Question Upgrade from a RTX 2060

[Dadrian Daedalus]

With the advent of newer games that require huge amounts of vram,will it be worthwhile to upgrade a RTX 2060 6gb that i have to a RTX 3060 12GB?

Case in point: I want to play newer AAA titles at high settings at 1080p such as TLOU pc,Star wars fallen order 2 etc that require at the minimum a gpu with 8 gb vram.

The specs of the pc in question are as follows:
CPU: 10400F
RAM:2*8gb DDR4
PSU: Corsair TXM 550

I am aware of better alternatives in the same price range(such as rx 6700XT etc) but they draw more power and i dont think my 550W psu can handle them.

Or should i just stick to my 2060 6gb for now?

 

[volkgren]

Good question.

It's not exactly the best time to upgrade to a previous-gen GPU. However, the current-gen (yet to be released mid-range) cards rumor to have lower vram. If the rumors are true and the RTX 4060 (Ti) have 8GB vram, and aren't any faster than the RTX 3070, then I'd go for the RTX 3060 12GB myself. It should be a nice pairing with your 10th-gen i3. I would have bought one myself, but I just haven't liked the price of them so far. They are lower now than they ever have been.

Overall, the extra vram will be nice to have. 8GB on the 4000 series cards just isn't cutting it for me either. If you like the price, I'd go for it.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

Yes, i initially wanted to wait for the 4060 but both 4060 and its ti variant are rumoured to have only 8gb vram which is a major let down.

That's all the more reason i am considering moving to a 3060 12gb. I hope it will be able to run most games at med /high settings @1080p for the next 2/3 years.

 

[CelicaGT]

The 3060 isn't a huge leap up performance wise over your 2060 unfortunately. Although it has double the vram it's only about 20% or so faster in rasterizer performance. I'd sit on it for now and wait for current gen cards to be released and benchmarked. Not the best time to buy a midrange card imo.

 

[volkgren]

There's nothing about RTX 4000 that makes me want to wait for or but it. The price is disgusting. The vram on anything but the **90 series is disgusting especially given the price. Imagine paying $800 for an RTX 4070 Ti and a couple months after you buy it a new game releases that becomes vram limited because your $800-900 GPU only has 12GB vram. Might as well buy a 12GB GPU for half the price if it's already become obsolete. I simply cannot encourage the purchase of anything RTX 4000 except the 4090, and even then that price is just too un-economical to be recommended. GTX 1080 Ti was released in 2017 with 11GB vram for $699, 7 years later and a 12GB Nvidia GPU still costs $800+. Imagine being one of the most profitable tech companies in the world and not being innovative enough to bring your customers what they want or need. Nvidia is no longer primarily a consumer GPU company. They are now primarily an AI company. We see where the money is going, and it's not bringing gamers what they want or need.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

While the RTX 4060 will be noticeably faster than a 3060,it will still be constrained i believe by its mere 8gb vram and necessitate running future AAA games with reduced graphical settings to prevent exceeding the vram capacity (as demonstrated with some new titles like hogwarts etc on mainstream 8gb gpus like 3070 and 3060ti).

If i had a 12gb variant of 2060 i wouldn't have considered upgrading it right now,as i think 2060 is still powerful enough to handle most games at med-high settings.However the 6gb model that i have is just not holding up any more due to its limited vram capacity and this has forced me to consider upgrading it before 3060 12gb cards are eventually phased out of the market.

Thus i am in a real conundrum right now,this is the first time that i am considering upgrading a gpu due to its vram limitations (whereas on earlier occasions i never had to worry about vram and only had to upgrade when the gpu i was using was no longer capable of running new titles as it simply wasn't powerful enough)

 

[railtrace]

According to leaks, the 4060 series have stupidly trash specs and a stupidly low amount of VRAM (8GB), and due to inflation and a lack of brains it will likely be priced very high, probably somewhere near 3070 Ti MSRP, or even higher. That being said, it's not worthwhile to wait for the 4060s, so get a 3060. If your budget allows get a 3060 Ti, don't try 3050 or the 3070s, they have better specs but still only have 8GB (dumb choice personally). The choice between 3060 and 3060 Ti really depends on what you play. If you play VRAM heavy games, then choose 3060, though it is slightly weaker in terms of GPU config (specs).

 

[CelicaGT]

There's nothing about RTX 4000 that makes me want to wait for or but it. The price is disgusting. The vram on anything but the **90 series is disgusting especially given the price. Imagine paying $800 for an RTX 4070 Ti and a couple months after you buy it a new game releases that becomes vram limited because your $800-900 GPU only has 12GB vram. Might as well buy a 12GB GPU for half the price if it's already become obsolete. I simply cannot encourage the purchase of anything RTX 4000 except the 4090, and even then that price is just too un-economical to be recommended.

