Discussion I bought an RTX 4070 over a 7800 XT. Was it wrong decision ?

[Yankee_4tm]

I am building new PC.
Asus A620M-AYW
7500f
Adata 2x16gb 6000 CL36
Asus Dual RTX 4070 OC 12gb
1440p 144hz monitor.

I have ordered and waiting for parts. I was rushing when bought them. And from that moment till now the question “did i do right choice in buying GPU” follows my mind.
I am doing only gaming at 1440p, mostly playing dota2, when finish story games. No editing or other tasks, no streaming. And the funny thing i don’t even use RT in gaming. Because except cyberpunk RT seems still raw. For me it only ruins the game picture quality.

On one side there is 7800XT which is 80$ cheaper where i bought, and gives +- 10% more fps, and 4gb more Vram.
On the other side stability and dlss which is almost in all games.

My choice was on 4070 because i have used Radeon 7900XTX before and i felt some discomforts with AMD GPU:

1. Some errors make Adrenalin driver crash, then i need to DDU gpu driver and instal adrenalin again.

2. There are a little freezes when you fastly start game like for 5 seconds, maybe it processes the picture. Mostly this causes when i enter dota2, when game starts it lags for some seconds, then it goes perfect, but on nvidia cards never do any lags or freezes even for 1 second. I understand that this is minor nitpicking on my part. But when u pay 500+ bucks you would like to have comfort.

3. I dont know if only 7900xtx because of 3x8 pins causes this or all of other radeon cards, but i couldn’t use cablemod extensions. I have tested an extensions with tester, worked perfect. But when i use on gpu, then after 20minutes of playing black screen and gpu driver crash. I was playing RDR2 and every time i was ddu driver and install back and retry mission. On dota2 you have 5 minute to do this all and get back in game, otherwise you abandon game and go to the low priority with some hours of ban. Finally i have removed extensions to solve an issue.

4. One of the biggest reason why did avoid radeon is Alttabing. I don’t know why but when i run dota2 it alt+tabs once automatically, then goes normal. And several games alttab once, some games not. Crash bandicoot insane trilogy infinitively alttabing, you cannot even enter to settings and change resolution. I found the way to stop it. Needed to exit from NZXT and MSI softwares which control fans and rgb. After exiting active softwares crash bandicoot alttabing stops. On nvidia non of these softwares causes alttabing. They are working in the background without any problems.

Maybe AMD fixed all of these issues.
Due to these reasons i overpayed 80$ for my comfort and closed my eyes to 7800xt 10% advantage over 4070. And honestly i don’t care about dlss and fsr3, i do play only native resolution even 50fps. I am caring more about stability and comfort.
But only the reason why am i explaining these all and worrying about right decision is +4gb of vram on amd side. If games will use more than 12gb in the future 2years (i change gpu every two years, because anyway every new generation of games requires more powerful GPU, not only vram). Will 4070 be enough for 2 years? I heard Star wars jedi survivor already using 16gb at 1440p (((. Worrying about further games.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Another question is what power supply are you running as amd is likely going to draw a bit more juice under load. That could also contribute to stability since nvidia typically is more efficient.

Nvidia traditionally is better in relation to software like dlss frame generation and stuff like that but with fsr 3 amd is starting to catch up.

This is my personal opinion, I’ve owned a few nvidia cards as all. But from amd, I owned an old ati Radeon 9000 pro, Radeon 7850 2gb, Radeon hd 7950 3gb, rx 480 briefly, 570 and a 580 that I sold. Same for an old Vega 56, then I’ve also owned a 5600xt, 5700xt, 6600xt, 6700xt, I’ve done a lot of selling on eBay over the years if you can’t tell and even made a little during the mining boom by selling some of the cards like the 480, 6600xt etc.

My current card is a 6800xt. I plan on this being at least a 2-3 year card perhaps longer depending how it ages.

I just got the 6800xt about 2 weeks ago so why did I pick it? I looked at the 4070. But the price and vram was a big thing for me. Plus I caught the 6800xt on a sale at the time for $439 whereas the 7800xt was 500 and the 4070 was more. Plus when you look at the specs, the 6800xt has more processing units than the 7800xt and performance in many things was pretty close and sometimes better.

Those things said, I haven’t had driver issues with amd cards really.HOWEVER, the 7800xt is nearly a brand new card so there may be more driver issues with it than my 6800xt for example which they’ve had 2-3 years to iron out.

There was a brief stint where I owned an rtx 380 which I sold at the time because I was sort of cash at the time. But I remember having the thought about how expensive the card was and it having only 10gb vram being a limiting factor later on.

People have said nvidia has better drivers. I suppose you could argue that. Personally I’ve had good luck with amd drivers though and I think others have as well.

