and alcohol before seating them. It sounds excessive but I've solved problems before doing just a ram clean + reseat.
Also also, if you're looking at a 4060 look instead at a 6700xt and if you are looking at a 6700xt a 7700xt is marginally faster but has more hardware features. For the same money as a 7700xt you can get the last generation 6800 which has the same raw horsepower and more vram but lacks the new hardware features namely AV1 hardware decoding and envoding. They can still ray trace decently but they have a lot more raw power than a 4060 and more vram which if you hold on to a machine for years, which it looks like you do, the extra vram could be the difference between a game being able to start or not down the road. It's complicated.
4060-DLSS-Better Ray Tracing-RT hard to do with a lower spec card-only 8gb vram
6700xt-12GB vram-equal raster performance to 4060-Lesser ray tracing chops- missing extended AV1 and DLSS support.
6800-16gb vram- faster than 4060 and 6700xt-Missing AV1 and DLSS-more expensive.
7700xt-12GB vram- faster that 4060 or 6700xt-AV1 hardware support-more expensive-no dlss
PS I'm still rocking an AMD R9 390 from 2017 and even though I don't get a lot of fps anymore I can still enable HD textures and get really nice visuals just because of the 8gb vram which was a lot back then.
- I didn't experience that at all. My DDR5 computer posted immediately on first boot.
  
  That's interesting, I've had it happen on several occasions. Maybe I've been unlucky or had weird ram timings.
  By chance do you know the speed and timings of the ram in your system?

have you considered getting a used 3080 or something? Depending on your local market it could be a good deal to go used

GPU choice is a bit more complicated than it used to be, it's become less of just a performance comparison and more about ecosystem.
AMD's GPUs are cheaper and better in terms of raw performance. They also have better Linux support if that matters to you.
Nvidia's GPUs are more expensive but they support better tech in games. Specifically, Nvidia GPUs support DLSS which is an amazing upscaler and can boost performance massively on games that support it without sacrificing any noticeable visual quality. Nvidia GPUs are also way better at Raytracing or anything AI related.
The choice is hard but Nvidia is the safe option. I'd recommend a 3060 Ti instead of a 4060, it's better and goes for cheaper. The 6750xt as the other guy recommended is also a really solid choice if you don't care about DLSS or Raytracing.
- DLSS is nicer than FSR but it’s still an upscale, not magic, it results in blur and artifacts. Sometimes worth it but it depends. Not an important feature in my personal opinion.
  
  Having screwed around with a handful of different budget GPUs and monitor resolutions- don’t rely on upscaling with new GPUs if you’re starting below 1440p. 1080p is rough with DLSS/FSR Quality.
  FSR is wonderful for keeping older tech in service, but Nvidia/AMD relying on upscaling and frame-generation for brand new GPUs to keep games running acceptably at the resolutions we declared were acceptable back in the days of the 1080ti is fucked up.
  Honestly the price points across the whole industry for 1080p-class GPUs is perverse. Every GPU is named about 1-1.5 tiers higher than it actually should be.
  
  gotta disagree with you there, DLSS is just okay in some cases, but in many others it works so well it might as well be magic. I'd say it's worth it in almost every game you can enable it
  
  The newer updates of DLSS 2 fixed most of the issues, you'd have to be looking for artifacts to spot them. I turn on Quality on every game and never notice it. It's a night and day difference to FSR.
  
  Have you seen DLSS 3.5?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr85Lc_WT38
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv9SLtojkTU

I have a 6750xt that runs anything I throw at it in 1440p. I don’t know what’s cheaper atm.

Is your SSD a PCIe or an M1 PCIe? If not, I'd recommend going for a M1 PCIe. The speed increase is quite significant.

I think the best bang for your buck right now in terms of price per performance is currently the 6950xt.
But it really depends on your budget and your usage.
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

As many other people have said, I'd highly recommend avoiding the 40-series and instead going for a used 30-series or an AMD 60-series. The newer cards don't have good value proposition unless you get them WAY below retail.

I recently build a PC and this is what I learned:
Modern CPUs get crazy hot. AIO water cooling could make sense depending on what CPU you use
GPUs are expensive but higher end GPUs will make the build last longer. Nvidia is a must for anything related to AI.
NVME storage is a no brainer option for a new build
Make sure the motherboard supports the RAM or doesn't throttle it
If you have the space a larger case will be better for cooling an upgrades. GPUs get crazy large.
Overall go to pcpartpicker and look at what people have build with your choice of GPU / CPU.
- Most of Ryzen performance can be achieved from just 65 / 88 / 105 / 142 watts, tune down the power limit to run cooler and avoid the expensive and risky AIO. Intel scales better with more power, but they really can give GPUs a run for their money in power consumption.
  Nvidia GPUs for AI are only so good when you still have available VRAM. Once AMD Radeon ROCm is released for use on Windows, or if you're willing to get on Linux, Radeon GPUs can still prove just as fast as Nvidia on the price/performance curve.
  Avoid getting anything faster than PCIe 3.0 for games. DirectStorage isn't here yet and memory manufacturers have started selling off PCIe 3.0 NVMe devices on the cheap.

Take it from me: buy 2nd hand, especially noctua coolers, their older ones are a quarter of the price 2nd hand, yet still offer adequate cooling.
Also, just generally go AMD or Nvidia rtx 3000 for graphics, again 2nd hand of you're comfortable with it.
What I'm trying to say is: don't overspend on brand new hardware, spent more on a good power supply and a good ssd

AMD is between generations atm, new cards are announced, but you can't get anything yet.
Their latest lineup was fantastic, but was more worth it at the higher end, and these are their last moments of being the "latest" AMD cards. Personally I aim to get an 7900 XTX or XT used the second they start dropping onto the used market at a lower price.
You could look at the 7600 which is about equivalent to the 4060. The 7700 can a push a lot more frames than the 4060, but it's so close to the 7800 that you might as well get it instead.
That's before considering DLSS and such. Nvidia also tends to get better fps per buck at the lower prices last I checked, unless you start considering used cards or discounted previous gen stock.

Dunno how is it today but logical increments was always a good resource for me when I was making new builds.

always get used top of the line and you will never get burnt

My 4060 plays everything and comes with better tech than red team. I have gone through about 7 Gigabyte mobos and they suck. I would advise a different brand. If you don't have NVMe storage, its a must! Use your traditional SSD has backup storage.
- I'd use the sata SSD for OS and the NVMe for games/storage.
  It depends on the actual drives and usage but the advantage of NVMe is largely in sequential speeds - the difference in random access speeds is not usually as dramatic.
  
  The speed increase over Regular SSD and NVME is justified, but not requited just yet, I will use the SSDs I have until I fancy grabbing a 2tb NVME at a later date.
  I do plan on using the 1tb 2.5" ssd in my server as cache drive.
- I've had Gigabyte motherboards since my first build in 2006, I will always use Gigabyte, only had one fail on me (it was a Z79 ) it was 6 years old when it was repurposed from my gaming PC and then went into 24/7 use as a home server, then it died after 2 years, 8 years of heavy use is alright in my book. My new server has a gigabyte board too and that's been on 24/7 for about 6 months now, no issues to date.
  
  That's impressive. Of all my gigabyte mobo builds the board was the first thing to fail every time.
- comes with "better tech" for significantly more than a 6750xt and has worse performance than the 6750xt

40 comments