Generally I agree, it's a tough spot. Thing is, OP will spend half of that on a 3060 and probably won't even notice much of a difference, at least for now. The 3060 could have a longer lifespan due to its larger memory pool but only time will tell whether its rasterizer performance in new games will let it down before the memory capacity does (Probably the former at 1080p). Currently I have a hard time recommending ANY Nvidia product, though some current leaks indicate they are aware of the VRAM issue and may be adjusting their product stack to compensate. When that happens is anyone's guess.

 

[volkgren]

I personally like the lower pricing of the previous-gen RX 6000 series cards. However, the power consumption is one downfall. While we're on the topic, Nvidia is also not meeting the power consumption expectations of what they have in the past with cards such as Pascal. GTX 1060 was 120W and leaps and bounds faster than previous gen cards. RTX 3060 is 170W and slower when compared to the increase in performance from previous gens. As I mentioned earlier, the GPU market is somewhat crap at the moment.

 

[CelicaGT]

I personally like the lower pricing of the previous-gen RX 6000 series cards. However, the power consumption is one downfall. While we're on the topic, Nvidia is also not meeting the power consumption expectations of what they have in the past with cards such as Pascal. GTX 1060 was 120W and leaps and bounds faster than previous gen cards. RTX 3060 is 170W and slower when compared to the increase in performance from previous gens. As I mentioned earlier, the GPU market is somewhat crap at the moment.

Yup, market is total crap. Myself, I'm waiting for AMD's X700XT/X800XT stuff. My 3060 which was an emergency buy is ... ok, but I have to make ALOT of compromises at 1440p to maintain an acceptable framerate. DLSS is a thing but idc what anyone says, with constant motion it looks like vaseline is smeared all over the screen (I'm exaggerating). I'd rather not rely on these upscaling techniques but I'm also very picky when it comes to visuals. At this point I'm just happy to be able to game, and the 3060 is a fine card, it's just not up to what I'm asking it to do. I'll stand by my recommendation to the OP, give it a month or two, late summer perhaps, and look again. May the odds be ever in our favour

 

[Zerk2012]

While the RTX 4060 will be noticeably faster than a 3060,it will still be constrained i believe by its mere 8gb vram and necessitate running future AAA games with reduced graphical settings to prevent exceeding the vram capacity (as demonstrated with some new titles like hogwarts

Hogwarts is a very poor example it's very poorly optimized and everybody that bought it should demand a refund. You also can't see into the future so no telling what good games will need but they will always be games released that are just junk because of the code.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I’d at least consider the rx 6700xt or the 6800/6800xt. Though you might even consider the Intel arc a770 16gb.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

ARC a770 did cross my mind but its drivers are not upto par with that of amd/nvidia and they require a motherboard that supports resizeable bar (my B460 doesn't).Also their performance in older dx9 titles is average.Hence not considering Arc a770 for now.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

Hogwarts is a very poor example it's very poorly optimized and everybody that bought it should demand a refund. You also can't see into the future so no telling what good games will need but they will always be games released that are just junk because of the code.

Even last of us PC (another poorly optimized game) and some other titles like Star wars jedi survivor,Dead space remake etc also require a 8gb gpu to work properly (acc to their min system requirements).So i wonder how long will gpus will less than 8gb vram stay relevant in this situation.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I simply cannot encourage the purchase of anything RTX 4000 except the 4090, and even then that price is just too un-economical to be recommended. GTX 1080 Ti was released in 2017 with 11GB vram for $699, 7 years later and a 12GB Nvidia GPU still costs $800+.

I will recommend the 4090 based on the fact it’s such a huge generational leap over the 3090… my benchmarks in some cases are 50% + higher than with the 3090. Not a fan of the price but at least I got half of it back selling the 3090.

I got one of those $699 1080 Ti cards as part of my 2017 7700k build… and it’s something that will never happen again… a flagship card at that price point.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

4090 is waaaaaaaaaay out of my price range.

 

[CelicaGT]

Even last of us PC (another poorly optimized game) and some other titles like Star wars jedi survivor,Dead space remake etc also require a 8gb gpu to work properly (acc to their min system requirements).So i wonder how long will gpus will less than 8gb vram stay relevant in this situation.

That's the thing, and why I share your frustration with the current state of affairs. The examples you give are just the first trickle of a coming flood. PC games (for better or worse) are typically developed for console first, and both current gen consoles are allocating more than 8GB of their pool to the GPU in current gen titles. 8GB VRAM cards were dead the moment those two machines launched and anybody actually paying attention knew it. Anyone purchasing an 8GB card today for AAA titles will be sorely disappointed within the year I expect.

As for myself I'm just trying to see who will blink first, me or the GPU makers. I can absolutely go out right now and get a 4090 or a 7900XTX but I'd just feel dirty. Besides, many indications of price drops in the future and I can wait, I'm good at that.