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Gpu upgrade options?

Emjay86

Emjay86

Emjay86

Associate
Joined
2 Apr 2011
Posts
1,075
Location
Wales
Hi folks,

It's that time again! Possibly need to get a new GPU, although realistically I can wait. What piqued my interest was the trade in deals with certain Nvidia cards...

Anyway, I'm currently gaming on a 1440p ultrawide with a 2070 super, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 9 3900 and a Corsair 750w Gold PSU.

Is it worth me looking to upgrade and if so, what should I be looking at?

Ta!
 
Be mindful of the PSU when upgrading, it might be on its limit but depends on the card you upgrade to.

Also what budget do you have as this will make a difference to upgrade recommendations.

It might be worth waiting another few months and waiting for the lower teir cards from Nvidia and amd to be launched, I'm expecting the AMD cards to be comparable in cost to the 6000 series, though the Nvidia will be significantly dearer than the 3000 series.

The next gen cards might also offer a bigger jump in performance.
 
Emjay86 said:
Hi folks,

It's that time again! Possibly need to get a new GPU, although realistically I can wait. What piqued my interest was the trade in deals with certain Nvidia cards...

Anyway, I'm currently gaming on a 1440p ultrawide with a 2070 super, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 9 3900 and a Corsair 750w Gold PSU.

Is it worth me looking to upgrade and if so, what should I be looking at?

Ta!
Click to expand...
If you can wait then I would just wait. Both Nvidia and AMD seem to think that it's still pandemic / crypto time and have priced their new cards at pre-scalped prices. Intel are actually surprisingly gaining market share. I think there will be some sort of price drops to come, there's no point getting a 4080/4090 or 7900 XTX with your current system and the cards that would give you a decent upgrade from a 2070 are priced too silly imo. You could consider an Intel A770 but then you could be running the gauntlet of early driver issues so it would be worth checking against games you play.
 
Thanks both, this is kinda what I was thinking.

With regards to your response sx_turbo, I don't really have a price in mind, but I dont want to be mugged off so to speak, which I suspect everyone is at the moment, I simply thought selling my 2070 super for £230 made the deal a little better!

My PSU is actually a platinum, but still a lowly 750w, which was fine when I changed it from my 1000w, I just needed something that would fit nicely in my case, but alas it has come to bite me in the arse I suspect!

Cheers both!
 
PSU is more than fine for the kind of cards that you should be considering for 1440p. It's only if you were thinking of 4k gaming that you'd be considering the top tier of cards that need really beefy PSUs. If you can wait, then by summer there should be some better competition in the 1440p and more efficient GPU class.
 
kalniel said:
PSU is more than fine for the kind of cards that you should be considering for 1440p. It's only if you were thinking of 4k gaming that you'd be considering the top tier of cards that need really beefy PSUs. If you can wait, then by summer there should be some better competition in the 1440p and more efficient GPU class.
Click to expand...

Cheers, that's a bit reassuring.

To clarify, if it makes a difference, I am running a resolution of 3440 x 1440 UWQHD.

I was feeling flashy at the time, but I honestly struggle to imagine paying the ridiculous GPU prices. I've kind of pushed myself into a needy GPU niche I feel! Don't get me wrong, my 2070 Super is running Darktide, Hogwarts: Legacy and anything prior to those with no issues, so I'm not desperate. It wont run raytracing which is a shame as I previewed Hogwarts with full RTX on (my FPS tanked accordingly) and it looked amazing, but hey ho! Can't live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget!

Out of curiosity, to achieve some form of Raytracing with a high setting of graphics on current games, what kind of card would I be looking at for my resolution?

Cheers!
 
Emjay86 said:
Cheers, that's a bit reassuring.

To clarify, if it makes a difference, I am running a resolution of 3440 x 1440 UWQHD.

I was feeling flashy at the time, but I honestly struggle to imagine paying the ridiculous GPU prices. I've kind of pushed myself into a needy GPU niche I feel! Don't get me wrong, my 2070 Super is running Darktide, Hogwarts: Legacy and anything prior to those with no issues, so I'm not desperate. It wont run raytracing which is a shame as I previewed Hogwarts with full RTX on (my FPS tanked accordingly) and it looked amazing, but hey ho! Can't live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget!

