What Video Card can i exchange my kidneys for? [2021]

[Itiken]

Hmm, whether to get a 6800XT (eg: a perfectly decent Sapphire Pulse for £590 from OCUK)

Being "that guy" - spend an extra £250 on a brand new gen card rather than a 2 year old mid range card. Especially if you want to go down AMD land. the 6000's are definitely first gen cards.

For your workloads, a 7900XT while having 30% less x's than a XTX, would be fine.

i hate having to reccomend a card that costs as much as a holiday btw. it's shit, but meh sorry.

[El Capitano]

The 7900XT's pricing is horrible for its performance level, though. The XTX is much better value for money. Of course, you're then on the upsell treadmill at that point.

[Malcanis]

Nvidia charging $800 for a direct 192-bit 12GB successor to the 192-bit 1060GTX 6GB really sours me on the whole Have A PC To Play Games On concept. Pascal was the last really good GPU generational uplift: change my views.

The 4000 series is amazing in all but price. Uplift in performance is stunning, even that 192-bit 12GB card is faster in games than a 3090 (and that's before enabling frame generation) and ends up just above or just below a 3090 Ti (depending on resolution) for FAR less power. It's really only the prices fucking with us now. Another mining craze is extremely unlikely to happen but I would have expected GPU prices to drop significantly by now and that didn't happen so who knows.

The saying goes "there are no bad video cards, only bad prices" but the flip side of that is that even a great video card can be ruined by costing twice the cost of an entire decent gaming rig a few years ago.

[Malcanis]

The 7900XT's pricing is horrible for its performance level, though. The XTX is much better value for money. Of course, you're then on the upsell treadmill at that point.

Exactly. It used to be the halo sku had the bad priceerformance but hey if you want the absolute best, you paid a hefty premium for it. Now we're being asked to pay that hefty halo premium at every tier.

[Mashie Saldana]

Nvidia charging $800 for a direct 192-bit 12GB successor to the 192-bit 1060GTX 6GB really sours me on the whole Have A PC To Play Games On concept. Pascal was the last really good GPU generational uplift: change my views.

The 4000 series is amazing in all but price. Uplift in performance is stunning, even that 192-bit 12GB card is faster in games than a 3090 (and that's before enabling frame generation) and ends up just above or just below a 3090 Ti (depending on resolution) for FAR less power. It's really only the prices fucking with us now. Another mining craze is extremely unlikely to happen but I would have expected GPU prices to drop significantly by now and that didn't happen so who knows.

The saying goes "there are no bad video cards, only bad prices" but the flip side of that is that even a great video card can be ruined by costing twice the cost of an entire decent gaming rig a few years ago.

The situation would have been more bearable if it wasn't for the miners ruining the second hand market where no used cards can be trusted to not have been abused to hell and back.

[Malcanis]

Crypto miners get get in the fucking sea

[Overspark]

There is also the minor issue that if you have 300mm or less space in your case for a GPU none of the 4000 series will fit (except maybe the watercooled 4090's).

Eh, my 4070Ti is 301mm, so it almost fits? TBH it's smaller than my triple-fan 2070 Super was, but that was a relatively big boi. And I think there are smaller AIB models around too, I've even seen some 2-slot cards on reddit I think.

The situation would have been more bearable if it wasn't for the miners ruining the second hand market where no used cards can be trusted to not have been abused to hell and back.

The second hand market is part of why I went new after all. Second hand 3080+ are maybe 100-150 euros cheaper than a new 4070Ti over here (if you get an MSRP model, not a stupidly overpriced OC one), it doesn't make any sense.

[Mashie Saldana]

There is also the minor issue that if you have 300mm or less space in your case for a GPU none of the 4000 series will fit (except maybe the watercooled 4090's).

Eh, my 4070Ti is 301mm, so it almost fits? TBH it's smaller than my triple-fan 2070 Super was, but that was a relatively big boi. And I think there are smaller AIB models around too, I've even seen some 2-slot cards on reddit I think.

The situation would have been more bearable if it wasn't for the miners ruining the second hand market where no used cards can be trusted to not have been abused to hell and back.

The second hand market is part of why I went new after all. Second hand 3080+ are maybe 100-150 euros cheaper than a new 4070Ti over here (if you get an MSRP model, not a stupidly overpriced OC one), it doesn't make any sense.

301mm wouldn't actually fit either. Thankfully the 3080 12GB I grabbed in the pre-4000 launch sale fits like a glove.

[Itiken]

You know what - it's an impossible, cyclic discussion. There will always be a better card, bot most of the ones lised will give you a significant uplift, so do what you will


IMO the 3080/3080Ti are the best "budget that's not really budget" cards out there.

