Hi I know nothing ! My grandson has a tornado r3 gaming pc . He's just had a ryzen 5600x processor put in & 32gb of memory . His motherboard is a Asus prime a520m-k with a gth 1650 4gb graphics card ( not a clue what all that means, he told me ) he's only 11 ! I'm 62 . He wants a better graphics card. His birthdays coming up so could you give me any advice as what to buy ? Thanks in advance. p.s His dad says it's for games.
Graphics
- Thread starter sirrom57
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Decent graphics cards require a good power supply.
Prebuilt PCs like that skimp on the power supply to cut costs.
I think that PC contains a 450W power supply, presumably a low quality one.
I'm thinking RTX 3060 12GB, cheap but not bad, at about £260.
But that requires a 550W PSU, if you're buying a PSU you may as well get a 650W, and a decent quality one costs about £80.
So that's £340 total, plus shipping.
You'd need someone competent to replace the parts. Maybe whoever did the processor upgrade can help.
Prebuilt PCs like that skimp on the power supply to cut costs.
I think that PC contains a 450W power supply, presumably a low quality one.
I'm thinking RTX 3060 12GB, cheap but not bad, at about £260.
But that requires a 550W PSU, if you're buying a PSU you may as well get a 650W, and a decent quality one costs about £80.
So that's £340 total, plus shipping.
You'd need someone competent to replace the parts. Maybe whoever did the processor upgrade can help.
If you have a look at some reviews & YouTube gameplay videos, you can get an idea how much of an upgrade each card would be.
This video has a 1650 Super, which is more powerful than the 1650, but the same CPU (5600X), so you compare the £180-£200 RX 6600:
www.youtube.com
This is the same CPU (5600X), a 1650 Super and the 6700 XT (£300-£340)
www.youtube.com
I'd avoid the 8GB version of the RTX 3060.
Anything lower than a 6600/3060 is not worth bothering with.
I would personally simplify the choice to:
RX 6600 8GB @ ~£180 (the most modest upgrade, but also the lowest power consumption)
RX 7600 8GB @ ~£230
RTX 3060 12GB @ ~£260
RX 6700 XT 12GB @ ~£310
I'm assuming you wouldn't want to spend more than that.
This video has a 1650 Super, which is more powerful than the 1650, but the same CPU (5600X), so you compare the £180-£200 RX 6600:
GTX 1650 SUPER VS RX 6600 BENCHMARK
NVIDIA GTX 1650 SUPER VS AMD RX 6600 BENCHMARK COMPARISON IN 1080p ULTRA SETTINGS.00:00 BORDERLANDS 300:40 DEATH STRANDING01:20 AC ODYSSEY02:00 AC VALHAL...
www.youtube.com
This is the same CPU (5600X), a 1650 Super and the 6700 XT (£300-£340)
GTX 1650 super vs RX 6700 XT
Nvidia gtx 1650 super 4GB vs amd rx 6700xt 12GB , 1080p resolution.Test system details Room ambient Temp - 31 degreesGames Tested: 1920 x 1080 resolutionCP...
www.youtube.com
I'd avoid the 8GB version of the RTX 3060.
Anything lower than a 6600/3060 is not worth bothering with.
I would personally simplify the choice to:
RX 6600 8GB @ ~£180 (the most modest upgrade, but also the lowest power consumption)
RX 7600 8GB @ ~£230
RTX 3060 12GB @ ~£260
RX 6700 XT 12GB @ ~£310
I'm assuming you wouldn't want to spend more than that.
This looks to be a pretty standard PC so plugging in a new graphics card (GPU) should be reasonably simple. We just need to know three things: your budget, the wattage of the power supply (PSU) inside, and the number of 6+2 pin cables which are called PCIE cables (note: not the 4+4 pin, which are called EPS cables). Assuming there's one 6+2 pin cable then a Radeon RX 6600 is your cheapest bet at around £200, with the RX 7600 (a newer model) costing £230 If there are no 6+2 pin cables then you will need to buy a new PSU.
Your grandson's GTX 1650 scores 3592 in 3DMark's Timespy, a popular gaming benchmark, whereas a RX 6600 scores 8144 and the RX 7600 scoring 10897 so both are a substantial boost. I would, however caution that the RX 6600 and RX 7600 may not be decent longer-term choice as they are rather limited cards by modern standards, at the bottom end of the new cards. The RTX 3060 scores 8703, again a big improvement over the GTX 1650 but not as good as the RX 7600 however it has more memory (12 GB vs 8 GB), and some models of the 3060 have 8 GB VRAM so you need to be careful.
Just to explain a little, the amount of memory on a graphics card (called VRAM) affects the quantity of textures (crudely, pictures of things) it can cache and modern games love textures. When a game runs out of VRAM it can stutter while it pages in the correct texture or display a low-resolution texture.
The more power, the more VRAM, the more you will pay.
I suggest you look at YouTube videos by Daniel Owen which I think you will find very informative. In particular he demonstrates the issues with VRAM.
Another channel worth checking because they test massive numbers of games is Hardware Unboxed.
Your grandson's GTX 1650 scores 3592 in 3DMark's Timespy, a popular gaming benchmark, whereas a RX 6600 scores 8144 and the RX 7600 scoring 10897 so both are a substantial boost. I would, however caution that the RX 6600 and RX 7600 may not be decent longer-term choice as they are rather limited cards by modern standards, at the bottom end of the new cards. The RTX 3060 scores 8703, again a big improvement over the GTX 1650 but not as good as the RX 7600 however it has more memory (12 GB vs 8 GB), and some models of the 3060 have 8 GB VRAM so you need to be careful.
Just to explain a little, the amount of memory on a graphics card (called VRAM) affects the quantity of textures (crudely, pictures of things) it can cache and modern games love textures. When a game runs out of VRAM it can stutter while it pages in the correct texture or display a low-resolution texture.
The more power, the more VRAM, the more you will pay.
I suggest you look at YouTube videos by Daniel Owen which I think you will find very informative. In particular he demonstrates the issues with VRAM.
Another channel worth checking because they test massive numbers of games is Hardware Unboxed.
It may help to know the games he plays. If it is Fortnite/Overwatch/Minecraft etc (so esporty titles), a 6600/7600 will be more than adequate and will be unlikely to require a PSU upgrade although it is recommended if it is a cheaply made one. In this case, you can get by very nicely with adequate overhead with this £49 beQuite Power 9 600w
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