Which GPU to pick?

[mike0z]

Hello, I'm gonna keep this short and to the point.
I bought a pc last year, picked all the parts myself but I didn't buy a GPU at the time.

CPU - 12600K
MOBO - Z790 UD
RAM - 2x8 DDR5 Kingston Fury
PSU - Corsair RM805x 850W
CASE - Fractal Design Focus 2 Black Solid ATX

I want to play 1440p, ideally 80+ fps on high settings, as an example Cyberpunk 2077, which I want to build my pc around. I don't think I'll play much more intensive games than that.

My budget for a GPU is 400-550 ish dollars. However some gpu's do not sell at the same price in every country, for example in the US I see a new 4070 for 550$, where as here where I live in eastern europe its like 700$+. Of course that doesn't mean a person can't dig deeper and find better prices.

My question:
Which card do you think is best to pair with the 12600k, if the user is going to be playing at 1440p, ultra settings or at least high, with a minimum of 60-80 fps ultra, ~100+ fps on high in CYBERPUNK 2077.

Some prices which I found through digging which I liked are the following
RTX 4070 AERO OC 12G GDDR6X - ~640 USD
Gigabyte Gaming OC RX 7700 XT, 12GB, GDDR6 - ~480 USD
XFX Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB Speedster QICK 319 - ~660 USD


I am personally leaning onto the 4070, its from a 3rd party reseller but he says its new.
What does an NVIDIA card have that and AMD card does not have?
I've heard of the obvious software benefits as in Ray Tracing, DLSS and I've heard something about a codec.
I've watched a lot of videos with these 3 cards in cyberpunk but can't exactly find a video with my processor and the rx 7700xt, which I doubt makes a difference in the performance but still...

What benefits are there to picking one of these or maybe some other card I missed?
It says the 7800XT has a bigger bus size... does that play a factor?
Its said that the 4070 is GDDR6X, does that play a factor?
Knowing how all of these things work technically would be beneficial for me, haven't done all my homework, but I know that sometimes trends, brands and generations matter more and I have had trouble comparing processors of the same clock speeds, in which situations you go off of their architecture release date...
I've never known anything about GPU's but I spend 2 hours trying to figure this out but still can't, maybe I'm not searching for the right stuff but a lot of people are talking about "if you play cyberpunk get nvidia for the ray tracing" meanwhile someone says "amd does good ray tracing in cyberpunk as well" and I just wanted to come here and ask.
Ideally I want a card that is just safe for the future, that I don't have to change for some time
I know VRAM is important but the bus width vs GDDR6X thing and other specs confuse me.
Sorry for rambling, thank you for reading.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

RTX 4070 is best option from those imho. It has about same performance as RX 7800 XT but with added benefit of better ray tracying performance and DLSS support.
RX 7700 XT is too weak gutted version of 7800 XT and should be $100 cheaper for what you get.

[mike0z]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Rumpelcrutchskin:

RTX 4070 is best option from those imho. It has about same performance as RX 7800 XT but with added benefit of better ray tracying performance and DLSS support.
RX 7700 XT is too weak gutted version of 7800 XT and should be $100 cheaper for what you get.

Thank you.
Can I also ask - does it matter what brand it is? For future reference and also this one.
I hear some companies overclock their cards and thats why the price can be higher. Thus my case "Aero OC". However, does this overclock really matter? Does it shorten the lifespan of the card, is it an "overclock" in the traditional sense with CPU's? And what about the brand? I have had this question for a long time but never got to asking it, what makes brands like ASrock and others cheaper? Do you differentiate between different brands but also different lines like a normal gigabyte card vs gigabyte gaming or Aorus in this case. Are they just price classes?

[r.linder]

RTX 4070 is the best of those three

[Illusion of Progress]

If your budget can fit it, get the RTX 4070. The RTX 4060/Ti are not going to be good 1440p ultra cards. The 7800 XT (and even 7700 XT) would do well at 1440p, but if you want to play a game with ray tracing, get the RTX 4070.

The RTX 4070 and 7800 XT have similar performance (latter is a bit faster and falls more between the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Super) in rasterization, but the RTX 4070 has better ray tracing performance. Typically the 7800 XT would cost a bit less, and has more VRAM, so you'd pick it if you don't care about ray tracing performance.

The codec thing you'd have to elaborate on, but I'm going to hazard a guess it's "HEVC is better on nVidia" parroting from years ago. AV1 is preferable anyway (IMO), and AMD does that, and it does it well right in the drivers. No need for GeForce Experience or OBS plus Handbrake or any of that fluff for extra, but once the nVidia App is out of beta it should do it in the "drivers" too.

