7600 vs 4060?

[GoogalyMoogaly]

So I'm thinking about updating my SFF PC. But being a SFF PC it has a few limiting factors.
First off is the CPU cooler clearance. It's a Silverstone ML08 case which list the CPU clearance as 58mm (I've not measured it to check). This makes cooling a CPU quite challenging and thus limits the CPU. I currently have a Ryzen 3 1400 and I'm thinking of maybe upgrading to a 5500 or 5600 (not sure what the 5600X offers other than a small clockspeed boost) and hoping I can cool that.
The other limiting factor is that it only has a 450W PSU, which seemed reasonable at the time.

So with these limits in mind, what cheap-ish GPU would I be best going for? (currently running a Nvidia 1070)
With a 5600 it doesn't seem worth overspeccing a GPU and the PSU limits that anyway. So the two cheapest current gen GPUs are the Nvidia 4060 and AMD 7600. Unlike at other price points it seems the VRAM amount is equal here, otherwise I might have been swayed by the highest. I think the 4060 is the most power efficient (out of the box), so that seems tempting, but which is the best? A quick Google seemed inconclusive.
Is it worth considering the 7600XT/7700XT/4060Ti or are they not worth it at those price points? Or are they a bit power hungry and likely to cause issues that way? (It seems like the 7600XT and 4060Ti recommend a 450W PSU, the 7700XT recommends 550W)

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

They're both not great cards with too high prices, but for the use case I'd get the 4060 due to the lower power use.

The 4060 Ti is poorly priced and barely improved on the 3060 Ti and the 7600 XT has much higher power consumption than the 4060.

The 7700 XT is probably not practical due to their large size.

Yeah, this is my concern really, they don't seem great for the price. There doesn't really seem to be a good option.
I'd be happy to use my 1080Ti but it's an EVGA SC2 Hybrid (i.e. it has a built-in AIO) so won't fit.
I could put my Vega 56 in there and try undervolting to keep the system under 450W, but I'm not sure the Vega 56 is a massive improvement over the 1070.

Maybe I should go 2nd hand, but even then don't know what to go for. Maybe look for a 2nd hand 4060/7600 or similar?

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

And just to add another consideration to this, I've realise my motherboard is PCIe 3.0 (x16).
So since these cards are all PCIe 4.0 x8 do I need to worry about that? How much performance is lost? Would I be better off stretching to a PCIe 4.0 x16 card?
Then I'm probably going to need a new PSU...
Didn't really want to do a rebuild just a small upgrade...

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

It wouldn't change my buying decision. 4 lane cards are different (e.g. 6500 XT), that would change my buying decision.


For the most part, not much (a few percent), though there are outliers where the difference is more significant.


Unfortunately not. The 6750 XT is available for £300 every so often and that's the best performer in this price range (even against the newer 7600 XT), but power consumption is similar to the 7700 XT.


A bit, likely not worth swapping, though they are different architectures so the strengths/weaknesses of each card may vary.

A 3060 12GB would overcome the PCI-E issue because it has the full 16 lanes, but it is a more mild upgrade than the 4060 (4060 is still consistently faster on PCI-E 3.0) and it bumps up the power consumption a notch, so in the circumstances I think the 4060 is your best option.

3060 is something to consider, maybe more likely to see a cheap one 2nd hand. 12GB would be nice too.
4060 does seem like the way to go, unless there's a good deal on a 7600. They seem to be similar from what I've seen.
I do get tempted by the 7600 XT for the extra VRAM or the 7700 XT cuz, well, it's better. But then price and power consumption start to become a thing again.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Given the 4060 is only slightly more i would go for that, DLSS can help if its lacking a bit in performance, without much image quality loss.

FSR isn't as good.

Having said that you should really be considering this, its a much better GPU....

SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon™ RX 7700 XT Gaming Graphics Card with 12GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture

Order SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon™ RX 7700 XT Gaming Graphics Card with 12GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

This is a 50% improvement in performance. its 90% a 4070 and £100 cheaper.

I do keep getting tempted by it, but it is nearly £400 and the recommended PSU is 700W. Having to buy a new SFX PSU would just make it super expensive for what it is. Pity that chart doesn't have the 7600 XT on there.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

It is a bit slower than a 6700 XT, but it pulls similar power numbers too.

Interesting that the 7600 XT is so much worse than the 4060 TI considering how close the 7600 and 4060 are.

Theres a few B grade 7700xts for sale if you wanted to go that way (and they fit), considering new is £380 I'd hope you could get one for a decent offer price.

Edit, and a 7800xt

Thanks, I shall have a look at the B Grade 7700 XTs.

