OK, so looking for a card for 4K gaming. It's a 144Hz so I'd at least like to be heading in that direction in as many games as possible (i.e. not really wanting a card that does 60-ish fps at 4K). I appreciate there's probably no card that can do 144fps in all games with top settings.
Now I know the obvious answer would probably be a 4090, but let's go cheaper than that. I'm expecting it'll be paired with a 8700K CPU which is only PCIe 3.0, but I'm under the impression that will make minimal difference with the currently available cards.
I think I've basically narrowed it down to a 6800 XT, a 6900 XT or if I want to go Nvidia, a 3080.
The one other card I'm considering (and the reason I'm asking in this thread) is a 7900 XT. I'm sure the XTX is a nicer card and probably better performance/£, but they're not in stock and they're over £1100 which puts you into 4080 territory and I don't want to go there.
So I'm basically looking at the cheaper end of the 7900 XT range, which is the two Sapphire cards, the Pulse and the MBA card. I think I'm leaning towards the Pulse out of the 2 as the MBA cooler worries me with the number of cards that seem to have bad contact leading to high temps.
So my question is, is the 7900 XT really worth the extra over the other options given the resolution & framerate (4K @ >60 fps), the CPU (8700K) and the fact that it's PCIe 3.0?
While I'm sure the 6800 XT and 6900 XT are nice cards (I'm a bit out of touch and that generation passed me by) I do wonder if they're still worth buying now the 7900s are out?