Long overdue GPU upgrade - will something like a GTX 1060 perform noticeably better than my R7850?

[peanutismint]

The PC that I built back in 2012 is beginning to show its age, especially for things like VR gaming. The specs are:

CPU: Intel Core I5 3570K
GPU: Radeon R7850 2GB 'Twin Frozr'
RAM: 8GB RAM
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-D3H

As you can see, pretty outdated by today’s standards, but believe it or not it still runs VR content for my HTC Vive pretty well.

I’d love to run more graphics-intensive VR games, though, as well as finally playing modern games like Red Dead Redemption 2 in 4K, so I’m thinking about just upgrading the GPU. I’ve seen Nvidia GTX 1060s (used) for as little as $100, so I’m wondering if buying something like that would give me a noticeable performance boost, or whether I should look to spend double that and get a 1070 or even a 1080?

I don’t really want to run everything totally maxed out, just looking to squeeze a few more years of use out of my current machine before completely rebuilding with a new motherboard/CPU etc...

What do people think?

 

[peanutismint]

Thanks, I can probably afford between $100-200 (I'm in the USA now), so if I could find a 1070 for around $150 I'd consider that but I just didn't know if it was THAT much better than a 1060, especially jumping from a relatively underpowered card like my current R7850.

So are there multiple versions of the 1060s? And you reckon the 6GB is best bang-for-buck?

 

[peanutismint]

You could probably find an RX580 in your budget, they're solid GPU's for a bargain price... The 1060 6gb is ideal as it's more powerful and has more VRAM over its 3gb version

What PSU is in the system?

Thanks, it's got a 650W Antec PSU in it now. I might have to think of Radeon cards instead anyway as I run MacOS and it doesn't like nVidia cards....

You should go Radeon.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/red-dead-redemption-2-benchmark-test-performance-analysis/4.html

Thanks, yeah I may well try a Radeon instead; I run MacOS which I forgot doesn't work well with nVidia cards so I'll look for an AMD equivalent of a 1070....

 

[peanutismint]

Thanks! In doing my research I've found out that playing Red Dead 2 in 4K@60fps (the main thing I'm looking for at the moment) would likely take a dual GPU setup (and a small power station set up outside my house) so I might give up on that dream and just get an RTX 580 for now; there are a few nearby selling for like $100...! Which is a small price to pay for an upgrade that should let me do more VR stuff after struggling with this R7850 since 2012....!!