Is a 3060 12gb to a 5060ti 8gb a considerable upgrade?

Posted by iceseayoupee@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 59 comments

For context:

I have an i7 9700, b360m mortar, 32gb 2666mhz, and 650 watt psu.

As of now my 3060 12gb is playing my games but I have always thought of upgrading this card to a newer one, so I wont have to upgrade a new card in the future.

Key notes to know is that Im absolutely positive that Im not gonna switch to 1440p anytime soon. Maybe in 1-2 years or so.

So, I have made the decision to upgrade to a 5060ti 8gb because its better in price and can actually play some of the games I want at a decent framerate but some of friends are kinda bashing and telling me that I'll need the VRAM in the future.

Is it a considerable upgrade given my specs? or no

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NohFyoochur@reddit

I did 3060 to 5060 Ti 16 GB. It was ok. Bare minimum I would consider being worth it. Would not go below 12 GB VRAM though. Lot of games using more than 8 now. I would only consider it if I almost exclusively did games like esports that i knew needed less than 8 GB.

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Stoneward13@reddit

I don't want to make a whole other post just to ask my question, as it is very similar.

I have a 3060 Ti right now, and I'm looking at a 5070 Ti for an upgrade... but the price difference between a regular 5070 and 5070 Ti is pretty big. Should I save up and/or wait for a deal on the 5070 Ti, or just settle for a 5070?

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TinyFluffyRabbit@reddit

The difference between the 5070 and the 5070 Ti is also fairly big. The 5070 Ti has 16gb of VRAM, has 25% more memory bandwidth, and almost a third more CUDA cores. The 5070 Ti is actually closer to the 5080 than the 5070. As for what you should do, it depends on the actual price difference and what games you play.

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Stoneward13@reddit

Yeah, I do play a pretty wide variety of games, some graphically intensive, others less so. I also do a lot of Photoshop and editing, so I'm trying to decide if an i9 is worth it.

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Thanat0skz@reddit

I’m upgrading from 3060 Ti as well to 5070. Ti will always be better if budget allow. For me being able to use FG is night and day in gaming experience and I can enable Ray tracing now. I’m playing at 2k btw.

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roor2@reddit

Yes and no. Just bite the bullet and get off the 60 series and jump to the 70/80

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

I don't have a PSU that has a 12hpwr connector

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XiTzCriZx@reddit

The 12hpwr adapters are safe for most cards, the only one it has an issue with is the 90 class since it draws a crazy amount of power.

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Separate-Ad9638@reddit

5060ti over 3060 isnt a massive upgrade, if u have tight budget ..., well rather get the 5060ti 16gb over the 8gb

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

pcie 3.0 is the limit for my card

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Separate-Ad9638@reddit

5060ti are pcie 5.0 cards, u get a performance hit using pcie 3.0 definitely

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XiTzCriZx@reddit

It's only a limit for pcie 3.0 x8 slots, x16 will still get full performance since it's not passing enough data for the pcie limitations to matter. Iirc the only card it'd actually affect is the 5090.

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Still-Inflation9175@reddit

do not get an 8gb video card. i have the 4060 8gb and its very limiting. always go 16

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jonasrm_21@reddit

Mate don't listen do these people, if your budget allows you to buy a 5060ti 8gb, then buy it. In modern games you can't play on extreme texture or shadows. You can just play them on high settings.

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XiTzCriZx@reddit

In 90% of games high looks nearly identical to the extreme settings anyhow, some are even fine at extreme settings with RT off, though high + RT looks far better than extreme + no RT.

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

These people would thing B580 would be a better card instead because of muh 8gb vram

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XiTzCriZx@reddit

Tbh most people in this sub don't actually understand how graphics cards work, they just see 8gb and lose their minds. At 1080p, you're not gonna have issues with VRAM.

However that's not the issue with the card, the real issue is that it's only about equivalent to a 3070 Ti, which isn't really that big of an upgrade vs a 3060. Are you comfortable buying used? If so a 3080 or 3080 Ti on eBay is around the same price or cheaper than a 5060 Ti while getting better performance.

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Zsotee75@reddit

It is a PCIe 3.0 system. 5060 will work only PCIe 3.0 x 8.

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junu-munu00@reddit

if you want a real upgrade that actually lasts without running out of memory look for a card with at least 12gb or 16gb of vram like the rx 9060 xt or save up a bit more for an rtx 5070. do not downgrade your vram capacity if your goal is longevity.

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5ector@reddit

Pretty much in your situation: friend built his PC n 2023 and got the 3060. I built mine last year and went for 5060ti 8gb. The difference we both had when playing together are quite big, with around 20-30% increase in my favour. Now I installed FH6 and can't run it on all Ultra on 2K because I get the "low on memory" warning/error, but very high + ultra for car details only is manageable with around 100 constant fps (+/-10). In this case the 8gb of VRAM reaches some sort of limit, but it's still decent.

My friend upgraded his GPU to 9070xt last week after researching whether he should to the 5070ti or this one, while ending up with the XT for ~300€ less. Now this is obviously a noticeable upgrade over both GPUs, so take what you need from this :)

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Mr_Henry_Yau@reddit

Considering you're currently stuck with PCIe 3.0, yes for older and/or indie games and no for the latest AAA games.