Out of curiosity, to achieve some form of Raytracing with a high setting of graphics on current games, what kind of card would I be looking at for my resolution?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
4070 Ti minimum.
 
random_matt said:
4070 Ti minimum.
Click to expand...
Thats interesting as the 4070 ti was what I was looking at. I figured my £230 for my 2070 super made the price tag a little less insulting...

That said, I have the issue of having a 750w PSU, which I think is too low for a 4070 ti or anything above for that matter!
 
Sorry yeah I missed the 'ultrawide' text - that does push a bit more than normal 1440p certainly, but yeah 4070ti is a good (performance) fit in that case and I'd expect a good 750W PSU should be fine.
 
See... Now you two have made it all that bit more difficult, especially as I have already been given express permission from the wife... Oh dear...

Whatever shall I do?!
 
JediFragger said:
Nah, should be fine tbf. I'm running a high-clocked 13700k and a 4090 off of an RM850X with no issue.
Click to expand...

Would it matter much that I have a custom cooling loop on my CPU that is running a D5 pump and a shed ton of RGB? All my fans are RGB, my CPU block is RGB and my reservoir is RGG... 9 fans in total (7 RGB).
 
Emjay86 said:
Cheers, that's a bit reassuring.

To clarify, if it makes a difference, I am running a resolution of 3440 x 1440 UWQHD.

I was feeling flashy at the time, but I honestly struggle to imagine paying the ridiculous GPU prices. I've kind of pushed myself into a needy GPU niche I feel! Don't get me wrong, my 2070 Super is running Darktide, Hogwarts: Legacy and anything prior to those with no issues, so I'm not desperate. It wont run raytracing which is a shame as I previewed Hogwarts with full RTX on (my FPS tanked accordingly) and it looked amazing, but hey ho! Can't live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget!

Out of curiosity, to achieve some form of Raytracing with a high setting of graphics on current games, what kind of card would I be looking at for my resolution?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
I think the 7900XT 20GB is actually worth considering as well, assuming if the 4070ti 12GB cost the same or more.

Although if we were to talking about strictly on Raytracing performance Nvidia still have the edge, but the 7900XT is on average around 15% faster than than the 4070ti outside of Raytracing, so the raw power difference is enough to make the the 7900XT faster than the 4070ti even with Ultra Quality Raytracing at 1080p, and only at 1440p and above would the 4070ti then pull ahead:
www.techspot.com

Hogwarts Legacy GPU Benchmark: 53 GPUs Tested

Hogwarts Legacy is open-world action RPG set in the Harry Potter universe. Having launched to very enthusiastic user reviews, it's time we benchmark it and we have...
www.techspot.com www.techspot.com

So as long as you run the Raytracing at moderate level instead of maxing it, the 7900XT would match the the performance of the 4070ti, and on average up to 15% faster on other games that don't use Raytracing.

Also for Hogwarts Legacy specifically, another thing to consider is the VRAM usage.
Also from the above review:
"Video memory is also a problem. At 4K, the game took up close to 13GB of with ray tracing turned on. That’s what makes the Intel Arc A770 an interesting choice, as it’s a relatively affordable GPU that still packs 16GB of memory.

Turning ray tracing off bumps down the requirement to 8GB, but that’s still a lot higher than what the minimum requirements say. If you’re nearing your maximum video memory, expect bad stuttering and hitching in Hogwarts Legacy."

Although 3440x1440 is not 4K res, but it is already around 85% there, so the 12GB VRAM on the 4070ti could be an issue, as running out of vram could potentially cause shuttering.

If you MUST stick with Nvidia, it's probably worth better to pay the extra and try to stretch to a 4080 16GB, as it would at least give you a bit more longevity considering how more and more games are using more VRAM these days, otherwise may be consider getting a non-reference 7900XT/7900XTX.
 
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Yeah I'm definitely more tempted by the 7900XT (especially at <£800) than the 4070ti!

