So I’ve been waiting for AMD CPUs to launch with rest of the stuff (motherboard, GPU) to do full upgrade. Maybe even Intel and Nvidia or other combinations doesn’t matter much until I see the price per performance ratio with power consumption.
Problem is I got an old(ish about 5 years) PC. 48GB ram on x370 prime pro, Ryzen 1700 (non x) with RX 590 Nitro+ SE (yeah naming can be fun). Now I don’t use it too much due to having work laptop, personal laptop and my wife here’s laptop. However from time to time I game and experiment with some development outside work or work (docker, java, go, and such) while she kicks in on Premier, Photoshop and such. Today i saw 3080 12GB (non Ti) for about 700USD (converted from SEK including tax).
So I wonder if buying it now makes any sense and using it in old PC then moving to new PC?
OR is it completely waste of money because cpu bottleneck and 4070 might be priced even better yet be better or same performance? I will target 5900x as I mostly need actual cores for my type of work but not sure about graphics because I want my wife to have smooth Adobe stuff and I saw AMD hinting some improvements in that area for RDNA3. I’m mostly concerned about price of similarity specd cards being lower for new series and currently PC works fine but it is quite old and upgrade is due for a bit faster encoding and pushing pixels.
I do use 4k monitor (144hz) and plan on continuing using just one for PC if that’s something of interest. And yeah I would like it to use less power thus AMD is preference over Intel unless 13 surprises me.
I would NOT buy a new CPU/Mobo right now, but depending on your needs with the GPU now could be a great time to buy.
New CPU’s are due out next month, and new GPUs are due out next month.
Nvidia has a massive overstock right now and has cut prices as much as it can to move inventory before releasing the next generation.
AMD cards are often an even better value the 6900xt is now going for $800 new vs the 3090 TI which is going for $1000.
If you want to get a good deal on a GPU now is a great time, but it WONT be the latest generation in a month. The new cards are expected to offer almost 2x performance from today, meaning that an $800 6900xt will be compared to a high-mid, or low-high end card so around $600-800 next gen.
So yeah… right now a new GPU would be a massive upgrade and IMO a great investment now. CPU/Motherboard wait until AM5 see if its worth it over 12/13th gen Intel.
Thanks for the response. Maybe I wasn’t clear, I am upgrading 100% just waiting on stuff to come out. Question was pairing suggested card with old PC and switching it back to fully new PC in couple of months. I presented the specs and use cases thus the Nvidia choice but the fear of paying 700 for a card that might be beaten by or equal to new series at value of 500 is holding me back. So trying to gather more opinions, especially considering CPU bottleneck in games
Yes single part updates make sense IF the value of current cards makes sense for you.
The point I was making is in 1 month new cards will be released, they will be on average 2x more performance than today’s cards.
Guessing the ranges will be
4090 ~ $1800
RX7900XT ~ $1500
RX 7800XT/4080 ~ $800-1000
RX 7700XT/4070 ~ $600-700
RX 7600XT/4060 ~ $450-550
Now based on this is an $800 RX 6900XT today a better value than a $600-700 RX 7600XT Q1 next year?
Both AMD and Nvidia plan on releasing only their high end cards right away while they keep selling off the oversupply of existing GPUs.
The 6900 XT and 4090 are not going to get any cheaper than they are today, even when the new cards come out, and you can have top end performance today, at a price similar to what will be mid range performance in 3-5 months when you can actually buy AMD and Nvidia’s mid level cards.
Yeah I would have to wait a bit more for mid range and I’m in no special rush just had a provider in my country do a sale which is quite lower than rest of it where I live. I guess seeing it like this it’s worth a wait if nothing special happens to supply again.
Maybe try hold off and maybe sell your current box as a complete working system to help offset costs.
Unfortunately you’re looking at replacing everything but your drives due to socket change and ddr standard change.
Alternatively; 5000 series ryzen if your system supports it (bios flash may be a pain in the butt but even a new b550 board to go with the new cpu can be had cheap and will give you pcie 4); you could grab a 5600x today that would be a huge step. GPU when the new ones drop and prices crater on current gen.
Then kick the can down the road another couple of years for a board, ram and cpu upgrade.
That’s probably the route I’d take personally.
Oh. If you’re planning on gaming at high detail instead of high refresh a high end GPU in your machine will be “fine”.
Sure the cpu will hold it back at high refresh rates but it will still be an insane upgrade vs the 590.
There’s always a bottleneck in a system but unless you’re a competitive twitch shooter player I wouldn’t worry too much about that.
Yeah, as I wrote in my second comment I will buy new PC anyway just a matter of when all comes out so even the drives will go. I’m assuming no later then February 2023. Old one is for a family member when I get the new one. I’m mostly focusing on price to performance ration of 3080 at 700 USD (includes tax) compared to new series and AMD RDNA3. If RDNA3 get’s same-ish performance like 3080 including Adobe tools I could even use those. 5600 would not benefit me at all especially with the Europe prices (at least in Sweden 300$ for it xD). I need cores due to my use cases.
I was interested will 3080 for this price be so bad compared to 4070 for example or even new 4080 if it gets same price point. If it’s not that big difference then you’re comment about seeing performance even in old PC makes me wanna buy it.
But as infinitevalence stated it might be best to wait given that it looks like price of 4070 (or 4080 12GB from latest leaks) might be “about the same” as this 3080 that I’m looking yet new cards would give way more performance so dropping 700 instead of waiting ~5 months for everything to be out is a waste.
Anyways thanks for clearing the bottleneck confusion for me didn’t know how big performance impact would be there since I’m mostly interested in Adobe performance for my wife and gaming at least on 60 fps for 4k on medium details (I would use DLSS anytime I could).
If there’s any indication that these prices will go wild again I’ll probably flip and buy 3080 for mentioned price since you said I will see some improvements regardless of bottlenecks and I can wait for couple of months for new PC like until 2023. Later just swap the graphics and I’m good. Otherwise SALE will be finished so I won’t be able to buy it anyway and be force to wait since I’m not giving 1000$ for 3080 (yeah Europe still has no proper price drops).
