Please recommend graphics card

[Lawford]

Hello,

I built a PC around 2.5 years ago mainly to use as a Linux desktop. I've occasionally used it for light gaming though via Steam. It doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, only integrated graphics. I'd quite like to play a game I stumbled across (https://store.steampowered.com/app/715560/Eastshade) and I think this is going to need a dedicated graphics card. I don't have much budget at the moment so I was looking for some advice about how much I need to spend to allow me to play this, and similar games. I'm more into indi games rather than AAA.

Spec -

ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS
AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-core
Corsair 178300 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz
LG Electronics UHD 27UL850 27 Inch Monitor 4K (but don't expect to be able to play in 4k)

Alternatively if I would need to spend more than £100 I wonder if I'm better off picking up the cheaper of the new Xbox's as I think a lot of these type of Indi PC games are available there too.

 

[tommybhoy]

Minimum requirement for the game is a 560 or 6950-it is really low.

As your existing PSU may need upgrading for a new gpu, cheapest option you have is running it on your current system to check performance.

Buy the game, try it, see how it runs and refund it within 2 hrs if it's not doable.

 

[AMDPower]

I will be honest you are asking for a LOT with only £100 budget and 4k monitor.

if you run resolution lower than 4k on your monitor its going to look slightly blurry and the image will not be sharp as running it native 4k.

4k gaming required at the very least a 4070-4070ti or 7900xt from this current generation but you could get away with an older 6800xt or 6900xt or in you really wan to go fancy 6950x, if you are willing to compromise on few game settings, its workable even at 4k and many use this to play even most demanding tittles.

your next issue is the processor its a 6 core while not bad for gaming you will get much better performance with something better. I checked and your motherboard can take a Ryzen 7 5800X3D which is good enough for you. Sell your processor and upgrade to this. You could try it and see if you are happy with the performance and then upgrade later. Right now the graphics c card is holding you back much more than your processor.

Unfortunately you might need to spend in total appx £400-£500 which should build you a quite a decent 4k gaming pc.

don't know what power supply you have but make sure its at least a 850w.

I cant make the decision for you but console gaming is another alternative but consoles gaming at 4k and pc gaming at 4k are not in the same ball park. Just to put things into perspective a ps5 graphics capability is roughly a RTX 2080, we are about to move onto rtx 5080 in a few month, i.e. much more powerful. Having said that console gaming was a very good experience and I use my ps5 for over 2 years before going back to pc gaming. The graphics while not as goods as top end pc was surprisingly very good so much so that in many titles you really had to look for a difference you would not be disappointed.

 

[Tetras]

I thought there would be loads of videos on YouTube giving examples of that game, but unfortunately the only one I could find @ 4K was this:

Eastshade - 4K 60FPS Maxed Out Ultra Settings PC GAMEPLAY (No Commentary)

Eastshade (4K 60fps PC) is an atmospheric narrative adventure game.SUBSCRIBE to support my channel, or click here to do so https://bit.ly/SubscribeToScabinus...

www.youtube.com

A 2080 Ti is around the level of a 6700/6750 XT, but you won't get one of those for £100.

If Eastshade supports upscaling then you could drop the requirements down and maybe a used 2060 could do it.

People spend £1K on graphics cards to play at 4K though *, so as said above, you really need to be aware what you're asking here. A £100 card will only play games with pretty low requirements at 4K and not all indie games are easy to run. FSR and DLSS can help you out in some circumstances, so you could play at a lower res, but that does have an impact on the visual quality.

I'd be very reluctant to recommend any new card around £100 because they're really not great and I wouldn't want to try playing at 4K with the VRAM/bus limitations of e.g. a 6500 XT.

* This card is ~£500-£550:

4K Gaming Doesn't Have to be Expensive - AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE PC Build

Building an Affordable Radeon RX 7900 GRE 4K Gaming PC This video is sponsored by GIGABYTE. You can find all the parts I used below *System Specs / Parts...

www.youtube.com

 

[Lawford]

Thanks all. PSU is "Be Quiet BN301 System Power 9 500W" so hopefully would leave a little capacity for a budget GPU. I don't expect to play in 4k and would run in 1080p although do regret getting a 4k monitor - didn't realise at the time how much of a hassle it would be for Linux and for gaming! So really just looking for something around the £100 mark which would be an improvement on integrated graphics. I have this on my wishlist too which again is saying RX460 which looks like it used to go for around the £100 mark. It's interesting to read about the more expensive options too although sadly other life priorities are too demanding of that budget at the moment.