It's still too much £ for me though...really hoping the 7800XT isn't as bad as I fear it will be....
 
TrojanWhore said:
Yeah I'm definitely more tempted by the 7900XT (especially at <£800) than the 4070ti!

It's still too much £ for me though...really hoping the 7800XT isn't as bad as I fear it will be....
Click to expand...
I equally dislike the pricing and £800+ is ludicrous, however if they are gonna give me £230 for my 2070 super, it makes it a little easier. Unfortunately I wouldnt get the same deal on an AMD card, which in itself makes me feel a bit weird as ive been on Nvidia ever since I changed my Voodoo 2 out, god knows how long ago!

That said, I was intel until a few years ago too and ive had no issues with my ryzen...
 
Emjay86 said:
I equally dislike the pricing and £800+ is ludicrous, however if they are gonna give me £230 for my 2070 super, it makes it a little easier. Unfortunately I wouldnt get the same deal on an AMD card, which in itself makes me feel a bit weird as ive been on Nvidia ever since I changed my Voodoo 2 out, god knows how long ago!

That said, I was intel until a few years ago too and ive had no issues with my ryzen...
Click to expand...
Yeah I get that and tbh I'm surprised they're paying the same for your 2070S as they would for my 3060ti, not bad if you look at that in isolation, but then you have to pay the Asus brand tax on the 4070ti (£90-100), so kinda swings and roundabouts.

Looking at the MM it appears you'll easily get a similar amount selling your card yourself and then can spend it however you see fit......although if you just don't want the hassle of a private sale and you like the asus cards, by all means go for it, it'll be a decent upgrade whatever you decide at UW res :)
 
TrojanWhore said:
Yeah I get that and tbh I'm surprised they're paying the same for your 2070S as they would for my 3060ti, not bad if you look at that in isolation, but then you have to pay the Asus brand tax on the 4070ti (£90-100), so kinda swings and roundabouts.

Looking at the MM it appears you'll easily get a similar amount selling your card yourself and then can spend it however you see fit......although if you just don't want the hassle of a private sale and you like the asus cards, by all means go for it, it'll be a decent upgrade whatever you decide at UW res :)
Click to expand...
So, lets say that I take the plunge and get the 4070 ti TUF OC version wotsit.

Do I need any special connectors or anything to go with it? It looks like it just needs the standard cable...
 
Emjay86 said:
I equally dislike the pricing and £800+ is ludicrous, however if they are gonna give me £230 for my 2070 super, it makes it a little easier. Unfortunately I wouldnt get the same deal on an AMD card, which in itself makes me feel a bit weird as ive been on Nvidia ever since I changed my Voodoo 2 out, god knows how long ago!

That said, I was intel until a few years ago too and ive had no issues with my ryzen...
Click to expand...
Part of the reason why GPU pricing has gone mad is precisely because too many people with the same mentality sticking with Nvidia no matter what, and allowing them to dominate over the market to demand such ridiculous price :o

Too many people blinded by Nvidia "having the fastest card" (at the highest price power), but ignoring the fact for pretty much all other cards they generally offer lower performance and spec card than AMD at the same price points.

Had more people support and buy AMD in the past decade allowing for better competition instead of letting Nvidia reaching 85% market-share, we probably would not have reach the crazy pricing we see today :(
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Part of the reason why GPU pricing has gone mad is precisely because too many people with the same mentality sticking with Nvidia no matter what, and allowing them to dominate over the market to demand such ridiculous price :o

Too many people blinded by Nvidia "having the fastest card" (at the highest price power), but ignoring the fact for pretty much all other cards they generally offer lower performance and spec card than AMD at the same price points.

Had more people support and buy AMD in the past decade allowing for better competition instead of letting Nvidia reaching 85% market-share, we probably would not have reach the crazy pricing we see today :(
Click to expand...
There's definitely something in what your saying, but wasn't it also AMD who were intentionally lowering supply of their cards to prop up the pricing?

I guess by that rationale we should all just ditch both and go Intel ARC?
 
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