GPU for my needs [GUIDE]

What do you play?

Depending on your gaming needs, there is a wide variety of options to choose from (Nvidia, AMD, Intel)

For the sake of simplifying the purchasing process we will focus on the "Medium" price range i.e. 300 - 400 EUR as it has the most abundant options to choose from.

Most of the midrange GPU users play games from the last 5-7 years and casually try new games on low-medium settings such as Cyberpunk, Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil and etc.

Nvidia's RTX 3060 12Gb and AMDs 6700 XT (6750 XT) are the ones to scratch that itch, and we will talk about them in more detail.

What about the rest of my PC?

This lovely website Engpassrechner | PC Builds (pc-builds.com) will show you your bottleneck, a term in gaming that means if the components of your computer, such as CPU and GPU are working at their fullest potential.

Any bottlenecking under 5% is considered OK. So make sure that the GPU you are about to purchase will be utilized to its full potential in your current system!

Just enter your model of the CPU and the GPU into the website, choose the resolution you are willing to play and run the macro!

Your target resolution

If you decide to go for the TOP line of videocards (+1000 EUR) such as RTX 4080 and AMD 7900, but your monitor has a resolution of 1920x1080 or even worse! has a refresh rate of 75 herz, that will be a complete waste of money!

If you have a normal computer monitor just like the one at work, then perhaps you might be interested in upgrading your monitor to a higher resolution. I advise you to look for WQHD aka 2K/2560x1440 pixels.

All of the modern games support this resolution, the smoothness and the quality is completely incomparable to what we are all using at work, home or anywhere else.

You can buy a decent 2K monitor for ~200 EUR by looking up on https://geizhals.at/ or get a used one from Willhaben. I also recommend the https://rtings.com/ where they publish unbiased opinions on various electronics depending on their price.

If you are willing to spend 300-500 EUR on a GPU, I ABSOLUTELY recommend to get a 2K monitor. And if you decide to get it, you will see that they will offer a variety of refresh rates. Typically ranging from 120Hz to 240Hz. This is important (!) because of whatever you decide to play, the quality and smoothness will be depending of how good is your Videocard. So for ex. if you play Overwatch 2 where the FPS (frames per second) can go above 600, you will only be able too "see" 120 or 240 of these frames depending on what your monitor refresh rate is able to support. Currently, I am playing on a 2K resolution monitor with 165Hz refresh rate with an RTX 3060 and am able to comfortably enjoy 100+ FPS on low/medium graphic settings in almost any game, provided its not a AAA title. In those I will probably be pushing the FPS limit to 60-70 on a good day, which is plenty for my needs and the budget.

Here is a table of all latest GPUs ordered by from cheapest to most expensive and their performance per money spent in the 2K resolution.

You can see that the highest performers with the cheapest prices are AMD and Intel videocards (6650XT, 6600, A750 and A770-8Gb respectively). This means that for their "lower" price and performance in 2K resolution they provide the best return on your investment. The reason why I recommend you the Nvidia RTX 3060 and AMD 6700 XT (or 6750 XT) is because their availability on the market and specifically Nvidia's DLSS technology which allows them to be the best GPU producers in the world. Intel is a relatively new player on the market and is too risky to be considered as of today. 

The picture is taken from Graphics Card Market Overview May 2023 (Page 2) | 3DCenter.org (also a great website for GPU news and rumours)

How much to spend?

You can go to willhaben right now and get a great product for the next couple of years for as little as 300 EUR for a RTX 3060 12Gb (make sure to get the 12Gb version) or the slightly stronger 6700 XT from AMD for the same price.

As of writing of this article (May 3rd '23) according to geizhals.at, a new 3060 12Gb costs 340 EUR which is even better! 

If you can choose between Nvidia and AMD, i would advise on the first just because of the DLSS technology.