Question Upgrading my GeForce GTX Graphics Card

Apr 3, 2020
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I recently purchased an HP Omen Desktop Tower. I'm Interested In knowing If i can Upgrade my Graphics card from the 1660Ti I have In it, to an RTX 2060. I want to make sure, If i can upgrade, that nothing goes wrong, like I do not want to fry my motherboard or do any significant damage. Here are the specs to my tower.
GeForce GTX 1660Ti (With Lastest Driver Installed to date. V 445.75)
Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz
15.88 GB RAM
1920 x 1080, 60hz
 
Apr 3, 2020
9
0
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You can upgrade your gpu.
I7 9700 deserves a much better gpu(its only a joke:) ).
What psu model do you have(you can upgrade to gpu that stronger than rtx2060, but need to be sure that your psu support that upgrade).
How do i find what PSU Model I have? your help would be greatly appreciated. I'm sorry If im coming off with a strong attitude, As I do not mean to.
 

beorn

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Nov 23, 2010
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I recently purchased an HP Omen Desktop Tower. I'm Interested In knowing If i can Upgrade my Graphics card from the 1660Ti I have In it, to an RTX 2060. I want to make sure, If i can upgrade, that nothing goes wrong, like I do not want to fry my motherboard or do any significant damage. Here are the specs to my tower.
GeForce GTX 1606Ti (With Lastest Driver Installed to date. V 445.75)
Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz
15.88 GB RAM
1920 x 1080, 60hz

That's a pointless upgrade and waste of money
 
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It's probably worth pointing out that an RTX 2060 is typically only around 15-20% faster than a 1660 Ti, so don't expect to get massively better performance out of it. For example, if you are getting 60fps in a particular demanding game, a 2060 might move you up to around 70fps at the same settings. And that's assuming that other hardware, like your CPU, isn't what's primarily limiting performance in a particular game, in which case the performance gains might be even smaller.

The 2060 additionally features some hardware support for raytraced lighting effects in the handful of games that support them so far, but enabling those generally causes a big hit to performance, and it's questionable how well this first-generation RTX hardware will cope with raytracing in future games targeting newer hardware.

Perhaps most worth noting, you have a 1080p, 60Hz monitor, meaning it refreshes the image only 60 times per second. So if you are aiming for really high frame rates in competitive games at 1080p resolution, you might be better off spending the money on a high-refresh rate 144Hz monitor instead, as frame rates substantially higher than 60fps will not look much different on a 60Hz screen. And a 1660 Ti should already do a pretty good job pushing at least 60fps at high settings in nearly all current demanding games, and a fair amount more than that in less-demanding esports titles.

Also, the high-end 20-series cards launched the better part of 2 years ago, and the 2060 came out around 1.5 years ago. If you don't want to spend much more than $300-$350 on a graphics card, at this point it might be worth waiting until after the next generation of cards launch. The high-end 30-series cards are expected to launch in a few months or so, and I would expect a more mid-range 3060 to launch a few months after that, bringing more performance to this price tier. Or perhaps AMD will have some compelling upgrade options available in this price range before the year is through.

As for the original question, power draw might not be a big concern. A 2060 only draws around 30-35 watts more than a 1660 Ti under load, and Nvidia recommends at least a 500 watt PSU for systems running this card. Being a pre-built, they probably don't put a high-end PSU in there, but what's there might be sufficient enough. Apparently HP sells some Omen systems with a 2060 running on their 500 watt PSU. Again though, it might be worth waiting for another card, as the performance upgrade wouldn't exactly be all that large.
 
Apr 3, 2020
9
0
10
It's probably worth pointing out that an RTX 2060 is typically only around 15-20% faster than a 1660 Ti, so don't expect to get massively better performance out of it. For example, if you are getting 60fps in a particular demanding game, a 2060 might move you up to around 70fps at the same settings. And that's assuming that other hardware, like your CPU, isn't what's primarily limiting performance in a particular game, in which case the performance gains might be even smaller.

