Need a GFX Card

[-Hotplate-]

Hello to you all.
Like so many people I find myself stuck at home. Though I am supposed to be working still, there isn't exactly a lot to do most of the day. I am also tied to my desk as my employers have installed apps on my Laptop to show how long I am inactive for.
I haven't played any PC games for a long time. No Xbox or Playstation either. I just have this PC.
I am 54 years old too. So whilst I used to love my shooters I was never any good at them as my reactions are way too slow and ended up not enjoying playing anymore. So I also have to find a game I can play happily too. Not going to be a shooter though. But open to any other type to be honest.
This rig I built myself a while ago. It has i7-4770K with 8GB Ram and 1TB SSD.
I have done a bit of reading and ended up with these two. I like MSI GFX, had a few Twin Frozr's and prefer them tbh. Since switching to NVidia years ago I am pretty much firmly in the NVidia camp too.
https://uk.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1660-Ti-GAMING-6G
https://uk.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-RTX-2060-SUPER-GAMING-X

As I've been out of online gaming for a few years now my knowledge is out of date. But comparing the 1660 to the 2060 the main difference appears to be Ray Tracing? Is that pretty much it?

Any help would be gratefully received.

Also any game suggestions too.

Thanks

 

[Bacon?]

I own a 1660 Super, its basically the same as the Ti but cheaper (making the Ti irrelevant), the 2060 is faster than the 1660 Super as well as having RTX, and obviously the 2060 Super is faster again. I would otherwise say take a look at the 5600XT & 5700 if you weren't stuck on Nividia, being stuck to both Nvidia and MSI I think is a little silly, theres plenty of better manufacturers out there (I've found MSI's thermal application is typically atrocious for example). Depending on the games you play, you may be bottle necked by the CPU & RAM however, as the 4770K is pretty old now (again entirely dependant on the games), and 8GB is again pretty low, 16GB is much more common and some people are moving up to 32GB.

 

[-Hotplate-]

I own a 1660 Super, its basically the same as the Ti but cheaper (making the Ti irrelevant), the 2060 is faster than the 1660 Super as well as having RTX, and obviously the 2060 Super is faster again. I would otherwise say take a look at the 5600XT & 5700 if you weren't stuck on Nividia, being stuck to both Nvidia and MSI I think is a little silly, theres plenty of better manufacturers out there (I've found MSI's thermal application is typically atrocious for example). Depending on the games you play, you may be bottle necked by the CPU & RAM however, as the 4770K is pretty old now (again entirely dependant on the games), and 8GB is again pretty low, 16GB is much more common and some people are moving up to 32GB.

Thank you for your reply. Out of curiosity which GFX brand do you prefer then?

 

[Bacon?]

EVGA, Palit & Gigabyte are my go to for anything Nvidia wise. Every AMD card I've owned has been MSI however, and I always replace the thermal paste and in some case the coolers (theyre often the cheapest). My current 1660 Super is a Gigabyte card

 

[Darujhistan]

Defintely go AMD Ryzen for your CPU. Agree with the above that if your stuck on NV then MSI isn't the way to go. the 5700XT is better than 2060 super, find Hardware Unboxed's review on YT for conformation of that. 16BG VRAM is the minimum now, if you can afford it the sweetspot for gaming now is 1440p 144hz, 4K is very expensive to power, everything on SSD/NVME storage, uinless you have for example a need for mass storage that makes these solution to expensive, I use old HDD's for this purpose. Nice to have a smaller SSD for a boot drive and programs and then have a dedicated drive for STEAM etc.

If your're more restricted budget wise then 1080p gaming can be done very well very cheaply. Oh for AMD's cards the top 3 brands are Sapphire, Powercolor and Gigabyte.

 

[Guest2]

I would always go EVGA from now on. This is based on support over the years for 780ti, 980ti & 1080ti cards. No issues with the cards but they even replaced them when i couldnt hit certain overclocks!
Now i dont bother with overclocking

The support EVGA provide is excellent. You pay a bit more but worth it. I’ve ended up buying other EVGA products - e.g. PSU

 

[-Hotplate-]

I remembered why I ended up with MSI GFX cards in the past and its because I liked the Twin Frozr cards so much. This rig is a home server first and foremost and games came second. But when i gamed the fans had to be quiet. Also I worked from home for 20 years so this rig was used for many other things as well, gaming was last tbh.
My monitor is old Samsung 24" but simply won't die. So I'm not going to change everything because I don't have the money, the need or real reason too yet. Yesterday I got furloughed, so I will be buying a GFX but i think with a 1080P monitor i'm going to go with a 1660 Super for now or maybe a 5600XT (but I changed from AMD because their drivers where always pants, and once I used NVidia I have been very happy).
I also do not have a clue what games I will end up playing. I have bought Elite Dangerous as it was only £9.99 for the three games. I was at school when the original Elite was launched and I was blown away with it. Would be good to see the current version. Apart from that I don;t have a clue. I watch StoneMountain stream and find him impressive, but the fella is hitting tiny dots on the screen I can't even see!

 

[schumi84]

I've just recently picked up a 5600 XT Red Dragon from elsewhere as they had it for a slightly more reasonable price than other 5600 XTs (the price is still too high in my opinion but I had to upgrade from my ATi 5870).

So far on my 144Hz 1080p monitor the card performs exceptionally in the games I have played, though to get the most out of it there is a new BIOS that it needs flashing to that unlocks its full potentially and allows it to clock really well. The Adrenaline software has a pretty good interface and it's quite nice to see all of the game performance stats and allow you to tweak the configuration as you see fit.

 

[ezekial]

I've just recently picked up a 5600 XT Red Dragon from elsewhere as they had it for a slightly more reasonable price than other 5600 XTs (the price is still too high in my opinion but I had to upgrade from my ATi 5870).

So far on my 144Hz 1080p monitor the card performs exceptionally in the games I have played, though to get the most out of it there is a new BIOS that it needs flashing to that unlocks its full potentially and allows it to clock really well. The Adrenaline software has a pretty good interface and it's quite nice to see all of the game performance stats and allow you to tweak the configuration as you see fit.

Must have been a good upgrade from that 5870!

 

[schumi84]

It has certainly been very noticeable, yes. Games like Dying Light and Rocket League played pretty well on the old 5870 at modest settings and didn't look too bad but now I can play those at max resolution and hit well over 100FPS. Playing the Doom remake is now possible and I've just been gifted Green Hell which looks and plays fantastically.

The added bonus of RE3 Remake and Monster Hunter + DLC which I didn't realise was still happening was very welcome indeed.