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Am I being too snobby? / Spec me a GPU for Starfield

Rik1254

Rik1254

Rik1254

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Joined
11 Jul 2011
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1,632
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Abertillery - S.Wales
I’m after a new GPU and prices are just insane and stocks still seem to suck for the “middle tier”.

I play on a 3440x1440p monitor (165hz, but I aim for 60fps and actively play at 30fps, so ultra high fps in all games isn’t required).
I also don’t play at the highest quality. If it looks decent at medium, I’m happy. Ray tracing is something I really don’t see the value of, so RT performance isn’t a huge concern.

I don’t mind how much the GPU costs, but I do like to have good bang for buck and I also want to have 3-5 years out of it.

I would jump on a RX 6800, but £450 (new) feels steep for what is a 3 year old design. Yes I will get Starfield premium (~£45), but £400 still feels steep.
Am I wrong? Is the 6800 really that good to warrant a strong price after 3 years? Are there any ‘tips’ which can unlock extra performance like the old days? (I’m not against a bios flash if I can get a 6800xt for 6800 money).

I would wait for the RX 7800, but I do want to play Starfield at launch and unless AMD announce it at Gamescom and launch it before September 1st, I don’t think I can wait.

But do I really need it? I typically go for the ‘7’ card (GTX 570, 970, RX 5700 xt) as they’re middle ground and typically good value. Is the 6700/ 6750 a better option?

I think at this stage, NVIDIA is out of the question, £600 for the 4070 is steep and the 3070 seems to be holding a decent price despite its age (I’d like a warranty). The 3080 is my choice if I had to due to the 10GB vram, but the RTX tax just prices them out for me.


Edit: OCUK sell a 6750xt for £350 with Starfield, thoughts?
 
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Rik1254 said:
The 3080 is my choice if I had to due to the 10GB vram
Click to expand...
Not worth it due to the 10GB vRam, Ultrawide will just gobble it up and ask for more. The value play is a 6700XT atm inc Starfield Premium at £299, but you'll need to compromise a little at the res you play at with most newer games. Expect to upgrade again in 2 or so years.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

What is your current card? Ofc a £699 7900XT is your ideal choice but sounds like you have a fairly hard budget limit below that.
 
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JediFragger said:
Not worth it due to the 10GB vRam, Ultrawide will just gobble it up and ask for more. The value play is a 6700XT atm inc Starfield Premium at £299, but you'll need to compromise a little at the res you play at with most newer games. Expect to upgrade again in 2 or so years.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

What is your current card? Ofc a £699 7900XT is your ideal choice but sounds like you have a fairly hard budget limit below that.
Click to expand...
Honestly, budget isn’t a huge concern, I tend to avoid higher end cards because they typically don’t offer the best value.

My main focus is value for money, if I’m paying £700 for a card, will it give me £700 worth of value over the 3-5 years I plan on keeping it? Probably not, which is why I stick to the mid range.
 
Rik1254 said:
I would wait for the RX 7800, but I do want to play Starfield at launch and unless AMD announce it at Gamescom and launch it before September 1st, I don’t think I can wait.
Click to expand...
Consider that the benefits of waiting when it comes to a bethesda game - bug fixes done by both them and the community. You might also pick something up (GPU) on a better deal in sales.
Also, considering how you're not chasing frames or high settings (ignoring res), the best 'deal' might be what you currently have depending on how it performs in Starfield - which you'll only know when it launches tbh.
If I were you I'd wait and see tbh, all depends on your will power.
 
3070 and 3080 are out IMO due to VRam.

The 6750XT is pretty good at £350, i think you're right the RX 6800 at £440 is a little steep but at £400 or £410 its the one to get.

Having said that yes i would wait for the RX 7700 / 7800.
 
I should’ve clarified, I don’t currently have that GPU, I sold my kit just after I got my Steam Deck thinking that would be sufficient :rolleyes: (To be fair, it actually is, but I doubt Starfield would run well).

I currently have a Rx 5500xt from my spares cupboard, but that barely pulls the skin off a rice pudding, let alone run a game.

