Vid Card upgrade advice needed

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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I suddenly have a budget of about $350, so I’ve been looking to upgrade my current (ancient) system. It actually works “fine” right now for everything I do on it, but my daughter needs a better video card, so I want to give her mine and then upgrade mine.

I’m an nvidia guy, and I’m looking at the gtx 1660 Super vs the rtx 2060 (non-S). Of course I’d rather get the RTX, but I just don’t know if it will be wasted in my system, so I’m hoping somebody here will know!

I use my PC for several tasks, including working from home; not just msfs.

My system specs are below:

MB: Biostar TZ77XE4 MB (latest bios is 4-19-12)
CPU: i7-3770 (non-K) 3.4GHz, clocked to 3.751GHz (will run all week long at 4.0GHz, but the fan runs all the time) with a coolermaster water cooler
RAM:16GB Nanya Technology PC3-12200 (762mhZ)
GPU:EVGA GTX 660
Monitors: 4x 27" ASUS VE278; 1080p, 60Hz. Each has DL, HDMI, and DVI inputs
Power Supply: Corsair CX650M
OS: Win 10 Enterprise v2004
APPS:
Typical MS Office apps
Reaper (Audio create/edit; I’m a budding voice actor)
Video Editing (I’m a drone pilot and motorcycle rider and frequently edit vids)
Screenconnect (sometimes I work from home; I connect to a pc with 3x 28" monitors)
MS FSX / FLIGHT 2020

Currently, all runs very well on this ancient box. I’m pushing all 4 monitors at all times. FSX runs at Medium (with various settings set to high or highest) at around 20-25FPS; MSFS runs at Medium (with various settings set to low, high, and ultra) at 12-14FPS.

With the current MSFS update, my GPU is constrained, and runs at about 95% utilization.
With the current MSFS update, my CPU runs at around 25-35% (with spikes, of course)

Again, I’m happy with the performance, but since I suddenly have the money, and my daughter needs a better video card, I have a great opportunity to do an upgrade that makes sense.

So: thoughts on which GPU would be best suited for this old box?

Thanks!

2

Wait, your RAM is only 762 MHz? I honestly didn’t even know they went that low.

The i7 is alright but not great. The GTX 660, however, is more of a dinosaur… so probably upgrade that. Make sure you have any power cables required (such as ATX 12v 6+2) and that your PSU has a high enough wattage for the graphics card.

The RTX of course is the best choice - it has raytracing and a little bit of better performance. Will it get bottlenecked? Absolutely. However, you can use a modular upgrade method. A new GPU here, a new CPU there, and eventually you’ll be able to knock out bottlenecks.

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Oh, I forgot to add my PSU: Corsair CX650M. Updated.

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DDR is Double Data Rate. I’ll bet its DDR3 1600 memory

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I think you can get a 2060S for roughly the same price as a 2060 now. I’d strongly recommend doing so, but I can’t really advise on how CPU bound you might be. The 2060S itself is a pretty stout GPU. But I had an i7-4790 that desperately needed an upgrade, so I just bit the bullet and built a whole new system around a 10600K and 2070S. But you sure can’t do that with $350.

Whatever you decide to do, I STRONGLY recommend actually saving up the money first, and not just taking the “easy” way out and dropping it on a credit card. I HATE debt, and with interest, you end up paying SOOOO much more than the actual purchase price. But that’s got nothing to do with your technical issues.

Good luck!
KevyKevTPA

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Cash is king…which is why my system is 8 years old. :slight_smile: No debt here except for the house (for now).

$350 amazon gift card is all I got, so yeah…I’d love to build me a $2500 monster machine, but it ain’t in the ccards (see what I did there?).

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7

Depending on how long you want to wait I’d suggest waiting for the rtx 3060 hopefully it’s priced at 299$ and it may probably have 2080 performance.
I have a 2060super and it’s meh.Wait and get something better.

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$339 for the 3060 if this is anything like correct. Might be worth holding off until confirmed:

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i am running a very old system, i updated my video card just to expose myself to simming again. stopped flying fsx about 7 years ago.

system
10 years old
I5 760 lynnfield 2.6 ocd to 3.8
was at 8 gigs of ocd ram but added 4 more for sim. 12 total.

added a gtx 1660 6 gig card and a ssd drive.

well i am having a great time. more so with all the new cpus and video cards coming out. i can be patient and upgrade as needed.

how it is working would ■■■■ off a bunch of people that have spent huge money to make this thing work.

video card and memory came in at 240 bucks.

and video card prices are about to crash.

:beers:

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Thanks everybody!

Does msfs use RTX? If so, what would adding an RTX to my setup do over “just” a GTX card?

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If you are going to spend the money then I suggest you get the latest gen card you can.MSFS doesn’t use ray tracing.However,as with dx12,I would expect to be supported in future updates.An RTX card will also allow for crossplay on the new XBox.

