Upgrade advice?

[Sanzo]

Hello smart peeps. Maybe someone can help me decide on one/some upgrades.

Current set up is a pc i put together back in 2016 i think, it was when the Radeon gpu i have was released and was on a waiting list here on OCUK to get it. Well tbh it was a 480 which then died within warranty and was replaced with the 580.
It's starting to show it's age bit by bit now. Not too long ago i swapped an ssd into the m.2 for snappier basic performance which helps with general load/startup times but i think mainly i'm overdue a GPU upgrade.
Been completely out of the loop of the pc parts world for a few years so have no clue if just the gpu is enough. When i put some of the new GPU's with my set up in PCpartchecker i get indications that my CPU becomes a bottleneck limiting GPU performance by as much as 20%. I used to do animation/video editing when i got the pc but not doing that currently so not really running any "heavy" software only gaming. Can I get by without a ram upgrade? No idea if that's valid from a perspective of upgrading another part and then ram becoming the limiting factor too. That GPU really was a poor man's workhorse hero and did me really well so far but i'm starting to get Graphics Engine failure errors quite reliably now for about a year so i think it's starting to fall behind enough where just driver updates can not keep it up for much longer. What do?

CPU: i5-6600K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core
Motherboard: Asus Z170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL16
Storage: WD Blue SN570 1 TB M.2
Video Card: Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 8 GB
Power Supply: Corsair VS650 650 W ATX

 

[Haz123]

You can upgrade just the gpu and see if you are happy with the performance it gives you. If it is not meeting the standards you want then you can upgrade the base system afterwards and just keep whatever gpu you purchased.

You do not mention a budget but with your psu in mind the gpus that offer decent value are.

RX 6600 - Currently £260 on OCUK but this card was £220 a couple of months ago so shop around. This is the only problematic card I will recommend, it has PCIE 4.0 x8 bus so in your current mobo the x8 connection will limit it in a few titles, is a significant drop of 30% at times. In a newer pcie4 slot it works perfectly well .

RX 6600xt/6650xt/6700/6700xt/6750xt - These all offer decent value but it is all about the price and this has risen recently. Couple of months ago the 6700 was £300 and 6700xt was £400 but they are becoming rarer and the prices of these cards are rising.

Nv cards - 3060 6/12bg , 3060ti, 3070. All about price and in general thry offer slightly worse fps/£ than the AMD offerings.

Cards to avoid - 3060 8gb, please do not buy this card , it is a scam from Nvidia. RX 6500/6400 , these are awful and will be terrible in your PCIe 3.0 mobo. 3050 , it offeres terrible value avoid.

Second hand cards will offer good value. 5700xt looks to be around £200 on a certain auction site but obviously no warranty and these cards were great for mining so could have been in heavy use 24/7. 2060/2060 super/2070/2070 super, these cards are all about price and with the RX 6600 available new at £260 they have to be judged against that option. Also Ampere cards available now so the 3060/3060ti/3070 but they seem to be selling for close to the new price and that seems crazy to me.
If you spam 999 more posts and wait 6 months you will have access to the members market and better deals.


I am really sorry for the essay but the gpu market is in a really sorry state of affairs and Nv and AMD have priced the new high end cards really and this is dragging up the lower end. The optimum time to buy was a month or 2 ago where there were outstanding prices on AMD cards but they have all dried up and prices have risen.
With the global economic downturn and the crash in new gpu purchases I am expecting large reductions in prices in 6-12 months but we cannot be sure. Nv and AMD obviously have a plan for their releases and I do not see the top end cards coming down until they have released the mid and lower end cards, it is price fixing and trying to trick the market into thinking the new 4060 is good value when in reality it is going to suck.


The good news is that the cpu/mobo/ram market does seem connected to reality and market forces are keeping prices in check so when you do want to upgrade the core system it will not be an issue. Many good value options that will offer massive upgrades over your current system.

 

[Sanzo]

Essays are always welcome on the topic of parts ^_^ saves me spending a month or so doing research.
When i built the pc the rx480 was £399 or something like that on release so budget wise everything already seems cheaper and within the limit i imagined if only upgrading gpu.
I was vaguely aware of the big mining fall off reducing prices a while back but was not yet looking to upgrade at the time...or rather didn't have the spare money anyway.

"What to avoid" is very important insight so thanks for that!
I'm most likely looking to buy new seeing how i had the experience of the gpu imploding on itself once and having to use warranty (OCUK was very easy to deal with in that regard).
Biggest worry was compatibility tbh as had no clue if that's changed much in gpus recently. Afaik ram is slightly more specific now so was not sure if the current gpus would even work.

Thanks for your input o7