For raw power the nvidia card is fine at lead for a while but 80 bucks is 80 bucks. I suppose the question is can you live with that? If you think you are going to be asking yourself these things in 2 years you may get the amd card and return the 4070. Either card will be fine probably the next couple of years, probably but if you think you’ll keep asking about the cost of the amd card then it’s your call really. But by now you can guess why I picked up 6800xt that gives an idea where I’m at.

What power supply are you using btw as that could play into the stability of your pc. I’ve got a Corsair rmx 850 watt and I’m pleased with it.

 

[Yankee_4tm]

When i used 7900xtx it was NZXT C1000G. PSU was enough. But maybe they need some time to fix those issues, coz product(7900xtx) is still new.
In my new build i was thinking about MSI A750GL with 7800XT. But then remembering all of those 4 issues i have changed my mind to 4070 and due to lower tdp i have switched to cheaper MSI A650BN which is more than enough for 4070 with 7500f.
I don’t regret for 80bucks. After using 7900xtx and those trouble days, i decided that 80bucks costs my comfort.
And i’m really not be influenced by media about how nvidia is better or about their dlss and RT. Trust me, i am the man who don’t even use DLSS and RT both as i said before. I play only native.
My only question that i keep in my mind is will 12gb be enough for future 2 years at 1440p?

 

[ohio_buckeye]

To me 12gb should be fine. I’d personally feel better with 16gb but that’s my opinion.

Maybe on some games you have to bump down to high which if you check out videos there’s not a lot of difference typically between high and ultra. Worst case maybe you do try dlss? For 1440 I prefer 16gb personally, but if you turn details/textures down a hair that will probably resolve it if you do experience issues.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

If you didn't mention that you upgrade every two years it would have been a tough call.

However with that said, you won't miss the extra VRAM and the benefits of DLSS3 and FSR3 FG working on the 4070, it was the right movie IMO as of today.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Yeah if you are upgrading in 2 years you are fine. If this were say a 4-5 year card then yes you can worry more about the 16gb vram. Personally I like the amd cards but you seem to feel better with nvidia which is cool. That card should be good for 2 years. Who knows what cards look like after that time? Probably more expensive I suppose.

 

[Yankee_4tm]

To me 12gb should be fine. I’d personally feel better with 16gb but that’s my opinion.

Maybe on some games you have to bump down to high which if you check out videos there’s not a lot of difference typically between high and ultra. Worst case maybe you do try dlss? For 1440 I prefer 16gb personally, but if you turn details/textures down a hair that will probably resolve it if you do experience issues.

Thanks a lot man, this is what i really wanted to hear from real honest user. I am really tired from paid media, even in reddit there are some comments from nvidia and amd agents (you know what i mean) who push you to one or another with fake arguments.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Not me. I’m in my 40s, been playing computer games since I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. My first computer was a Commodore 64 way back when I was 5.

I’ve owned cards from both companies. But these days I tend to like the price/performance of amds cards. Nvidia as a company just don’t give me a happy vibe with their pricing and how they seem to pull away features, example would be that the 3000 series cards didn’t get dlss 3. AMD seems like they are a bit more for open standards like with fsr 3 for example. But there again on some things where nvidia pioneered some tech amd is playing catch up though they seem to be doing ok with that. And if amd were in nvidias place they’d likely charge more also. Just my 2 cents though. I’ve owned both kinds of cards over the years and find myself purchasing the amd cards typically. But the 4070 should be fine. Although there are rumors of a 4070 super and 4070ti super in the next month or two so who knows what those look like.

 

[Yankee_4tm]

If you didn't mention that you upgrade every two years it would have been a tough call.

However with that said, you won't miss the extra VRAM and the benefits of DLSS3 and FSR3 FG working on the 4070, it was the right movie IMO as of today.

I was also in this opinion when bought 4070. Because after 2 years i guess even 7800xt will be useless even with 16gb vram, no point from vram if new games on unreal engine demanding more and more power from cards. Even 4090 with 24gb is weak for some nowaday games. So logically it pushes you to buy a new card every 2-3 years if you wanna play minimum 60fps.
But this star wars Jedi survivor which uses 16gb at 1440p this day already makes me strange and fill me with scary thoughts.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

I was also in this opinion when bought 4070. Because after 2 years i guess even 7800xt will be useless even with 16gb vram, no point from vram if new games on unreal engine demanding more and more power from cards. Even 4090 with 24gb is weak for some nowaday games. So logically it pushes you to buy a new card every 2-3 years if you wanna play minimum 60fps.
But this star wars Jedi survivor which uses 16gb at 1440p this day already makes me strange and fill me with scary thoughts.

Jedi Survivor is fun but poorly optimized crap. It runs bad on my 4090 too.
VRAM will probably not become that much more important next gen or two since it doesn't even get used up at 24GB, not even close. It might become the new norm but I don't think out of necessity, only for sales.

It's all about DLSS and FSR. And once devs realize they need to start optimizing their games existing and newer cards will perform fine.

