Which card to upgrade?

[Dknotty]

Hi all,
I have an older pc with AMD AMD Ryzen 9 3900, 16gb ram and a THERMALTAKE SMART RGB 600W 80+ GAMING PSU.
Now clearly a bit dated. Currently running an old radeon gfx card which can manage doom eternal but not brilliantly.
What sort of graphics card would folks recommend I upgrade to? With the pc age it's probably pointless to get something too beefy but I'd like something that runs quietly and a bit more smoothly. I currently play 1080p.
Thanks

 

[Dknotty]

Which card exactly?


It is a radeon RX580.

 

[Dknotty]

Factor in a possible power supply upgrade too depending on what card you end up buying, those Thermaltake Smarts aren't great quality units and with only 600w available, more power hungry cards will stress it a bit more than I'd be comfortable with.

I'd really rather not, and would prefer a less hungry card to one that's going to require a new PSU. I don't game that much, just occasionally and don't want the faff of replacing a PSU.

 

[Dknotty]

Also thanks for the replies.

 

[Dknotty]

How much money would you like to spend on it?

Probably around £250 or so. I was looking at a used card off CEX - they have several 3060ti options from around £220-£280. I think the minimum PSU is 600w so might be just on the line...

Any thoughts?

 

[Dknotty]

Is that card with only 8gb vram,how long are you planing to keep it?
You are on 1080p?

I have a 1440p monitor but happy to game at 1080p. Yes - that's the 8gb card. Happy to use it for a few years... Hopefully for doom dark ages and Half life 3 (if that ever sees daylight).

 

[Dknotty]

Then the 6750xt should be you first choice and can be had for £280.

12gb of vram

On ebay? I'm a bit reluctant to buy a GPU off ebay lest it doesn't work. Happy to look at CEX or anywhere else that does guarantees. On CEX I can see them for £300 and 6700s for around £250 which is more acceptable price wise.

 

[Dknotty]

Looks like the 6750xt requires a 650w PSU minimum which puts it out of the game. Same for the 6700.

Looks like the 4060 is slightly better so will probably go for that.

 

[Dknotty]

I think 4060 is the only real option here.

Thanks for that and the above. I thought the thermaltake was decent, but seems otherwise. The 4060 will still be a huge upgrade on my current card and hopefully much quieter.

 

[Dknotty]

Not slightly, it is much better (on power). It is slower than the 6750 XT though, so I'd definitely look to pay close to £250 and not near to £300.

I found one at around £250

 

[Dknotty]

I found one at around £250

And ordered one - will report back after I have it installed.

 

[Dknotty]

Houston, we have a problem.

Just inserted my 4060, switched on. All good. Installed NVIDIA drivers and black screen - during the installation. I get no signal detected on screen and the monitor goes into power saving mode.

Have tried 3x with the same results.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dknotty]

Also, did you remove the drivers for the old card first? If not, uninstall those before installing the new ones.

Edit: try this before removing the mobo battery.

Yup, done both of these things and no joy.

 

[Dknotty]

You're aware this is often normal for a limited period, right?

Are you using DP or HDMI? You could try switching to the other.

I wasn't... Not at all. I thought it'd be as simple as swapping cards, removing the old driver, installing the new one and bobs your uncle.

 

[Dknotty]

Just to be totally clear, what I mean is: while the nvidia driver installs you may lose the picture a few times and that's normal.

What is not normal, is if the picture stays blank forever.

Yeah I'm aware it could flicker. But for several minutes? Surely that's not right.

 

[Dknotty]

Yeah, it is normally just a few seconds at most.

Did the power connector go in fine?

Absolutely. I had a picture right up until the driver was installing.

 

[Dknotty]

There are quite a few different ideas here, might want to have a read:

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/xoxfdo/installing_nvidia_drivers_causes_black_screen/

Update: ended up taking the PC to the local PC shop and they are sorting it. Apparently a few driver issues and the bios flash I did, didn't quite work.

I also have a corsair 850W PSU... So... Thinking I might return the 4060 for something a bit beefier. Guess it'd be between 6750xt and 4070?

 

[Dknotty]

There's not that much difference between a 4060 and a 6750 XT. 4070 is a bigger jump, but it is also around £200 more than a 4060 for a non-Super (£450).

Can you not give it a try first? I think you'll find the 4060 is a decent upgrade on a RX 580 (TPU's GPU database has it as 113% faster).


Fingers crossed!

That's definitely the sensible option. My wallet will thank me.

 

[Dknotty]

Good choice, especially if you do get a more powerful card.

Costs a few quid, but massive peace of mind to know that your expensive hardware has good quality powering it. You're set for years with that unit.

There's an absolute whopper on Tom's Hardware who says 850w Corsair units are mediocre but he's talking through his arse. He likes to pimp Seasonic units, but there is NO mediocre quality 850w Corsair power supply these days. He's a total biff, I'll take him on one of these days.

Hopefully the shop get you back up and running soon and you can start to enjoy your upgrades

Cheers. Hopefully there's a bit of life in the PC yet and not a versed to upgrading the mob/ processor / ram and GPU in a few years if I'm still gaming.

Looking forward to slaying demons, hopefully tomorrow.

 

[Dknotty]

I'm planning to get a Meta Quest in a few weeks - any thoughts on how the 4060 will work with it? Pokey enough?