i dunno how it happened but somehow in between me getting this 1060 6gb in 2016 and now, I’ve lost the ability to numb my brain to the deluge of information like ‘the 6600 is only marginally worse than the 6650 so you should get a 6600 if you can’t budget the extra $100’ that is comparing modern graphics cards.
I’ve had this 1060 6GB for almost 10 years, I love it - it is and was a good card. Still chugs along reliably for most modern games - but unfortunately I’ve started to notice its age in the last few years (most recently with the stupid ass Dragon Ball Sparking Zero game my friend bought for me on Steam this Christmas specifically so he could play with me - imagine my shock and surprise when I’m getting like 10fps on all Low settings…). Almost a decade without upgrading is a long enough run for me though.
Anyways I’m basically clueless on the last decade of graphics cards and have no idea what is the economical & viable (I’d prefer to at least get 5+ years out of whatever I upgrade to - not saying it has to push Ultra High settings on some AAA 2029 release or anything, but I’d love it to at least perform decently with new releases for the next few years like the 1060 has.)
Here’s my current build:
| Current Build: | |
|---|---|
| Processor: | Ryzen 7 3700X |
| Motherboard: | ASUS B550-F |
| RAM: | 32GB DDR4 |
| GPU: | GTX 1060 6GB |
From the research I’ve done, an AMD card is probably my best bet although I am leery of them simply because I’ve only ever used nvidia cards but I’m not too worried about the software/driver/etc differences.
I would prefer not to spend more than like $500 on one but if it’s like 600-700 and you think it is truly the best card on the market, list it and I’ll consider just scrounging up the extra $$ for it - not like I have a girlfriend or boyfriend to spend it on
Anyways here’s the cards I’ve currently been recommended by friends and/or found in my searching. Have listed the price I found on Amazon for each:
| Potential Upgrade: | |
|---|---|
| AMD 7700 XT 12gb | $400 on Amazon |
| 6600 XT 8gb | $260~ |
Eager to hear your thoughts & opinions & suggestions nerds. Thanks.
If you do upgrade, I would recommend an AMD card just because AMD GPUs are known to work flawlessly on Linux and Wayland especially. NVIDIA works ok on X11, but has a lot of issues on Wayland. If you don’t know what those are, those are essentially your two options for getting graphics on Linux; Wayland is the more modern one which most people, and most Linux distros, are moving towards.
Even if you are a Windows user, I imagine a lot of people will realise they want to switch to Linux in the coming years as Windows continues to enshittify, and you don’t want to end up reinstalling Windows purely because of poor hardware support.
If you’re wondering, gaming on Linux is nearly on par with Windows at this point thanks to Valve’s Proton, allowing Windows games to be run on Linux. I get great performance on popular Windows games by running them through Proton on Linux.
You could probably get a used 3070 or something for a good deal when new stuff drops.
Echoing others just to say that if you plan on switching to Linux (and you should, gaming on Linux is a breeze and better than ever) you should definitely lean towards an AMD GPU for ease and convenience. It just works™
I’d also love to know. Nvidia is so expensive these days I can’t imagine buying one of their cards. Best value seems to be Intel but there is a lot of potential pitfalls there. It’s tough right now
I got lucky and snagged a prebuilt on sale, the Nvidia card in it is half the value that I got the whole computer for. It does have one of the fucked up Intel CPUs though. To the OP though I do recommend your next card get at least 8GB, or more, games seem to be chewing for more RAM as they get less and less optimized.
Nvidia is so expensive these days I can’t imagine buying one of their cards.
I feel like most modern cards are insanely expensive these days. I need to know who is spending $1500 on a 4080 because if I’m gonna spend more than $1000 on a single piece of hardware for a PC it better be able to do something like find me a boyfriend.
I’ve been enjoying my 6600 non-XT on my rig. I also have AMD (a Ryzen 5600G) and it’s been able to play basically any game on medium to high settings. I play Cyberpunk on medium settings with a couple of the less intensive raytracing options and it runs at about 40-60 fps. With raytracing off its able to run at a consistent 60. It also runs Mirrors Edge Catalyst on ultra settings quite handily, about 50-60 FPS I also use this rig for VR, and I have to use medium to low settings, but it runs those games smoothly too! Hope this helps!
