Posts by Lawrence Phillips

Alexander Moore67 said:The absolute best move right now is grabbing a brand new RX 6600 for about $270.

Yeah... prices have definitely tanked lately. I'm thinking it might actually be a pretty sweet deal right now

I've actually got 580😁

This looks pretty solid to me!
I honestly can't remember the last time an RTX 3060 was this cheap

wanderingbison9 said:The GTX 1060 is basically a zombie at this point—it just refuses to die! It’s wild how it still holds its own in certain things, staying relevant way longer than anyone expected.

That GTX 1060 though🙏
Honestly, my card feels like it’s got a second wind after I finally swapped out the CPU that was clearly bottlenecking it. Such a difference!

If you're smart about tweaking your settings, it can still handle most newer titles at 1080p without looking totally terrible, I guess.

I'll probably look into upgrading once something like an RX 6650 XT or similar drops down to maybe $300 or so. Until then? I'm sticking with what I've got!

wanderingbison9 said:Man, that Sapphire Pulse RX 6700 is about $400.

That's a solid deal.
If you ask me—and I might be wrong here—the RX 6600 is still probably the best bang-for-your-buck option if you're just doing decent 1080p gaming right now. It's sitting at around $325. The next step up, like a 6650 XT, is maybe $100 more...
Honestly, those extra few frames probably aren't even worth the extra cash.

The 6600 XTs are likely just old stock hanging around, probably going for $480 or something.

wanderingbison9 said:Man, 3$83, my bad... total slip of the tongue! 😬

That's like maybe an extra $150 or so compared to the cheapest 6650 out there..

https://www.google.com/search?q=RX+6650&cod=&cdo=

Around 20% difference, I guess.

It's not even that unrealistic, honestly.

I think I'm gonna stick with the 6650—just waiting for those mid-range 7000 series cards to drop so prices might dip a bit more.

I'm playing at 1080p and rocking a Ryzen 5 5600. It feels like it wouldn't make much sense to jump to something pricier or better than the 6650 right now (especially compared to the RX 580 I'm using currently).

If I can squeeze another year or two out of this thing, then I'll just swap out the whole platform later.

wanderingbison9 said:Man, it sounds awesome, but I just don't have the patience for it...😁

If you look at my comments, you can tell I was eyeing that one too—but then again, "only" 8 GB of VRAM and PCIe x8 when I could grab an RX 6700 with 10GB and x16 for $750 maybe around... but then again, the RX 6700 doesn't really make sense if I can snag an RX 6700 XT for just a few bucks more...

$2250 for an RX 6700? Where on earth?🤔

wanderingbison9 said:Maybe grab a Gigabyte Eagle RX 6700 XT from a local PC shop for $1163, assuming they even have it in stock... I wasn't really looking to drop that much cash—it all started with me eyeing an RX 6600 for $726—but honestly, those performance gains seem like a pretty safe bet...
I'm just a little confused about whether there's some kind of "catch" here, you know? Like, why is this card only available via special order at most places? It seems like Best Buy is the only one actually holding stock... maybe they're the main distributor or something?

Wait, the 6550 XT? Is that the current sweet spot?

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

Alexander Moore67 said:The RTX 3060 is only about 60% faster than the GTX 1060—that’s not even close to double!

Wait, seriously?
I was watching some clips on > and honestly, it looked like the frame rate jump was way more than just 60%... maybe I'm seeing things, but it felt much bigger than that!

I’d stick with the Intel Core i5-10400, and honestly—as far as GPUs go—it really just comes down to how much you're willing to shell out. In my humble opinion, if you grab an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 for around two thousand bucks, you're looking at a massive jump from that old GTX 1060—like, almost double the performance! Plus, that setup should keep you going for a few more years easily.

Besides, with mid-range cards, you can always play around with the graphics settings and details in your games. There are tons of websites out there suggesting which specific settings you can dial back to get a decent boost in frames without really losing any visual quality.

I personally play Madison Square Garden on an Intel Core i5-10400 and a GTX 1060 at a pretty steady 60 FPS. Before I even started playing, I made sure to follow those online guides—there are so many of them anyway—so I don't waste energy stressing over how the game "might" look on ultra settings.

With an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, you can tweak the details just a little... and then you'll be cruising past 100 frames without a single worry.

Radeon RX 6600 is basically a steal for $666.

Edit...
Looks like I'm seeing some chatter about this on another thread already, so maybe I'm just late to the party!🙂

Lawrence Garcia89 said:The sale on the GPU was such a mess—everything sold out before the deals even officially kicked off!

Hehe..
Was it the 6800XT?
Or maybe a 6600XT or a 6650XT...

Those prices were great... well, they *were* great. 😁

I guess it’s pretty decent for the setup from $1667.
The next tier of cards would probably top out around $1000.
The 6600 is honestly a super solid card if you're just sticking to 1080p gaming.