[Malcanis]

It's not about waiting for the better card, it's about despairing that there will be a better value card.

If the 7900XT was £650-£700, I'd get one. If it was £750 I'd hesitate and wince a bit, what the hell, it does have a nice fat memory bus and 20GB so it should have good legs oh well it'll last me the rest of the decade I suppose.

At £900-1000? Yeah nah. This frog hopped out of the pot.

[Itiken]

yeah man i hear you. it's fuckign insane.

this is a beter card all around - for the 700 you would pay for a current gen low end.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pny-g...gx-06h-pn.html

BUT, it may be worth lookin at intel because fuck the big 2 rinsers.
https://www.ebuyer.com/1542167-intel...ard-21p01j00ba

maybe.

intel are sorting the drivers out - big time it's also £400 and runs games *fine*. especially DX12 games.

citations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcnMG713HBY

[Overspark]

Check this out if you're looking for best current value in a couple of different regions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kiOLC2Ca_I

Containing charts such as:

[Nordstern]

I previously relied on UserBenchmark to get a rough idea of how GPUs compared. I knew they were biased towards NVIDIA, but holy crap, this review proves it.

AMD’s new 7900 series GPUs received a lot of pre-launch hype. There were claims of 50-70% performance improvements over the previous flagship. Our benchmarks show that the 7900-XTX leads the 6950-XT by around 30%. AMD overhype their product launches because it is effective at getting first-time buyers to pay over MRSP. After an initial burst in sales, prices often drop rapidly, as with the 6900 XT and the recently launched Zen 4 7950X, which are now both 30% cheaper. AMD’s domination of social media platforms has historically resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products, those users will be very hard, if not impossible for AMD to win back. If this trend continues, semiconductors may become a secondary business line for AMD, who appear more focused on developing “Advanced Marketing” relationships with select youtubers and media outlets. Based on the volume of social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Be wary of sponsored reviews (golden samples+cherry picked games) that showcase the wins and gloss over the losses whilst conveniently ignoring frame drops. Despite steady price cuts, an increasing number of seasoned gamers simply have no interest in buying AMD products. They know from bitter experience that headline average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. Most gamers, who are better off playing at 1080p, will do well to wait for Nvidia’s upcoming 4060/4070 series cards (est. early 2023). Even brand fans that wish to be in AMD’s “2%” club, will find better deals after the launch hype settles. Shoppers should avoid AMD’s reference design as many users are reporting thermal issues.

Their bias is a known issue. I'll have to find another comparison tool.

[Malcanis]

yeah man i hear you. it's fuckign insane.

this is a beter card all around - for the 700 you would pay for a current gen low end.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pny-g...gx-06h-pn.html

BUT, it may be worth lookin at intel because fuck the big 2 rinsers.
https://www.ebuyer.com/1542167-intel...ard-21p01j00ba

maybe.

intel are sorting the drivers out - big time it's also £400 and runs games *fine*. especially DX12 games.

citations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcnMG713HBY

I wanted to go AMD for the better Linux integration, but yeah there's only so much value to that.

Edit: Per Overspark's post and using HUBs "average frame rate", I looked at the lowest 6800XT (new) price easily available to me, which is £590 for the Sapphire Pulse at OCUK, and the cheapest 7900XT which is £880 for the Sapphire at Scan. The tl;dr is that my gut feeling sourced estimate of £750 is pretty much dead on for the 2 cards to have equivalent priceerformance (£740.60 gives exact parity). Even the cheapest 7900XT is "overpriced" by nearly 20% compared to the equivalent RDNA2 SKU.

Combined with the news that AMD have admitted that they're deliberately throttling supply to inflate prices, I feel confirmed in my decision to leave the wallet moths undisturbed. If the RDNA3s (or the Adas, I guess) come down significantly in the future, then fine. For now, I decline to be scalped.

I previously relied on UserBenchmark to get a rough idea of how GPUs compared. I knew they were biased towards NVIDIA, but holy crap, this review proves it.

