So I have a RX580 8GB GPU, that I bought back when it was new. That’s a while back… I also have a Ryzen 1700X and I’m thinking of maybe trying to save up money to buy a midrange GPU in the new AMD series, and a new CPU, but I’m thinking APU this time.
Which GPU is recommended for ULTRA 1080p gaming?
Why Ultra? It is often taxing on the GPU without noticable quality gain. Also which framerate are you targeting? What games do you play?
What games are you trying to play that your current hardware can’t handle?
There are lots of new launches coming later this year, but if you want 1080p/60 high settings with new AAA titles on an APU you’re gonna have to wait for Ryzen 7000 Zen5 G-series which could be over 18+ months from launching. Zen5 will now all have RDNA2/3 APUs, but only the G-series will have enough cores for serious gaming.
Still we’re much too far out to make anything other than speculation at this point, so if you’re gonna wait I would consider a budget 13th gen Raptor Lake/Ryzen 6000 Zen4 and RDNA3 mid-range card sometime late this year or early next year.
Ultra means it has potential to be used for years without needing a new GPU. I’m targeting the capability of playing older titles in ultra. Would be nice to play Borderlands 3 without any lag, when it’s on low/medium settings.
I’m not going to have the card work in max settings, it’s just what it’s capable of providing with at least 60 FPS.
It’s Final Fantasy XIV & XV, Borderlands 2 & 3, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (Soon), I also play Fallout 4… I own Cyberpunk 2077, but haven’t started it yet, so have no Idea how it’s going to perform on the current GPU. I don’t have the money yet, so waiting for an interesting APU or GPU to be released isn’t really a problem.
You’re probably going to want to stick to discrete graphics until at least Zen5, keep an eye on the used market in the coming months as there’s a huge shift that is finally occurring.
Maybe I didn’t catch the answer, but why would you opt for an APU? Do you want to pass through the discrete GPU?
For 1080p @60Hz I wouldn’t upgrade just yet and wait for reviews of new gen cards, then make a call. The prices are coming down but nature is still healing.
Yes, I want to pass-through the GPU to a VM, that is the plan for the future.
I have been looking into the RX 6600, it seems to be in the range of what I am currently using. I will have to rebuild my computer from scratch, so I was thinking of an APU that I can play on till I have the money I need for a good GPU. If an APU is going to give me gaming capabilities, then I’ll go for that for a while.
So AMD is set to release a 6xxx series refresh in the next 2 months but as far as I know its mainly the 6750 XT and 6950 XT.
Secondly is that RDNA 3 will ship this fall in time for holiday shopping. The only reason I bring it up is that reliable sources have indicated RDNA 3 is 2x as powerful as RDNA 2. So a 7700 XT is expected to hit 6900 XT performance even with only 8GB. On top of that AMD is launching their mid range first in large quantities to take wind out of Nvidia’s sale because Nvidia’s next gen can only compete clock for clock at 600w of power/heat vs AMD’s 350-400w.
RDNA 3 should take the performance and efficiency crown but even if it does not it will still be a better value than Nvidia.
So… what to buy really depends; do you need to replace a broken card today? Or are you unable to run your programs/games today? If so the 6600 is ok, but I would honestly go for a 6500 and wait for the RDNA 2.5 refresh and try to get a 6750. Otherwise I would wait for RDNA 3.
(I say all this as someone who literally ordered a 6700 XT yesterday)
Imo upgrading from 1700X to a current gen APU is not worth it. I would stick with your RX580 for the host. The RX6600(XT) may be a solid buy now, depending on pricing in your region.
If you really want to upgrade the 1700X, have you considered a 5700X?
Does your MB have the possibility to accept 5000 series?
My RX480 is still going strong. Recently upgraded my 1700 to a 5800X and it uplifted perfomance rather substantially even at 1440p. If I were to get a GPU I would go for the new RX6650XT, but I’m going to assume prices will still be crazy. May end up waiting for RDNA3. Not that I “need” a new video card.
Prices should be at or close to Msrp according to most leaks. AMD plans to flood the market because nvidia can’t make cards for as little as they can.
The current mid-range 1080p king is 6600 XT. If you want the low high-end instead, the 6700 XT is the way to go.
Currently AMD has the better price / perf ratio in most tiers, but Nvidia has two tricks in DLSS and better Raytracing. Neither are that relevant for 1080p TBH and will matter less and less the way the land is tilting. Final note is that some games are better on one brand or the other; make sure to look up the games you care about.
Awesome info! Thanks. Actually, my GPU have started showing some artifacts now and then, but it’s nothing major, if it cools down it usually stops what it’s been doing. ^^
The highest series that I can use on my motherboard is the Ryzen 3xxx series, and I need that in order to even use the RX5000+ series efficiently. If I remember correctly.
So I’m talking about a whole new build. DDR5, APU and maybe two GPU’s. Where in I use the host system as a clean VM system. Meaning I will not have to go through the problems of killing the whole computer when something fails. I only need to reset a VM or change to a clone that I use as a test environment. I can therefore also have the computer on 24/7 without any reboots except for when I update the host system, which I will set up in bash to be something that happens when I open up a terminal. ^^
I want to have a host system that is clean, with just the basic stuff installed, and It should be arch, and then I’ll have multiple VM systems that use the GPU’s, but never touch the APU.
I don’t care much about that, but I want to update to 144hz displays, or at least one. Preferably; it would be to have a 6 screen setup. Where the lower screens are three 144hz and the one’s above would be three 60hz. Don’t need that much more when it’s for a gaming VM and a couple or more specialized VM systems. I prefer not crossing my stuff with each other. That way the computer might actually work better. As it is now it’s a bit strange. It starts to lag sometimes for no real reason.
… Six screens sounds like waaaaaay overkill for me, would probably rather go with one big 4k ultra-wide at the bottom and play in Windowed mode instead, but that’s just me.
Anyway; a 6700 XT is good enough to drive one or even two 144 Hz screens comfortably, though I would scale down to high details. There is barely any visible difference anyway. With high refresh rates you almost never aim for Ultra graphics currently.
Do be aware six screens almost definitely require two GPUs unless you drive an integrated graphics CPU; then you can run two or even three screens on that and the others on your dGPU.
I got a 6600xt earlier this week to replace my nearly eight year old R9 390. I have it paired with a 1700X using it at 1440p on Ubuntu. I have tested it on some games and it seems to be performing pretty well.
I don’t own much of the latest titles but most of the newer games I tested with all graphics cranked cranked up are => 60fps at 1440p. Older titles like Fallout 4 are > 100fps depending on location etc. Little older games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Death Stranding are in the 80fps range. There are some older heavy hitters like Far Cry Primal and FF14 that ends up in the 50 to 40 fps range. At 1080p I think you would be capable of hitting that 144HZ mark easily on most games.
I am not sure how accurate the bottleneck calculator site is but from what I saw, the 6600xt is about as high as you can go paired with a 1700x if you run at 1440p The bottleneck at 1080p was higher when paired with the 1700X and the PCIe 3 x8 performance hit was greater at higher resolutions.
From the way they were marketed I guess the 6600 and 3060 line are the “top” 1080p cards. The MSRP on these cards suck but it is what it is. The 3060/3060ti seem to be the better cards value and performance wise but the problem is they are still much higher than their MSRP compared to the AMD counterparts.
6950XT 335W 4% Performance Boost
6750XT 250W 3% Performance Boost
6650XT 180W 2% Performance Boost
Releasing next week*