The 2060 additionally features some hardware support for raytraced lighting effects in the handful of games that support them so far, but enabling those generally causes a big hit to performance, and it's questionable how well this first-generation RTX hardware will cope with raytracing in future games targeting newer hardware.

Perhaps most worth noting, you have a 1080p, 60Hz monitor, meaning it refreshes the image only 60 times per second. So if you are aiming for really high frame rates in competitive games at 1080p resolution, you might be better off spending the money on a high-refresh rate 144Hz monitor instead, as frame rates substantially higher than 60fps will not look much different on a 60Hz screen. And a 1660 Ti should already do a pretty good job pushing at least 60fps at high settings in nearly all current demanding games, and a fair amount more than that in less-demanding esports titles.

Also, the high-end 20-series cards launched the better part of 2 years ago, and the 2060 came out around 1.5 years ago. If you don't want to spend much more than $300-$350 on a graphics card, at this point it might be worth waiting until after the next generation of cards launch. The high-end 30-series cards are expected to launch in a few months or so, and I would expect a more mid-range 3060 to launch a few months after that, bringing more performance to this price tier. Or perhaps AMD will have some compelling upgrade options available in this price range before the year is through.

As for the original question, power draw might not be a big concern. A 2060 only draws around 30-35 watts more than a 1660 Ti under load, and Nvidia recommends at least a 500 watt PSU for systems running this card. Being a pre-built, they probably don't put a high-end PSU in there, but what's there might be sufficient enough. Apparently HP sells some Omen systems with a 2060 running on their 500 watt PSU. Again though, it might be worth waiting for another card, as the performance upgrade wouldn't exactly be all that large.
So in conclusion to what you are saying, I'd be better off spending money on a "High Refresh Rate" Monitor" rather than updrading my GPU? Also might be worth noting, Im playing through a LG flat screen TV, So Im guessing that's a major reason?
 
So in conclusion to what you are saying, I'd be better off spending money on a "High Refresh Rate" Monitor" rather than updrading my GPU? Also might be worth noting, Im playing through a LG flat screen TV, So Im guessing that's a major reason?
A high refreshrate monitor is a good choice until you can save up for a much better GPU that gives at least 70% upgrade in performance. The difference between 60Hz and 120+Hz is pretty dramatic. Even just 75-90Hz is far better. If you are going to upgrade your GPU, wait for RTX 3000 and see how low prices go on RTX 2070 Super or 2080. You might be better off getting an RTX 3060 if it's as fast as the 2070 Super, plus you get much faster Ray tracing.
 
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Apr 3, 2020
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That's a pointless upgrade and waste of money
Thanks for your pointless opionon!
A high refreshrate monitor is a good choice until you can save up for a much better GPU that gives at least 70% upgrade in performance. The difference between 60Hz and 120+Hz is pretty dramatic. Even just 75-90Hz is far better. If you are going to upgrade your GPU, wait for RTX 3000 and see how low prices go on RTX 2070 Super or 2080. You might be better off getting an RTX 3060 if it's as fast as the 2070 Super, plus you get much faster Ray tracing.
Is it bad that I'm using an LG flat screen TV? my head is sorta spinning from all this, But I am starting to slowly understand
 
Is it bad that I'm using an LG flat screen TV? my head is sorta spinning from all this, But I am starting to slowly understand
Using a TV as a monitor is not bad, especially if it's 4k, but it's nice to have a high refresh rate monitor whether you are playing single player or were going to get into more competitive gaming with something like CSGO or Apex Legends. Higher refresh rates make everything look and "feel" smoother in movement. For competitive gaming, you would want a monitor that has a higher refresh rate to display more fps, which should increase your response time to what happens on screen. So if you have a 144Hz monitor, you can display 144 frames per second instead of only 60fps with a 60Hz monitor or TV.