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I really want to upgrade my GPU. Currently I have an RTX 2060 6GB that has served me well for the past 5 years. I’m not planning on going to 4K or even 1440p just yet, mainly because I want to budget. I’m giving myself around a $300 allowance to spend on a GPU, and hopefully I can get one by the end of the year.

I’ve always been an Nvidia guy, but I’m starting to lean towards AMD for my next card. Nvidia cards are great, but they have gotten too expensive, perhaps because they are going all in on AI and Ray Tracing components. I personally don’t care too much for processing AI workloads on my computer, and I sure as hell don’t give a crap about ray tracing. AMD cards tend to offer more powerful rasterization at better prices, but lag behinds on AI and RT.

So far my contenders are the RX 6750 XT and the RX 7700 XT. Current street prices for the 6750 XT are around $300, the 7700 XT is closer to $400, however there have been a few deals for the 7700 at around $350. The 7700 XT overall is stronger, but according to Toms Hardware, only averages around 15% performance increase average across 18 games tested at 1080p Ultra settings. But if I’m thinking of longevity, keeping this card for at least 2-3 years, that extra performance may be worth the money. Surely when the big end of the year sales come around, I could easily nab a 7700 XT for around $350.

So many decisions and things to think about! I just want to play my games without stuttering and ultra smooth FPS!
 
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Is the rest of your PC also 5y old? Might be no harm to make a thread with your PC specs so our experts can advise re any other potential issues, eg power supply.
Just about! RAM, Mobo, PSU, and one of my SSDs are all from the original build. I forgot what specific GPU I started with, but only a few months after finishing the build I picked up the RTX 2060. Only other changes besides new SSDs is going from the Ryzen 1600X to a Ryzen 5700X.

I’m going to hold off on starting a new thread until I consider upgrading more seriously. Right now I’m just dreaming essentially :ROFLMAO:
 
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But if I’m thinking of longevity, keeping this card for at least 2-3 years, that extra performance may be worth the money. Surely when the big end of the year sales come around, I could easily nab a 7700 XT for around $350.
which one for 2-3 years? the new one or the one you have now? It should easily last 3 years... most of mine last that long,

7700xt about 50% better than a 2060 and 40% better than a 2060 Super

ram difference is slightly more important these days, 6gb to 12gb. One won't run out of resources as fast.
7700XT uses more power but its price/performance rating is still higher than the 2060

this is 4k as no one tests in 1080 like this anymore

I went from a 2070 Super to a 7900XT, that was noticeable jump if only to allow GPU to exceed refresh rate of my monitor meaning I always get 144 unless its a hard to drive game or it had RT.
it was 131% faster than a 2070 Super though.


use this to show us what you have when you ready to post
 
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which one for 2-3 years? the new one or the one you have now? It should easily last 3 years... most of mine last that long,
The new card. I’ve had my RTX 2060 for 5 years now, got it at the beginning of 2019. Currently the only major upgrade I’m thinking of doing is getting a new GPU that can last me at least 2-3 years until I can do a full system upgrade. I’m still on AM4 now, would like to upgrade to AM5 in the future and take advantage of all the new tech, but I think stuff like that is still quite expensive, especially AM5 mobos and DDR5 RAM. Not many good budget options in that space just yet.
ram difference is slightly more important these days, 6gb to 12gb. One won't run out of resources as fast.
7700XT uses more power but its price/performance rating is still higher than the 2060
VRAM is increasingly a big concern to me. I’ve been running into issues on some newer games where the raw performance of my GPU seems to be able to handle a game but it runs out of VRAM, causing me to lower settings. I’ve noticed this most recently in Kunitsu-Gami, my VRAM was exceeding its limit and the game was crashing. Once I set textures to Low, it ran fine but looked like garbage. Have had similar issues in a few other games too.

I’ll also have to make sure my PSU will support a new card. No idea how to test it, gonna have to research that. I have a 600W Gold PSU, but don’t know how much of it im using currently.
 