GDDR6X is simply faster than GDDR6, but the RTX 4070 has a lower bus width. These are two values that impact memory bandwidth, and the RTX 4070 has less. It still almost matches the 7800 XT despite this deficit however, so I don't see the point of ignoring end performance by focusing on one of the many variables that make it up. You can speculate the 7800 XT might age better at higher resolutions due to its bus width and VRAM but that's only speculation right now (though the RTX 3080 pulls more ahead at high resolutions when its not VRAM constrained so that's... sort of a hint that might happen). But since you need ray tracing performance today, I wouldn't trade that off over a "maybe".

Go with the RTX 4070, and that's coming from someone with the 7800 XT. It's great, but I wouldn't recommend it for "I want ray tracing" situations.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez mike0z:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Rumpelcrutchskin:

RTX 4070 is best option from those imho. It has about same performance as RX 7800 XT but with added benefit of better ray tracying performance and DLSS support.
RX 7700 XT is too weak gutted version of 7800 XT and should be $100 cheaper for what you get.

Thank you.
Can I also ask - does it matter what brand it is? For future reference and also this one.
I hear some companies overclock their cards and thats why the price can be higher. Thus my case "Aero OC". However, does this overclock really matter? Does it shorten the lifespan of the card, is it an "overclock" in the traditional sense with CPU's? And what about the brand? I have had this question for a long time but never got to asking it, what makes brands like ASrock and others cheaper? Do you differentiate between different brands but also different lines like a normal gigabyte card vs gigabyte gaming or Aorus in this case. Are they just price classes?

Gigabyte Aero is just white version of their three-fan RTX 4070 card. Factory overclocks doesn`t mean that much since they are not that big deal being very minimal performance gain.
Seems to be decent enough card without much complaints about it.
One thing though is that it uses 12+4 pin PCIe plug instead of regular 6+2 pin like most 2-fan versions of RTX 4070 so if your PSU doesn`t have that you would need to use adapter coming with the card and they can be kinda finicky if you bend them too much at hard angles.
All the RTX 4070 Super versions use them as well.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

RTX 4070 is fairly trash compared to 4070 Super or Ti Super
I don't think they even make 4070 non-Super anymore. If you seeing these online, they are old stock.

[mike0z]

Thank you all for the responses. I do favor the 4070 in comparison to the AMD ones. I was just asking about the specs because it seemed interesting, but yes I overall watch the final result, watching a ton of benchmark videos right now.

As for the Aero, I have a RM805x, I am not sure if that will do. I have to look it up soon when I have time.

I am looking for all kind of sales right now and yes probably it is old stock. But I see it in a lot of places, its not archived or anything rare.

I also wanted to say I found a 3070 for 300 bucks. Brand new out of the box. Twice as cheap, but does it provide half the performance to the 640$ cards? I am not sure, I am watching benchmarks right now.
It seems only the 4k series have DLSS 3, which I am unsure if thats a huge plus.

With the 3070 now in comparison, I am unsure which to choose. I am tight on the budget and on first thought my plan to play Cyberpunk 2077 on 1440p ULTRA with ~70+ fps is a bit delusional. Considering my options right now and the 3070 paired with the 12600k seems to provide a solid 60 fps without ray tracing and dlss. I imagine if you do ray tracing you will have to put dlss on performance.

I'm going to continue looking for cards tomorrow to see, because even if the 3070 is an old stock card not sold many places (dunno if thats the case) or even if its normal price is around 300 dollars and it has always been the case, thats just not the case in my country. In comparison a 300$ non sale card here would be something like a 6700XT if you are lucky or 4060 ti. I imagine the 3070 outperforms them.

Otherwise my mind is on the 4070. What do you think? Finding the 4070 was a breeze, because the price here otherwise can get up to 800$. Now with 3070 the lowest price I see is around 550-600+ dollars.
Pretty interesting, makes no sense but it is what it is. I'm going to watch more benchmarks tomorrow and see whats up, maybe find a better sale.

What do u guys think about the 3070 in this context and 1440p ULTRA 60fps goal in a heavy game like Cyberpunk?

[Soulreaver]

In my opinion there are 2 problems with the 3070.

8GB Vram and no Nvidia Frame-Gen.

Straight up you got to ask yourself are you okay to fiddle around with your graphics settings or not. You can get by with a 3070 but you will get performance and memory limitations with every major game of the last 2 years. If you want to hit those fps numbers you must be willing to adjust. There are also mods for games that only support Nvidia Frame Gen so you can instead apply AMD Frame Gen.

You definetly will get along with a 3070 but everything will need a few extra steps and the endresult obviously won't look as good as it would with the 4070.

The 4070 will mostly be just plug and play.

In my instance I also decided to go for the less powerfull option. I found an awesome deal for my 4080 so the 4090 would have been double the price. So I took the 4080.

Maybe that helps with the decision.

[mtono]

i think it is always the same: if you have the money, go for the biggest gpu you can get/afford. in this case rtx 4070.
my2ct

[Agent]

Why not just get the 4070 Super. Aren't those out now?