AMD’s new 7900 series GPUs received a lot of pre-launch hype. There were claims of 50-70% performance improvements over the previous flagship. Our benchmarks show that the 7900-XTX leads the 6950-XT by around 30%. AMD overhype their product launches because it is effective at getting first-time buyers to pay over MRSP. After an initial burst in sales, prices often drop rapidly, as with the 6900 XT and the recently launched Zen 4 7950X, which are now both 30% cheaper. AMD’s domination of social media platforms has historically resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products, those users will be very hard, if not impossible for AMD to win back. If this trend continues, semiconductors may become a secondary business line for AMD, who appear more focused on developing “Advanced Marketing” relationships with select youtubers and media outlets. Based on the volume of social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Be wary of sponsored reviews (golden samples+cherry picked games) that showcase the wins and gloss over the losses whilst conveniently ignoring frame drops. Despite steady price cuts, an increasing number of seasoned gamers simply have no interest in buying AMD products. They know from bitter experience that headline average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. Most gamers, who are better off playing at 1080p, will do well to wait for Nvidia’s upcoming 4060/4070 series cards (est. early 2023). Even brand fans that wish to be in AMD’s “2%” club, will find better deals after the launch hype settles. Shoppers should avoid AMD’s reference design as many users are reporting thermal issues.

Their bias is a known issue. I'll have to find another comparison tool.

Userbenchmark are not so much biased towards Nvidia as away from AMD. The way they juggled their metrics to try and stop Ryzen 2/3 looking good has ended their credibility. Even r/intel have banned links to them, to give you an idea of how far beyond parody they do.

[Cosmin]

Edit: Per Overspark's post and using HUBs "average frame rate", I looked at the lowest 6800XT (new) price easily available to me, which is £590 for the Sapphire Pulse at OCUK, and the cheapest 7900XT which is £880 for the Sapphire at Scan. The tl;dr is that my gut feeling sourced estimate of £750 is pretty much dead on for the 2 cards to have equivalent priceerformance (£740.60 gives exact parity). Even the cheapest 7900XT is "overpriced" by nearly 20% compared to the equivalent RDNA2 SKU.

I really don't get this. Do you really need a new GPU or are you just looking to getting "the best value" because if it's the latter get an RX6600 and call it a day

[Spartan Dax]

"Best value" is somewhat usefull but it's way too generic to really help guide you imo. If I want to play at 4k an RX 6600 is going to be terrible value for instance but if I have a good idea of what performance I need to complete the task a best value chart can actually be informative.

And it's definetly usefull in highlighting how consumers are getting shafted with every new card generation.

[halka]

FWIW, I'm very happy with my 6700XT (upgraded from a 1060 3GB). Can play most of the stuff I own in 1440p high at 60Hz, which is more than fine with me, since I don't own a high refresh rate monitor (I'm actually trying to actively avoid seeing anything with a higher refresh rate so as I don't spoil 60 for myself ) My reasoning was, it was barely within my budget at 450EUR, and going higher I'd need to upgrade the PSU as well, either because of wattage and because I only had one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI power cable available, and more powerful models (with possible exception of 6750) need 8+8.

This should tide me over for a couple of years at least I figure.

[Malcanis]

Edit: Per Overspark's post and using HUBs "average frame rate", I looked at the lowest 6800XT (new) price easily available to me, which is £590 for the Sapphire Pulse at OCUK, and the cheapest 7900XT which is £880 for the Sapphire at Scan. The tl;dr is that my gut feeling sourced estimate of £750 is pretty much dead on for the 2 cards to have equivalent priceerformance (£740.60 gives exact parity). Even the cheapest 7900XT is "overpriced" by nearly 20% compared to the equivalent RDNA2 SKU.

I really don't get this. Do you really need a new GPU or are you just looking to getting "the best value" because if it's the latter get an RX6600 and call it a day

I could throw my desktop PC in the skip and continue to live and work; I don't need a new GPU. I want one which is a significant upgrade over my existing one, but which is also not egregiously overpriced.

You have in the past trainwrecked discussions by jumping in halfway through and making completely erroneous assumptions.

Why not try a different way this time, by going back to the initial post and seeing what's actually being talked about?

[Cosmin]

I am not trying to derail anything and I apologise if I came across as such. I was just a bit exasperated since "FPS/$" is a poor way of assessing the need for a new GPU. If you need a new GPU you need to assess the following:
- current requirements (resolution you are playing in, levels of details, RT yes/no, what games exactly you wish to play);
- price bracket - do you qualify for more of the above or not withing your budget.

If we're going strictly by FPS/$ then even the 4090 becomes an attractive prospect if you qualify for the price bracket. Is it wise to buy one? IMHO not really unless you do have a cracking 4k high refresh rate screen so you aim for 4k/120FPS synced with 120Hz.

Imo - again - it's my personal opinion - I feel that the 6900XT at around 600 quid is a good proposition and so is the 6950XT (an acquaintance bought a 6900XT for 600EUR and it was imo a good price point even after the 40 and 79 series hit). Delving into FPS/$ isn't really helping your decision making since IMHO all prices are currently fucked.

[Malcanis]

May I ask where you are seeing new 6900XTs for £600?