Ill hold out until Gamescom to see if they announce the 7800, the Starfield deal is on until the end of Sept and hopefully they include the new GPU into the promotion.
 
I would jump on a RX 6800, but £450 (new) feels steep for what is a 3 year old design. Yes I will get Starfield premium (~£45), but £400 still feels steep.
Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
Yes, you’re sort of wrong in a way.

The 6800XT is far better value than the Nvidia 4070 series.

The 4070 has largely been a flop giving very high pricing. Same for the 4060 and 4060 ti.

AMD are heavily discounting their products so anything with more than 8gigs of ram, recently launched and plenty of oomph will be good.

Edit: see here for a round up https://www.techspot.com/bestof/gpu-2023/
 
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JollyJamma said:
Yes, you’re sort of wrong in a way.

The 6800XT is far better value than the Nvidia 4070 series.

The 4070 has largely been a flop giving very high pricing. Same for the 4060 and 4060 ti.

AMD are heavily discounting their products so anything with more than 8gigs of ram, recently launched and plenty of oomph will be good.
Click to expand...
I’ll have to take a closer look at the 6800 vs the 6800xt, the 6800 looks like a great deal at ~90% of the performance for 80% of the price.

Hopefully they announce it at Gamescom with a very short window before launch, it seems odd that they wouldn’t leverage the hype train for Starfield to push some new stock.
 
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here’s a re-review of the 7900XT which takes into consideration more recent price cuts for the 6000 and 7000 series.

Modern cards are far more expensive than before so you’ll need to accept that £400 doesn’t give you upper mid range anymore unless it’s on sale.

6800XT at £400 is a lot of rasterisation performance for the money



youtu.be

Radeon RX 7900 XT Re-Review, What Should Have Been!

Diablo IV Epic Chest Giveaway: https://bit.ly/44PaQxOSupport us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwareunboxedJoin us on Floatplane: https://www.floatpl...
youtu.be youtu.be
 
JollyJamma said:
here’s a re-review of the 7900XT which takes into consideration more recent price cuts for the 6000 and 7000 series.

Modern cards are far more expensive than before so you’ll need to accept that £400 doesn’t give you upper mid range anymore unless it’s on sale.

6800XT at £400 is a lot of rasterisation performance for the money



youtu.be

Radeon RX 7900 XT Re-Review, What Should Have Been!

Diablo IV Epic Chest Giveaway: https://bit.ly/44PaQxOSupport us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwareunboxedJoin us on Floatplane: https://www.floatpl...
youtu.be youtu.be
Click to expand...
Given it’s 3 years old, I’d expected to see some price discounting, but it seems that they’ve just settled into the msrp range. The 7900xt does make a compelling case, and I have found a brand new one for £680, which seems a good price.

sunshinewelly said:
i would have suggested the same thing. Its expensive but its a huge upgrade over the 3000 series cards
Click to expand...
What sort of upgrades are we talking here? Perf per watt or is there a game changer that I’m missing? DLSS is lost on me as most of the games I play are older or are AMD optimised with FSR (which is the same but worse I believe?)


CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Tune the memory as much as possible if Fallout 4 is anything to go by!
Click to expand...
Timings or raw speeds? I’ve read AM5 doesn’t play too nicely with higher speed kits?
 
Rik1254 said:
Given it’s 3 years old, I’d expected to see some price discounting, but it seems that they’ve just settled into the msrp range. The 7900xt does make a compelling case, and I have found a brand new one for £680, which seems a good price.


What sort of upgrades are we talking here? Perf per watt or is there a game changer that I’m missing? DLSS is lost on me as most of the games I play are older or are AMD optimised with FSR (which is the same but worse I believe?)



Timings or raw speeds? I’ve read AM5 doesn’t play too nicely with higher speed kits?
Click to expand...
humbug said:
The 7700X is a very fast CPU clocked RAM or not, it'll more than enough to drive Starfield
Click to expand...

The earlier version of Creation Engine in Fallout 4 loved high clocked ram with tight subtimings:

The two CPU bottlenecks will be the graphics rendering and Papyrus scripting. This will be evident in settlements, both stock and user created.
 
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