The 5060 ti 8gb's gaming performance will be crippled whenever it runs out of VRAM due to it being stuck with 8 PCIe lanes instead of 16 and PCIe 3.0 having a significantly lower bandwidth compared to PCIe 5.0.

If you insist on a GPU that has 8gb of VRAM, I suggest getting the RX 9060 XT 8gb instead since it has has 16 PCIe lanes which will somewhat mitigate the issue of being stuck with PCIe 3.0 but I still highly suggest getting the RX 9060 XT 16GB if you can do so since the RX 9060 XT 8gb is still noticeably slower than its 16gb variant whenever a game requires more than 8gb of VRAM.

Let me know if you have any questions.

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AnthonyRespice@reddit

Consider a 4070 12gb.

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Pure_Earth2121@reddit

Same question here but for video editing: does going from 12 to 8 will impact my performance?

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SevenDeMagnus@reddit

depends on your main, no. 1 game, 8GB VRAM maybe a downgrade

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

thats foor sure but is it better to just wait for prices to stabilize? or buy now

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SevenDeMagnus@reddit

Datacenters the main client now for chips and storage (plus the goings on with logistics affecting gas and all prices) is here to stay, prices may sadly not go down for a very long time, unless brands build their own in SoC cram all the systems in there to cut costs (faster and energy efficient too) like what Quallcom and Apple are doing and Intel as well later.

Buy now, if you need it now, time is a wasted gold.

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PogTuber@reddit

I wouldn't buy a 8gb card, no. It'll probably be fine for most of your games but the future isn't looking good for 8gb VRAM

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

You should definetly go for 16gb version regardless of staying on 1080p.

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Games like indiana jones for example literally cant be played on 8 gig cards (mind you it runs great but it uses a ton of vram)

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

You can play it on a 5060

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQMvYPUXoE

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Now yeah, at release it ran into massive issues if you didnt play on low settings and would max out vram and either crash the game or have single digit .1% lows and be unplayable either way

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

that's just an example of a buggy and broken release i don't think a game designed for the ps5 would expect it's pc ports gpu to be so much better

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Except that wasnt the case as game ran great as long as you had a gpu with more than 8 gigs of ram, my rx7800xt ran it at 1440p max settings at 90 fps with fsr on quality

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

right but they fixed it so it wasn't clearly intended

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Not really, from what i gathered they used a solutions and optimizations from doom the dark ages to reduce vram usage, game definetly wasnt broken or buggy at launch but they used tech from other studio to make it run better

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

Makes sense i guess they list 12gb cards as recomended just seems stupid to me couldn't they just compress the textures a bit more

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

This isnt texture compression issue at this point, lighting also takes up vram (with rtx on helluva lot more than textures) and games that use native global ray tracing like indy or doom the dark ages do devour vram for breakfast, they run great mind you but they need gpus with lot of ram

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

Then what does the actual chip do?

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

16gb is out of stock near me, I really cant afford to upgrade once stock goes up again

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

You should consider 9070 16gb, they should be similar in price and 9070 is straight up faster card

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

9070 is about 25% higher in price which is kinda out of my budget

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MarcusAurelius68@reddit

I’d honestly save and wait then. Going from 12GB to 8GB is a mistake.

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

is this advice really worth considering when GPU's prices arent getting better by the day?

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MarcusAurelius68@reddit

I’ve found in the US that GPU prices eased a bit recently - I just picked up a 5060ti with 16GB for $50 less than offered a month ago. Your country might be different though.

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

we have high import costs and have no silicon factories here in my country.

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Hmm, 9060xt is also a very decent option and it will devour anything at 1080p wo you needing to worry about vram

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Puzzleheaded_Mind105@reddit

Like 8 gigs is not enough in any shape or form, many games use more even at 1080p

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Aggressive_Deer_7072@reddit

This sounds nice in theory, but going from 12GB down to 8GB is exactly why people get weird about this upgrade. The performance jump is real, but with a 9700 + 2666MHz RAM I'd be looking at the whole system too. Feels like one of those upgrades where in a year you're side-eyeing the CPU/platform more than the GPU lol.

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

I definitely get you haha, the 9700 is a really old system that can still keep up with the r5 3600 and even the 5600 on some games.

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Jafranci715@reddit

Personally I’d try to pickup a 9060 xt 16gb card if you can. Otherwise yes it’ll be a good upgrade none the less.

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the advice

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Dorennor@reddit

You need more than 8 gigs already. Buy 16 GB version and be fine with it.

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

Bad take 8gb is fine only some extreme cases excede it and even then the raw power alone could compensate for it

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Direct_Jeweler_7457@reddit

8GB VRAM isn't neceserially bad you just lower textures and increase the effects instead

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Scarabesque@reddit

Performance wise it's a very substantial upgrade.

8GB of VRAM isn't ideal considering many games at higher settings (which a 5060ti itself would otherwise perfectly run) already frequently go beyond 8GB. You're effectively buying a card that will run out of VRAM before it'll run out of performance.

I had this issue with a 780ti 3GB, which ran out of VRAM before it ran out of performance, which sucked.

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iceseayoupee@reddit (OP)

Thats actually solid advice, maybe ill think about this more. The 9060xt cost twice the card, and the 16gb is out of stock in my country

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