Low Budget gaming

[nft_99]

Would like to get back to some PC gaming as I am a console gamer these days.

Have plenty of games older titles to play and have a 1080p Dell monitor

PC is Ryzen 5600G and 48gb of memory.

Is the RTX3050 to low a card? Would one of the Intel Arc cards be a good fit?

Budget £250

 

[tamzzy]

i would stump up a bit more (or wait for an offer) and get a 9060xt instead

the 3050 is a low-end card, the 9060xt is functionally equivalent to a 3070ti

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-radeon-rx-9060-xt-dual-8gb-gddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gra-asu-05199.html

 

[Quartz]

Would one of the Intel Arc cards be a good fit?

If you can find a B580 for £250 then go for it. Don't get the RTX 3050. (The RTX 3050 might be useful as a second GPU for Nvidia Broadcast and RTX Voice but that's a whole different question.)

 

[Tetras]

Is the RTX3050 to low a card?

Not too low. A 3050 8GB can play pretty much everything, but they've always been weak value for money at new prices. When they were just launched, RX 6600 (similar price back then) smashed it (some ~30% faster in raster).

The much newer 5050 is roughly equivalent to a 4060 in performance. A 5060 is over twice as fast.

Would one of the Intel Arc cards be a good fit?

Arc B580 was a good deal at the old prices, but (minus the VRAM) for 1080p it is beaten by a 5060 or 9060 XT 8GB. The driver overhead on Arc is much improved, but not perfect for weaker CPUs.

Note that rebar is required for Arc to perform well in games, so even though you should have support, I'd check that first.

PC is Ryzen 5600G

You're going to need to watch running out of video memory with PCI-E 3.0. The 9060 XT 8GB has the full 16 lanes, for example, but the Arc (less of an issue because more VRAM), 5050 and 5060 do not.

Arc B570 is not far behind a 5050 in performance, but note that it benches higher at higher resolutions. It beats the 5050 at 4K, even though it loses at 1080p.

 

[nft_99]

Couple of Arc B570s in the clearance section.

 

[Slugy]

For older games you will get similar (very decent) performance from a 2nd hand 1660ti/Super (or 1070 even, which at least has 8GB) which you can easily find for ~£100.

I wouldn't pair an ARC GPU with a lower end CPU, although 12Gb of memory is nice to have it is also irrelevant for all older games at 1080p and at the settings you'd want for the heaviest modern games it's also largely irrelevant.

 

[MissChief]

You'd probably be able to pick up an RTX 3070 for around £250 used. That would be a good card for 1080p still.

 

[tamzzy]

You'd probably be able to pick up an RTX 3070 for around £250 used. That would be a good card for 1080p still.

unless specifically tied to the nvidia ecosystem that's a crazy price to pay though
the 9070xt 8gb is only £25 dearer. in exchange for that £25, it is faster, less power-hungry, cooler and comes with a warranty

 

[Tetras]

Couple of Arc B570s in the clearance section.

If you had a strict budget of under £200 that would be alright. They demolish the 3050 6GB.

9060 XT 8GB and 5060 are around 50% faster, so more or less what you pay. Personally, I'd get the 9060 XT 8GB, since I think that would be best all-round for your system.

 

[Brumboy]

unless specifically tied to the nvidia ecosystem that's a crazy price to pay though
the 9070xt 8gb is only £25 dearer. in exchange for that £25, it is faster, less power-hungry, cooler and comes with a warranty

But you get all the Nvidia tech which lets face it are great and worth £25?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

But you get all the Nvidia tech which lets face it are great and worth £25?

No you don't get all the tech. Frame generation won't work with it and the newer DLSS versions run slower than native rendering.

Plus you are buying an old card with limited warranty and a lot of Ampere cards were mined on during the Pandemic.