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I’ll also have to make sure my PSU will support a new card. No idea how to test it, gonna have to research that. I have a 600W Gold PSU, but don’t know how much of it im using currently.
Make/Model of PSU you have might be good to know. 7700XT seems to only need 550w (but models can vary. If they have rgb might need more)
I used those myself to work out what I needed for this GPU

I would hope a 7700xt can easily last 3 years.

Seasonic shows I only need a 700. thats funny, as 18 months ago it suggested an 850, I just grabbed a 1k to be safe. Now I have spare I don't use. Yay... and a spare PSU as well.
 
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Headphones
From what i can tell, this is mostly people finding Apple headphones online for really nice prices just to find they bought fakes

I am not in market for Apple headphones anyway. Fashion items more then music devices.
If you in the US, buy from here... they won't sell you fakes, and have a 365 day return policy... wish they were international shipping with that


USBs and External Hard Drives
don't need to tell me :)

Really, it depends who you trust. I am careful with who I choose as a retailer. Up until recently I wouldn't even use Amazon, it depends on the seller there.
 
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this is a fun problem

At startup, one of my AIO fans stops working (in that it stop spinning) after windows has taken control of the fans (so its fine while BIOS has control) and after staying still a short time, starts spinning and is fine for rest of the day. Even if I restart PC, it is fine.

Now I am not asking for help (or I would have posted this as a question). Since it happens after windows starts, its probably the fan control software I use. It only started doing this last Saturday and the program updated on Friday.

What I can do is disable the program from controlling AIO fans on one shutdown and see if it still happens on restart. I expect it won't.

AS1ByF1.jpeg

just flicking green switch next to AIO disables program from controlling it. Lets BIOS run it.

I need the program as I don't need the AIO fans running full speed all the time. Also controls my case fans. Might need to uninstall it and reinstall again. Been meaning to do that anyway as its only program left on my hdd.

Doesn't help it lacks an uninstaller. All I need to do is delete a setting in task scheduler and then delete folder. Not doing that at 3.30am, I have self imposed rules regarding doing anything on PC after 12am. Not wanting to be up all night and all.
 
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I think its the fan now which is an unneeded expense right now, but only costs $25 so its not a big issue.

Since I remembered to disable fan on shutdown, it showed me today its not cause of the fans behaviour. Fan seems okay in BIOS but as soon as windows has control the top fan starts to slow down, and become noisy.

I enabled and disabled the software a few times and it eventually stopped fan, and restarted it... and its back to normal now... until tomorrow.

PC was meant to be trouble free this year. Fan itself is only 10 months old.
 
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That reminds me I should give Fan Control a go again. When I moved to AMD from Intel it stopped recognizing my fans properly, been a few years now so I guess they have had time to update it. It was better than the Asus and Gigabyte motherboard software Ive used, when it worked.

Its weird to me how limited fan control software options are or were, there was Speedfan which I always found awful, then Fan Control came along, and the manufacturer made stuff, otherwise youre stuck messing in BIOS.

Havent looked into it for a bit, probably should.
 
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I used speedfan until I swapped to Ryzen. It has no idea about sensors on my motherboard since it stopped being updated in 2016.
Fan control offers way more control. I need to use it for my top 2 chassis fans as if I let them run at the same speeds I get a weird noise that took a few weeks to figure out. Long before this video showed I wasn't mad.


Also, the AIO pump is matched to 40% fan speed. I have set it up in fan control so slowest fans go is 40% so that pump always at 100%
 

Video causes more questions than it answers, for me.
  1. Who sells used USB drives?
  2. Who buys them?

Why? I must be the complete opposite of others, I don't sell anything I buy, and I wouldn't buy used storage as you don't know what is (perhaps hidden) on it - could be virus or one of those USB that kills what ever its put into, and you don't know if its actually the size it says it is, or if it will even work.

New USB drives are cheap, why buy used.

Same applies for any storage really. Its potential life span is unknown when you buy used. My data is worth more to me than to use just anything.
 
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