[SlowClick]

Just as an example - I have a 13500 with a 3070 and a 60Hz 4K monitor. The 3 games I play mostly all get 60FPS on 4K at Ultra or nearly Ultra settings: Metro Exodus Enhanced (has RT) , Snowrunner (no RT but does Ultra comfortably) and likewise Death Stranding. Don't know if this helps ...
In these games the CPU idles at about 20% and the GPU is about 75%. Because of my 60Hz monitor I don't need a stronger GPU.

[emoticorpse]

Początkowo opublikowane przez mike0z:

Thank you all for the responses. I do favor the 4070 in comparison to the AMD ones. I was just asking about the specs because it seemed interesting, but yes I overall watch the final result, watching a ton of benchmark videos right now.

As for the Aero, I have a RM805x, I am not sure if that will do. I have to look it up soon when I have time.

I am looking for all kind of sales right now and yes probably it is old stock. But I see it in a lot of places, its not archived or anything rare.

I also wanted to say I found a 3070 for 300 bucks. Brand new out of the box. Twice as cheap, but does it provide half the performance to the 640$ cards? I am not sure, I am watching benchmarks right now.
It seems only the 4k series have DLSS 3, which I am unsure if thats a huge plus.

With the 3070 now in comparison, I am unsure which to choose. I am tight on the budget and on first thought my plan to play Cyberpunk 2077 on 1440p ULTRA with ~70+ fps is a bit delusional. Considering my options right now and the 3070 paired with the 12600k seems to provide a solid 60 fps without ray tracing and dlss. I imagine if you do ray tracing you will have to put dlss on performance.

I'm going to continue looking for cards tomorrow to see, because even if the 3070 is an old stock card not sold many places (dunno if thats the case) or even if its normal price is around 300 dollars and it has always been the case, thats just not the case in my country. In comparison a 300$ non sale card here would be something like a 6700XT if you are lucky or 4060 ti. I imagine the 3070 outperforms them.

Otherwise my mind is on the 4070. What do you think? Finding the 4070 was a breeze, because the price here otherwise can get up to 800$. Now with 3070 the lowest price I see is around 550-600+ dollars.
Pretty interesting, makes no sense but it is what it is. I'm going to watch more benchmarks tomorrow and see whats up, maybe find a better sale.

What do u guys think about the 3070 in this context and 1440p ULTRA 60fps goal in a heavy game like Cyberpunk?

I suggest a 4070 based gpu (more specifically the original). But that soggestion is based on the prices I remember when I got that one. If the other ones at this point are a better deal where you shop, them get one of those instead.

I have a 750 watt psu with a 7900 (non-x) and 4070 based system and I'm doing perfectly fine although I rarely run this thing to stress test type conditions.

[mike0z]

I do agree that the 3070 being 1 gen back does pose a threat.
I have a 165 hz monitor but I can gladly adjust to 60-80 fps on specific games.
I am not sure about 4070 super prices, but as I said I am just scavenging for cheap solutions.

Funnily enough today I see a reseller selling a "MSI 4070 ti ventus 3x E 12G OC"
For ~700 dollars. But it gets better - the picture he shows is of a box of a 4070 ti super 3x E. So quite interesting. I am not sure what the ventus 3x E means, I know what the super means.
The usual price is ~900 bucks, wondering if a drop to 700 is worth it . Then of course have to deal with the resellerz because the box shows a super, but the title is a non super 12Gb.

4070 vs 4070 ti vs 4070 ti super. Not sure if the jump is worth it but of course a 100 dollar jump to a ti super , seems unreal. Guy says it's brand new, but I wonder if he made a mistake in the title or he is lying.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

4070 Ti Super is very good card for 1440p, more VRAM then earlier Ti version and plenty of performance for 1440p. If it`s not a scam of course.

[Soulreaver]

Początkowo opublikowane przez mike0z:

I do agree that the 3070 being 1 gen back does pose a threat.
I have a 165 hz monitor but I can gladly adjust to 60-80 fps on specific games.
I am not sure about 4070 super prices, but as I said I am just scavenging for cheap solutions.

Funnily enough today I see a reseller selling a "MSI 4070 ti ventus 3x E 12G OC"
For ~700 dollars. But it gets better - the picture he shows is of a box of a 4070 ti super 3x E. So quite interesting. I am not sure what the ventus 3x E means, I know what the super means.
The usual price is ~900 bucks, wondering if a drop to 700 is worth it . Then of course have to deal with the resellerz because the box shows a super, but the title is a non super 12Gb.

4070 vs 4070 ti vs 4070 ti super. Not sure if the jump is worth it but of course a 100 dollar jump to a ti super , seems unreal. Guy says it's brand new, but I wonder if he made a mistake in the title or he is lying.

can you provide a link?
A 4070 ti super for 700 would definetly be the best deal you posted yet.