Brother has a system with i9-9900KF 32GB RAM and the 12GB RTX 3060. He feels it's not up to the 4K gaming he's wanting to get involved in soon, mainly Starfield and the next slew of AAA releases. What in the range would best suit him? Scared of touching the 4090's due to the whole melting scandal. Any solid options under that to do the job and come in at decent cost?
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Best Nvidia upgrade from RTX 3060 12GB for 4K?
- Thread starter Shampoo
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Probably not worth looking at anything below a 4070 Ti going from a 3060, and probably not worth going above that either without a CPU upgrade. For games like Starfield which are almost guaranteed to be a mess at launch, I'd not upgrade for them early before I see actual numbers & how CPU bottlenecked it ends up as. Worth thinking about how often you care about (heavy) RT in your games though, because the 7900 XT is almost £100 less than the 4070 Ti (and it does better with the 9900KF), so that's worth considering also, and at the very least you get some decent vram. Particularly for Starfield I'd wager it will end up definitely better (no DLSS, and likely no or little RT).
Reading up on the 4070Ti feels like it's not equipped for 4K due to the 12GB hamstring and limited bus. Feels like a 4080 is what's needed...
Speaking with him, RTX is wanted and expected for most releases so will have to go with team green. Any particular 4080 a known 'winner' or is it much of a muchness? Prices of them all have a variance of £450 from top to bottom!
We'll have to cover the CPU issue at another stage depending.
Speaking with him, RTX is wanted and expected for most releases so will have to go with team green. Any particular 4080 a known 'winner' or is it much of a muchness? Prices of them all have a variance of £450 from top to bottom!
We'll have to cover the CPU issue at another stage depending.
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Permabanned
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7900XT or 7900XTX both exceed the nvidia options for rasterization performance and perform well for raytracing outside of 1 or 2 titles.
They cost less than the NV options and come with significantly more VRAM, perfect for 4k gaming.
They cost less than the NV options and come with significantly more VRAM, perfect for 4k gaming.
Soldato
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Agree with you on those points. The 4070ti is not really ideal for 4K, the 4080 is a much better choice. If you shop around, the 4080 is not too bad on value compared to the others. I mean, they are all poor value, but...
Personally, I think the upper price 4080's are a complete waste of money, they just don't have enough advantages to justify their higher cost. Something like a Gigabyte gaming OC 4080 is fine, and has a great warranty.
Soldato
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I think if you want the latest games at 4k its 4090 or nothing from nvidia. The mistake is trying to game at 4k imo.
I was (mistakenly?) always of the impression that AMD were seriously behind on RTX ability. Is that not the case? Is it DLSS or something else they're below the curve on? Happy to look into their wares if up to snuff. 24GB VRAM is certainly more attractive than the meagre 16 on the 4080s.
This in particular would you consider a win? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...b-gddr6-pci-express-graphics-c-gx-3a4-sp.html
Agreed on this chasing of a fidelity dragon. I sit at 1440p myself and find it enough. Brother has caught the 'bug' though.
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Soldato
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I have to agree with that too. I moved back to 1440p after realised the sad truth that NVIDIA are making 4K gaming too expensive to justify.
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It's really down to how much value you put on ray tracing when a vast majority of games don't support it, and RT is really the only reason you would also want DLSS3 (again assuming its supported)
If RT is that important to you for the select few games that support it, then without a doubt the 4090 is the one to get, specially if your after 4K performance, nothing else comes close, and the price reflects that.
But when it comes to lower cards, then the 4080 is about on par with the 7900XTX with either card trading blows, some titles are better on AMD than nVidia and vice versa.
The biggest difference here is price. £890 for the cheapest XTX, £1050 for the cheapest 4080. £160 difference for basically no tangible difference in performance and 8GB less VRAM.
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Don’t be afraid of the 4090. Failures are few and far between.
I'd keep in mind that when you use ray tracing in newer games it can increase the VRAM requirement and since the 7900 XT and XTX have more VRAM than the 4070 Ti & 4080, nvidia's lead may not last.
We already saw this in some games with how RDNA 2 cards ray tracing was worse on release, but is now superior in many (though not all), just because they have the VRAM to handle these settings and the competing nvidia cards don't.
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I dropped from 4K to 3440x1440
Doesn't sound like much but that's 5M pixels to push rather than 4K's 8.3M so far easier to achieve but keeps most of the benefits of 4K for productivity IMHO. I use the same res/aspect at home and work for years now. It's my personal sweet spot for gaming too.
Nobody asked what PSU he has?
Powering a 4080 and up will require a lot more juice than that old 3060
The way you are talking it seems money is no object. Stop worrying about the GPU melting issue and get the 4090. They are all terrible value but if money is a factor, then the 7900 XTX Pulse at £890 is much better value than the one you linked.
But he will need about a 800w PSU, or a good 750w one at a minimum. Also if he is maxing RT and graphic settings at 4K the CPU will not be a major bottleneck, even for a 4090.
Powering a 4080 and up will require a lot more juice than that old 3060
The way you are talking it seems money is no object. Stop worrying about the GPU melting issue and get the 4090. They are all terrible value but if money is a factor, then the 7900 XTX Pulse at £890 is much better value than the one you linked.
But he will need about a 800w PSU, or a good 750w one at a minimum. Also if he is maxing RT and graphic settings at 4K the CPU will not be a major bottleneck, even for a 4090.
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Caporegime
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Have to agree, 4K is still v v harsh on new titles. I tend to switch my panel to a 3840x1600 res to make it easier and to push the fps, but I'm lucky enough that mine is a big panel and can do it to a good size (I get a 45in UW 'window' which is great tbh).
Associate
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I've been playing a 3440 x 1440 and have been pleasantly surprised trying to do it on a 6700 XT. I've heard FSR 2 looks better at higher resolutions and I think 1440p ultrawide is probably a nice target to shoot for, as you say, significantly fewer pixels but still high enough that FSR 2 looks good.
