Question now or future proof?

mazinyo

Distinguished
Aug 19, 2009
93
1
18,535
A friend and I were debating on this question.. curious to hear your opinion.. what is better... buy a little overkill card now, so when games get more demanding in a few years you wont have to buy another one, OR buy a card that suits your needs now, but when games get more demanding and FPS starts dropping in a few years you would probably have to upgrade to a new card..

for example... get 2060 now or 2070 (overkill) for future proof, get 1660ti now or 2060 (overkill) for a little future proof
 

Ahmed Kader

Honorable
Oct 7, 2013
90
0
10,660
its usually better to try to get the best card you can get right now, and if you are at the time where new gpus are to get released, wait for them and then buy those. (make sure not to bottleneck your system tho)
 
In my opinion, it depends on how overkill we are talking about. A 2060 typically costs around $70 (25%) more than a 1660 Ti, for up to around 20% more performance in today's games. A 2070 costs around $150 (40%) more than a 2060 for around 20% more performance. And a 2080 costs around $200 (40%) more than a 2070 for 20% more performance. A 2080 Ti can cost upward of $400-$500 (60-70%) more than a 2080, for around 30% more performance. Past a certain point, prices start rising disproportionate to the amount of additional performance gained. By the time you get to the 2080 Ti, you're paying around 4 times as much as a 1660 Ti, for only a little over double the performance today's games.

Paying 25% more for a 20% faster card might be reasonable. Paying 40% more for a 20% faster card less so, unless you feel that you could really benefit from that additional performance right away. If you are only running a 1080p 60Hz screen, a 2070 probably isn't the best use of one's funds. By the time games are really starting to benefit from that faster hardware a few years down the line, there might be even faster, more fully-featured cards available for around a couple hundred dollars or so. On the other hand, with a high refresh rate or higher resolution screen, some might consider that disproportionate increase in cost to still be worthwhile.

It's also worth considering additional capabilities of the card though. A 2060 provides some amount of raytracing acceleration, which could significantly benefit performance with raytraced lighting effects enabled compared to a 1660 Ti. With raytracing enabled, suddenly a 2060 might not be overpowered anymore on that 1080p screen, and a 2070 could even show performance benefits. However, very few games currently support those effects, and they have a large impact on performance even when the card has hardware support for them. It's likely that future graphics cards will handle raytracing better, which again calls into question how "future proof" these cards with first-generation hardware will be. Will a 2060 be able to handle raytraced lighting effects in the games coming out a couple years from now at 1080p? Will a 2070? It's kind of difficult to say at this point.
 

Latest posts