I don't see how a 7700XT would require a 700 watt power supply. I'm running a 6950 xt and power draw for the entire system is less than 450 on a bad day. Granted I have reined in the 6950 slightly but is only done due to AMD's excessive clock speed bumps that yield next to no performance for massive power draw (lowered max clockspeed by around 18% for a 4-8% performance penalty and around a 30% reduction in power draw).

They have to assume you have a junk level PSU when recommending them, one of those that gets to its advertised power by including the 3.3v and 5v rails with the 12v only making up 2/3 of that advertised power.

The GPU is 230 watts, its not going to be any more than that, my 7800 XT pulls 250, paired with a 65 watt CPU, like the Ryzen 5600 i think it'll be fine on a 450 watt PSU, obviously just be sure it fits in your case, the Sapphire one i linked is not large but its not like tiny either, i have the 7800 XT version of it, its a good GPU.

Well it could be junk, it's a Corsair (no idea the OEM).
This one

I think it was the Pulse you link suggested a 700W PSU (which is what I was basing that on).
I've had a Vega 56 Pulse and a 7900 XT Pulse and had issues with both, so might steer clear of Sapphire. Unless the price or performance is better than the others.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Personally would just go with a used 5600 non-x and a used 3060 12gb.
The lot would set you back £200-ish

Yeah, that's seems like a pretty decent shout. Now just need to keep an eye out for them... (or anything better)

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Not sure if you are still checking this thread.

The 7600 and 4060 have gimped pcie interfaces. They have 128bit memory bus and are designed to run on pcie 4 using 8 lanes. 8 lanes on pcie 3 is slower (1/2 speed?). If you have a worse MB than a b550, you only have pcie 3. I got used previous gen as it would not be hobbled in some scenarios.

The 7700xt may also do this, so it may be worth looking into. It has 192bit memory bus so maybe not so bad.

I'd pretty much decided on a 7700 XT and was just waiting for a deal to come up. However, I've just realised that all AMD 7000 series cards (and maybe 6000 series too?) won't fit in my case as they all seem to be 2.5 slot coolers.
This leaves me with only Nvidia as an option. So 4060, 4060 Ti (8 or 16GB) or pay silly money for a 4070.
It seems harder than I thought to get an older gen card at this point that uses 16 PCIe lanes, is a decent upgrade over the 1000 series and isn't silly expensive.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Does anyone know of any 2 slot 7700 XTs? There seem to be a bunch of 2 slot 4060/4060 Ti/4070s but I can't seem to find 2 slot AMD cards. Do they really run that much hotter that they can't use 2 slot coolers?
Am I just missing them?

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Since the 7700XT is not going to fit, I'm sorta left between a rock and a hard place.
Do I go for a 4060 or a 4060 Ti?
Both are only 8x (PCIe 4) but the Ti does look like it has a bit more performance (~20%?) but is more expensive (~32%?).

Do I try to go somewhere in between if I can find a 2-slot 6700 XT in stock? More VRAM and it's x16, but it is last gen and soon to 2 gens old.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

The Ti is in a really weird place price/performance. It gives you higher performance than the 4060 which is nice, but the 8GB of VRAM is always going to be a problem, so realistically it is hard to see the point of buying one outside of maybe esports or other games that you can keep a tight reign on the VRAM and really want every last frame you can get.

If you did need higher performance than the 4060, e.g. for 1440p gaming, then the 4070 non-Super makes a lot more sense and has enough grunt it'll handle it for awhile.


The feature set of RDNA 2 is not an issue for gaming really and even though the 4060 Ti is technically newer, it performs the same (or slightly better/slightly worse) than the 3060 Ti. I'd have no concern buying one, but are they much more compact than e.g. XFX's 7700 XT SWFT 210?

From what I can see the XFX 7700 XT Swift 210 if a 2.5 slot cooler, which is an issue. I think there are some 2 slot 6700/6750 XTs, but the issue is finding them (at a reasonable price).

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

The xfx 6750 xt comes on special for sub £280; £271.86 with coupon atm. They're around 300 normally. Cooler looks ok but the photos are all at sexy angles.

Yeah, the only XFX cooler that is 2 slot is the reference one, everything else is closer to 5cm (which I think is 2.5 slot).

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

So what would people do if the prices were pretty similar, 6700 XT or 4060 Ti (8GB)?
The 6700 XT is 12GB and PCIe 4.0 x16 (I'm using a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot), so that's nice.
The 4060 Ti is newer with DLSS and I think averages slightly faster (at 1080p and 1440p) unless it hits VRAM issues.

The 4060 Ti is a small, more efficient card (so might run cooler), which might be handy in a SFF case. I worry that in the longer term the VRAM may be an issue, especially if I move to 4K. But the 6700 XT is already a generation out-of-date, would the 4060Ti be better because it's newer?