UE5 looks decent but it also makes all games have a similar look which will probably lead to inhouse competitors that are more efficient.

So in short, who knows. Buy what suits you today and as long as you think you'll keep it. For you you only plan to keep it 2-3 years so top of the line makes no sense. I don't plan on buying another for a few years so the 4090 made sense for me.

 

[Yankee_4tm]

Not me. I’m in my 40s, been playing computer games since I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. My first computer was a Commodore 64 way back when I was 5.

I’ve owned cards from both companies. But these days I tend to like the price/performance of amds cards. Nvidia as a company just don’t give me a happy vibe with their pricing and how they seem to pull away features, example would be that the 3000 series cards didn’t get dlss 3. AMD seems like they are a bit more for open standards like with fsr 3 for example. But there again on some things where nvidia pioneered some tech amd is playing catch up though they seem to be doing ok with that. And if amd were in nvidias place they’d likely charge more also. Just my 2 cents though. I’ve owned both kinds of cards over the years and find myself purchasing the amd cards typically. But the 4070 should be fine. Although there are rumors of a 4070 super and 4070ti super in the next month or two so who knows what those look like.

I was thinking about them. I could wait for a month without a problem. But i saw specs. 4070 will be the same vram, but faster. I dont need extra fps, i just needed more vram. And 4070 super will be definetely more expensive around 50-100$. I am sure they will not decrease 4070 price, because that way then they need to decrease 4060 ti and 4060 both. 4070ti super will be 16gb vram, but i don’t want overspent on gpu now. Because i bought 7900xtx it was a monster for those day games, then in new games it could reach only 55-60fps. My experience says not to spend a lot on gpus, because they become mid tier in 1 year. Better to buy middle gpu every 2 years. And enjoy new games without losing too much money. Also middle gpus easy to sell. It was really hard for me to sell 7900xtx.

 

[Yankee_4tm]

Jedi Survivor is fun but poorly optimized crap. It runs bad on my 4090 too.
VRAM will probably not become that much more important next gen or two since it doesn't even get used up at 24GB, not even close. It might become the new norm but I don't think out of necessity, only for sales.

It's all about DLSS and FSR. And once devs realize they need to start optimizing their games existing and newer cards will perform fine.

UE5 looks decent but it also makes all games have a similar look which will probably lead to inhouse competitors that are more efficient.

So in short, who knows. Buy what suits you today and as long as you think you'll keep it. For you you only plan to keep it 2-3 years so top of the line makes no sense. I don't plan on buying another for a few years so the 4090 made sense for me.

Thanks a lot. Really helpful👍

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I do think in the past amd also has had a history of maybe making gpus more powerful in the past since maybe they didn't always have things fully optimized at first like nvidia seemed better at sometimes. In the past that seemed to serve them well over time.

 

[InverTaim]

Well, I did the same thing as you, and overall my experience with 4070 is quite good, especially when it comes to DLSS and RT performance. Cuz DLSS is no brainer decision, as it looks way better than FSR (even FSR 3) cuz no matter what, FSR since 2.2 version, has this shimmering/pixelating effect on trees and foliage overall. Some games less, some games more. But DLSS has really good image quality, even if you set Performance mode in 1440p (no one doing that, but that's fact).

Cyberpunk at Ultra RT, DLSS Quality, Ray Reconstruction (another great feature), 1440p looks fenomenal, in my opinion.

Although I struggling with bad stuttering in games, even tho I did DDU before changing GPU, but I will do Format later, and will see. But if I get rid of those stutter, it will be great choice, especially that Upscaling is inevitable, so DLSS is best option.

I wouldn't worried about Vram itself, cuz 12 is plenty if you using DLSS. Even without if the game has good vram management, it's enough for 1440p High settings.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Although I prefer extra vram myself it’s like one youtube guy said, between the 4070 and 7800xt he’d want the 4070 and that vram didn’t really bother him because he’d just turn down the textures to get under the vram buffer.

If you ever look on YouTube, look up videos on some of the popular games about high vs ultra. In many cases you might struggle to see a difference honestly.

 

[InverTaim]

Although I prefer extra vram myself it’s like one youtube guy said, between the 4070 and 7800xt he’d want the 4070 and that vram didn’t really bother him because he’d just turn down the textures to get under the vram buffer.

If you ever look on YouTube, look up videos on some of the popular games about high vs ultra. In many cases you might struggle to see a difference honestly.

I never played at Ultra Settings, Always High only, but only RT I set to Ultra. So I saving lots of performance, giving a headroom for RT.

In cyberpunk you can enable 3 RT settings + Medium/Ultra/Psycho for ambient occlusion. Which even got stutters when I turned down to medium.

And while all those settings being at High/Ultra RT, Vram is max 9000-ish mb used. Allocated is 11.500 but used is less.