I’d say just hang tight until the start of next year when those mid-range 4000 and 7000 series hit the market. Prices for the current lineups should probably drop around then, I guess.

urbanheron4 said:I think you’re totally fine if that resolution, size, and curved screen is what you’re after! I mean, gaming isn't really what a Mac was built for—it might struggle a bit because of the lower refresh rate—but for work stuff or just watching movies? It should be absolutely perfect. Plus, Dell usually puts out really solid picture quality.
Just maybe try hooking it up via a USB-C (Thunderbolt) cable if you can, just to get that extra bandwidth. Though, honestly, even DisplayPort should probably do the trick. I'm not entirely sure which DP version is baked into that MacBook Pro, or how it handles mirroring versus an extended desktop setup.

It really all comes down to what kind of games you're into. The big win with this monitor is definitely the high refresh rate and response time, which is awesome for those competitive shooters or fast-paced stuff. But, like you mentioned, 1080p on a 27-inch screen is... well, it's pushing it a little. And I feel like the brightness might be a tad low, too.
If you're more into strategy games, adventures, or anything that isn't super twitchy, it might actually make more sense to go for 1440p with a lower refresh rate. You'd probably have to shell out a bit more, though.

The silver lining here is having a pretty deep desk and my eyesight being kind of wonky😁
I'm definitely a "budget camper" when it comes to gaming. I'm sticking with 1080p (actually just ordered my monitor today!) just so it lasts me until my next big upgrade—but hey, that’s a problem for future me. Hopefully, it'll be big enough that he can earn some cash over the holidays and finally grab a real PC.

Sam Diaz2 said:If we're looking at parts—brand new—the R5 3600 is actually $100 cheaper than the R5-5600. Honestly, if you want the ultimate upgrade, you'd probably go for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Over in Germany right now, the AM4 platform is basically king—it's selling way more than LGA 1700 and s1200 combined! For a GPU in that price range, I'd say look at the RX 6650 XT.

The monitor seems solid. At that price point, I don't know if you can really find anything better.

Thanks for the reply! I think I'm still gonna end up going with the 5600 anyway.😁
I'll grab the monitor too.
As for the GPU... I guess I'll just let that wait a little longer...

urbanheron4 said:Yeah, Nvidia really messed up this new lineup. Intel isn't even that bad—but yeah, they've only released the top-tier cards so far.
The whole idea is that they should be hitting something more like a 4060 instead of a 2080. Performance-wise, they ought to be pretty much equal... and hopefully, they'll pull less than 200W. Maybe? Or hey, maybe just wait and see what Intel's mid-range looks like when it finally drops.

Exactly! That sounds like a solid plan to me.👍

Honestly, I think I’m just gonna hold out for the next generation of mid-range cards coming next year. They'll probably have better performance and—fingers crossed—better power efficiency too.
My power supply isn't exactly in its prime anymore, so while it might technically work, I'd definitely recommend stepping up to something beefier.

Maybe some mid-range card from Intel... maybe the upcoming 7600 or something?
I'll just hang tight for a bit and keep an eye on how the market shakes out. Honestly, watching the tech trends is almost as much fun as actually gaming!🤣

Every time I finally pull the trigger on a purchase, it feels like the hype just dies down immediately.

A Corsair RM550... man, that might be cutting it a little too close, don't you think?

Lawrence Phillips said:Since I'm waiting for those mid-range cards to drop next year, I figured I’d jump in here and ask for some advice on the best upgrade path.

Current setup:
CPU - Intel Core i3-8100
GPU - GTX 1060

Future plans:
CPU - Intel Core i5-11400 (ordering it this week!)
GPU - I think I'll wait a bit longer—using this time to basically lose my mind watching YouTube reviews and trying to figure out the best option without going totally overboard.

I play at 1080P on a 144 Hz monitor. Honestly, the more I read, the more confused I get!
I'm looking for that sweet spot where the CPU and GPU are balanced so I'm not just throwing money away. As the Frames Per Second go up, the load shifts from the GPU to the CPU, which leads to that whole bottleneck thing. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that for 1080P, there's no point in buying a monster card because the CPU will just cap the performance anyway. I get that bottlenecks happen at high frame rates and it doesn't really ruin the experience, but since I'm just a casual player—and I actually handed my main rig over to my son who mostly plays Minecraft—I don't want to waste cash.🙄

My gut tells me I shouldn't aim for anything beefier than an
RTX 3060
RTX 3060
RTX 3060

or maybe even a used 5700 XT.

Basically, I just want to roughly "double" my current Frames Per Second compared to what the GTX 1060 is doing now.

Does it make sense to wait for the last round of mid-range cards from Nvidia and Intel?
The market is getting flooded with used cards, and prices seem to be dropping.

I'm in no rush, though. The GTX 1060 still holds its own if I tweak the settings down a bit.

Anyone got any smart suggestions?

Update on this!
A friend offered me a 2080 for $200. She barely ever used it for gaming.

First, I gotta check my power supply. I swapped it a while back... can't quite remember what I picked.

What do you guys think about that? That card might actually be way too much for my CPU at 1080p.

Is the deal decent?
It doesn't have a warranty.

Edit.
The CPU is sitting at like 2% theoretical bottleneck with it.
So, it should be perfect.

The real question is... is the price right?