 

[Lawford]

I thought there would be loads of videos on YouTube giving examples of that game, but unfortunately the only one I could find @ 4K was this:

Eastshade - 4K 60FPS Maxed Out Ultra Settings PC GAMEPLAY (No Commentary)

Eastshade (4K 60fps PC) is an atmospheric narrative adventure game.SUBSCRIBE to support my channel, or click here to do so https://bit.ly/SubscribeToScabinus...

www.youtube.com

Currently working my way through this playthrough - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyv_A7cgpMu3imlbJ7V5R6ex3_LArx-hX. These videos show the graphics to be very pretty which is why I haven't bothered trying to play it on my current setup tbh.

 

[Tetras]

I have this on my wishlist too

It could be worth having a scoot around on reddit and if the game(s) has forums, then have a look at those (even Steam reviews can be helpful, though I wouldn't want to wade through 100s of those to find a holy grail "I can run this at 4K with my PC" comment).

Many of those type of games do you have gentle requirements, but without lots of YouTube videos (with their specs included) we're really flying blind.

which again is saying RX460 which looks like it used to go for around the £100 mark

They're alright, but they're incredibly slow by modern standards and they can't even play modern games at 1080p, let alone 4K.

You can get a used RX 6300 for £60 and you can see how that does here, though again I wouldn't want to recommend buying one:

My potato gaming PC for 2024 and beyond…

I recently built a "gaming" PC with two of the weakest modern components. Today I'll be explaining why, and detailing my future plans for this low-end build....

www.youtube.com

This card (RX 480) is from the same era, but twice as fast, so it might give you an idea:

How's The 4GB RX 580 Holding Up in 2024?

The AMD Radeon RX 580 was released in 2017 and available in both 4GB or 8GB versions. These days the 8GB model is definitely the one to buy, especially if it...

www.youtube.com

Many, many cards of that generation/type are going to be ex-mining cards that were hammered for months on end though, so if I did buy one it would need to be very cheap.

1650 Super has less limitations than a 6500 XT and does better in older boards, but again, I don't know how it would play any of those games.

 

[Lawford]

Ok thanks everyone. I've just installed the prelude to the first game I mentioned and it does indeed run quite choppy in 1920x1080 and has to be run at ultra low quality. Perhaps I'll hold off for a bigger budget and look again then at some of the slightly better cards you've all mentioned.

 

[Tetras]

Perhaps I'll hold off for a bigger budget and look again then at some of the slightly better cards you've all mentioned.

If it helps give you some context, the minimum widely recommended card for a gamer is a RX 6600 (~£200) and that can do native 4K in older (or lower requirement) games like Skyrim no problem at all (or upscaled using FSR), though they're really intended for 1080p in the latest AAA games.

It also has 8GB of VRAM, which is really the minimum you want for higher resolution gaming.

The entry-level cards like the 3050 6GB or 6500 XT are meant for esports and casual gaming, since they're not even decently 1080p capable in many AAA games. Unfortunately the lower-end has stagnated for years since the Crypto boom, so you don't get much for £100-£150 anymore.

Buying something like a RX 480/580 or 1060 to play through a load of old steam games is fine, honestly, but if you come across something that is based on a newer engine then they'll start to choke really fast.

Indie games are unpredictable, in that sometimes they run fine and look great on really old hardware, but other times...

 

[Lawford]

If it helps give you some context, the minimum widely recommended card for a gamer is a RX 6600 (~£200) and that can do native 4K in older (or lower requirement) games like Skyrim no problem at all (or upscaled using FSR), though they're really intended for 1080p in the latest AAA games.

It also has 8GB of VRAM, which is really the minimum you want for higher resolution gaming.

The entry-level cards like the 3050 6GB or 6500 XT are meant for esports and casual gaming, since they're not even decently 1080p capable in many AAA games. Unfortunately the lower-end has stagnated for years since the Crypto boom, so you don't get much for £100-£150 anymore.

Buying something like a RX 480/580 or 1060 to play through a load of old steam games is fine, honestly, but if you come across something that is based on a newer engine then they'll start to choke really fast.

Indie games are unpredictable, in that sometimes they run fine and look great on really old hardware, but other times...

Yep that's very helpful thanks, gives me an idea of minimum budget before I start looking again. Regret selling the Steam Deck now!

Cheers, appreciated.