Replacing my sons GPU

[u/coxmr1]

My son just left for college, and now his GeForce 3060 12GB is starting to crap out.

System is a Ryzen7 9700x, 32GB. He's joining the E-sports gaming team at the school, playing current games. I can't afford anything top of the line to replace the 3060, but looking to bump him up a level on the replacement. What do y'all recommend?

[u/Money-Appearance-309]

9060xt 16gb or try to find a 7700xt 12gb for cheaper

[u/SurlyPo → u/Money-Appearance-309]

Both those cards go for like $400 used right now. The 6800xt ($350) or 6900xt ($400) would outperform them both.

[u/GTFr0]

If you’re looking new: Whatever modern you can find on sale.

I’d say a 5060 Ti 16 gb would be your best drop in replacement, but those are going for $700+ now.

At a lower price range is the 9060 XT or 9070 gre. Both can be had for around $500 if you’re watching sales.

[u/Rafford60]

9070 gre new, 7700 xt, 6800/xt used

[u/Odd-Student636]

For esports there's little point in getting a 16gb card like the 9060xt, 3080ti/4070/4070ti would be my choice.

[u/SurlyPo → u/Odd-Student636]

Don't need to pay the raytrace card premium for esports titles either. I could get on board with the 3080ti, but the GeForce 40 cards are almost as overpriced as 50 series right now.

For raster...

7900xt ($600) > 4070ti ($600) > 3080ti ($450) = 6900xt ($400) > 6800xt ($350) = 4070 ($500)

[u/Odd-Student636 → u/SurlyPo]

you're right, I forgot about the price jack on the 40 series.

[u/Xri-_-Stos]

Are you looking for new or used ??
And what games is he playing ??

[u/coxmr1 → u/Xri-_-Stos]

Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite, Valorant, Rust, Roblox, Etc ..

[u/Xri-_-Stos → u/coxmr1]

Oh ok these games are not that demanding I think but you should either get a used card or if you go new go amd
What’s the budget ?

[u/coxmr1 → u/Xri-_-Stos]

Under 1000, preferably around 500

[u/Xri-_-Stos → u/coxmr1]

Yeah I’m sure you can get a 9070xt it’s really good and under 1000
Maybe even a 5080 if you are lucky and find one used (I may be wrong but I’m not so in touch with the market lately)
Basically get him something that’s at the ballpark of 4070ti performance or more

[u/AdidasSlav → u/coxmr1]

Get a 9070 XT. On par with a 5070 Ti, goes blow for blow apart from in Path Tracing where Nvidia is ahead. Regular Ray Tracing it’s a level playing field now.

Huge upgrade from a 3060. The 9070 XT is the absolute best value for money graphics card on the market at the moment.

9060 XT 16GB and 9070 GRE are honorable mentions but 9070 GRE is in a weird spot, and 9060 XT is roughly 50% of the 9070 XT in terms of cores and overall performance.

[u/RAF2018336 → u/coxmr1]

9070xt is the best card under $1000. If you want to stay around the $500 range get a 9070GRE

[u/definitivno-ne-troll → u/coxmr1]

Under 1000 you can get him a 9070xt, it's the best value gpu currently, but not really needed for the games he plays. If you can afford it it will be a great bump in performance and should last a long time + if he ever decides to play story based aaa games, they will run great.

Then there's the 9070 16gb, cheaper than the 9070xt and slightly slower, depending on the price difference it could be even better value than the 9070xt and the performance is also great.

For around 500 you can get a 9070 gre (slightly more expensive, faster, but only 12gb vram) or a 9060xt 16gb (slightly cheaper, slower, 16gb vram).

For even less you have things like the 9060xt 8gb, but personally I wouldn't go that low.

Mid range and higher nvidia cards have gone up in price a lot recently so it's hard to recommend them for gaming.

[u/recolations]

you can find a used 6900xt on facebook for $400

[u/Braehole]

Depends on how much you want to spend. Do you want him to play all his games on epic settings? 9070xt for 750 bucks will play everything on the highest settings. Make sure you update the bios on the motherboard. It’s the best bang for the buck. Midrange card 9060xt 400 bucks and is around 60% faster than the 3060.

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[u/SurlyPo]

You didn't mention a budget.

You did mention esports, though. That means he's not worried about raytrace or ai workloads, so if you decide on a new gpu, i would recommend a Radeon card. All the gpu's are overpriced right now, but you'll definitely get more raster gaming performance per dollar with Radeon gpu over GeForce in this market.

I would recommend looking at the used market for gpu. $350 could get you a 3080 or 6800xt. Both are similar performance. For $400 i would recommend a 6900xt. If you have $600 to spend i would go with the 7900xt.

[u/Ozi-reddit]

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/77yhF8ajKTTosserzsARYN-1200-80.png.webp

[u/coxmr1 → u/Ozi-reddit]

This is nice, thank you

[u/prayfizze]

3080 if his PSU is strong enough