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MSFS does not yet use RTX features like Ray Tracing, that will be added when it’s updated to DX12.

Your limit is not just the GPU but also your processor. I just upgraded from 3770K last month so I know, and I was running 4.5GHZ. Although MSFS ran OK, it would max out the 4 physical cores to 100% usage and outside of the game, everything lagged. MSFS was obviously CPU bound (Limited by thread). I had a 1080TI video card, 16GB DDR3-800. The 1080TI helped but the real bottleneck was the CPU. It had just aged, and like you I don’t upgrade very often and my system was also 8 years old.

So for $350 you can upgrade your video card and it will help, but you will still be limited by your processor, I know, from experience. Having said that, I still think the first thing you SHOULD upgrade is your video card because that is still the weakest link in your system. I would personally WAIT just another 5-6 weeks for the 3060 series as well as the new AMD video card announcement. EVEN if those new cards are out of your budget, depending on their performance, they’re likely to drive prices even lower. That means your $350 will stretch further.

Maybe you can get a nice card for cheaper and put any savings toward upgrading CPU/MB/RAM. I got a great deal on the following:
AMD R5 3600XT ($180), normally I’d just get the 3600 but I got a great deal so got XT.
MSI B550 Gaming Plus mobo ($120)
16GB CL16 DDR4-3600 ram ($65)

Kept everything else. so under $400 after taxes and upgrade my 8 year old setup.

Just a thought to consider, I’d still get the BEST video you can for $350 in a couple of months and then work on upgrading the above 3 components. Then you’ll be set for another 5-8 years like me haha.

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Sounds like waiting for the 3060 is probably the best idea, and then of course save up for a new MB/CPU/RAM combo that’ll compliment it.

Only two things that cause me to want to jump now: one, I really need to get my daughter’s vid card upgraded. Two, “I hate waiting. Isn’t there some way you can a speed things up a bit?” (Where’s that quote from??)

If I can make myself wait (doubtful!), I will. If not (more likely!) I think I’ll go with the rtx 2060, along with another power/sata cable for my corsair power supply, and a pci-e card with usb and usb-c ports so I can plug my oculus quest in.

We shall see!

Thanks again for the great comments and advice!!

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I hear ya. I don’t like waiting either. But I also don’t like buyer’s remorse. The performance gains from the 20 series to 30 series are substantial. the 3060 may offer the performance of a 2070 Super at the current 2060 prices. We also don’t know much about AMD cards but we will in 3 weeks or so. I personally still wouldn’t buy AMD card simply because their driver support usually lacks and they’ll never fix that problem enough to be on par with Nvidia. I only suggest waiting for AMD stuff to see how it impacts Nvidia stuff.

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while the driver support on launch was indeed not great for the RX5700XT, the drivers are pretty ■■■■ rock solid now (and have been for about 10 months). I’m a pretty happy AMD customer right now.

So yeh, whatever your preferences are, at least wait to see what AMD’s offer is, to make sure your decision is as well informed as it can be. Buyers remorse is not a good thing.

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That’s great to hear. I hope they learned a lesson from the 5000 series and don’t repeat the same issues and put out solid drivers from the get go. They need the stability if they want to keep growing their graphics card foothold.
Nvidia launched a good product at a good price this time around (sucks their inventory was lack luster). AMD really needs to hit their launch out of the park, if not with performance, then with Performances per dollar and they’ll have to undercut Nvidia to be more attractive.

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haha, to be honest, I think AMD only needs one thing for their new Radeon launch; availability.

If they can ship the cards at launch, they’ll be successful.

If they run into the same supply line issues NVidia faced, it’s going to be just as bad.

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I have:
i7 4790K (not overclocked)
24GB DDR3 1600 (Dual mode - Bank A 4+8, Bank B 4+8)
SSD 500 GB
GTX 1660 Super

Now at flight at FL300 in A320 I have 50 fps (at the same time looking up to this forum and playing music clips at YT)
CPU - 35 % Usage
GPU - 95 % Usage
Graphics set at High and some at Ultra
Most time I have more than 25 fps
At Manhattan I had drops to 15 fps

So it looks like GPU is very important.

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19

I have pretty much the same setup as that but a GTX770 which struggles a lot. I am considering the 1660 Super too. I was going to wait for the 3070 or 3060 super but it sounds like they will not be available until next year with release dates pushing back, shortages of supply and those who have gotten 3080 cards have reported crashes?

I would like to use MSFS at 1440p. I have three screens and running all three at 1440p would be ideal but I’m not sure the 1660S will manage that?

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I think that 1660S is to weak for 3 x 1440p in MSFS. Unfortunetly I can’t test it. I have one monitor @1050.