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Advice on graphics card with my pc

ShouldB3Banned

ShouldB3Banned

ShouldB3Banned

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Joined
13 May 2022
Posts
6
Location
Norwich
Hi guys. So I have an old pc that I use for music production. It is an i5 6600k @ 3.50ghz, with 32gb ram. I have an Asus Rog Strix 244hz gaming monitor.
I really want to add a graphics card. Could someone tell me what graphics cards my pc could handle? I would only be playing at 1080p but of course want the highest fps an smooth graphics that I can, but just not sure what my current pc can handle. Knowing nothing about graphics cards, it's an absolute minefield with all the models out there!
 
look in the pc, the power supply is the box the power cable goes into, it'll have a label on it with the details, the brand name and wattage is what you need, e.g. "Seasonic 650W"
 
Well due to it's age, I've accepted that I'd need a new power supply, so happy to buy whatever I need to power the pc with the new graphics card, whatever cards my options might be
 
What kind of games are you playing? For most games at 1080p, a RX 6600 would be plenty. There are some decent deals on the RTX 2060 12GB floating around too.

An RX 6400 or 6500 XT may suffice if you only play esports, or older games, but they would unfortunately be hampered by your PC only supporting PCI-E 3.0, so best avoided unless they're cheap.

Does the PC have no graphics card whatsoever right now? The reason I ask is that if you have something decent of that era, like a RX 570, you're best off keeping it unless you have a huge budget.
 
I have an old Radeon R7 360 so no good really. I play a lot of rocket league but want to be able to play other games, not the really high demanding ones though.
So based on what you know about my pc, and that I was thinking about geforce gtx models, what ones do think my pc could handle?
 
ShouldB3Banned said:
I have an old Radeon R7 360 so no good really. I play a lot of rocket league but want to be able to play other games, not the really high demanding ones though.
So based on what you know about my pc, and that I was thinking about geforce gtx models, what ones do think my pc could handle?
Click to expand...

The R7 360 is honestly not that bad for esports games at 1080p (most of them should be playable) :D

Well, it really depends on the game and how CPU-bound the game is. Purely from a technical perspective you could buy whatever you want, there's no reason it won't work if it will fit in your case and your PSU supports it. But, realistically speaking, I think you'd be silly to buy more than a 3060 Ti for a computer this old, only to play those kind of games at 1080p.

I expect a 3050 would be more than enough, but to be brutal they're just very bad value when they're the same price as a RX 6600.

If you can get access to FE drops, I think they would give you the best price and go for a 3060 Ti, possibly a 3070 if you're planning to keep the card awhile and upgrade the system.

The 3060 really needs to be £350 or less, in my opinion, to make any sense against the RX 6600 XT (which OCUK sell the PowerColor version for near that).

The GTX 1660 Ti is kind of like a 3050 without the modern features (like ray tracing, or I assume DLSS), which means it should be significantly cheaper and uhm, it is not.

The 1650 was poop when it came out (was about £130-£150 if I recall correctly) and it is even more expensive now, but since AMD released low-end cards that are even worse, it looks slightly less crap, but please don't buy one, unless it is £100. The Super seems to be absent from the market, but it was actually decent and priced very similar at that time.

The 1650 is much weaker than the 3050 or 1660 Ti and while it is acceptable for most games at 1080p, it is starting to struggle with maintaining decent frame rates at moderate settings in games like cyberpunk, so the lifespan will be far more limited going forwards.
 
Tetras said:
The R7 360 is honestly not that bad for esports games at 1080p (most of them should be playable) :D

Well, it really depends on the game and how CPU-bound the game is. Purely from a technical perspective you could buy whatever you want, there's no reason it won't work if it will fit in your case and your PSU supports it. But, realistically speaking, I think you'd be silly to buy more than a 3060 Ti for a computer this old, only to play those kind of games at 1080p.

I expect a 3050 would be more than enough, but to be brutal they're just very bad value when they're the same price as a RX 6600.

If you can get access to FE drops, I think they would give you the best price and go for a 3060 Ti, possibly a 3070 if you're planning to keep the card awhile and upgrade the system.

The 3060 really needs to be £350 or less, in my opinion, to make any sense against the RX 6600 XT (which OCUK sell the PowerColor version for near that).

The GTX 1660 Ti is kind of like a 3050 without the modern features (like ray tracing, or I assume DLSS), which means it should be significantly cheaper and uhm, it is not.

The 1650 was poop when it came out (was about £130-£150 if I recall correctly) and it is even more expensive now, but since AMD released low-end cards that are even worse, it looks slightly less crap, but please don't buy one, unless it is £100. The Super seems to be absent from the market, but it was actually decent and priced very similar at that time.

The 1650 is much weaker than the 3050 or 1660 Ti and while it is acceptable for most games at 1080p, it is starting to struggle with maintaining decent frame rates at moderate settings in games like cyberpunk, so the lifespan will be far more limited going forwards.
Click to expand...
Tha ks for the advice. I think I have decided on this as not too expensive and the main game I'll play is rocket league and I want 200+ fps on it and nice smooth gameplay:

EVGA Nvidia Gefore RTX 2060 6GB SC Gaming Turing
 
ShouldB3Banned said:
Tha ks for the advice. I think I have decided on this as not too expensive and the main game I'll play is rocket league and I want 200+ fps on it and nice smooth gameplay:

EVGA Nvidia Gefore RTX 2060 6GB SC Gaming Turing
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I can't find any reviews that include rocket league, but if you're getting a decent price relative to the 6600 (which is faster in raster, slower in ray tracing) then it's not a bad buy. I'd prefer the 12GB version if available.
 
Tetras said:
The 3060 really needs to be £350 or less, in my opinion, to make any sense against the RX 6600 XT (which OCUK sell the PowerColor version for near that).
Click to expand...
And 6650XT at the same price and some +10% performance (placing halfway between 3060 and 3060ti, often closer to ti) makes it even harder for 3060, which it is cheaper than. Granted, 3060 has better RT support, but it's not like you're going to be left with much power for everything else once you crank RT all the way up on a 3060-class mid-tier card. And if you have to choose between RT and some other things, the other things — especially resolution or overall detail level — might prove more desirable to you after all than RT. And then FSR2 is likely to be as good as any DLSS. So for 1080p 6600XT is the king right now.

And it is also what I'd suggest the OP buys, especially if not having to upgrade the PSU for it. But this would need to be checked. Some 6650XTs come with two 8-pin plugs, and that's a bit much for some Skylake-era PSUs.

The cheapest sensible option is probably GTX 1080, but only if you can verify that it's in good condition (which you usually can't), and then 3050 or 6600 will provide practically the same performance plus warranty at a hundred pounds/euros/dollars extra. Used 1080ti is a bit of a bang-for-the-buck king, but buying a Pascal after several years of a crypto boom is a huge gamble.
 
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