Question Graphic Card Upgrade Question

[MJJ6129]

Hi Everyone! I am new here!
May I ask all experts here in PC Building if my "ROG STRIX B360-H GAMING Motherboard" is still compatible for an RTX 40 Series GPU?
Or do I need to upgrade as well my motherboard including every components like RAM?

I hope for your feedbacks and advance Thanks!

 

[Shmee]

The motherboard should be compatible, but depending on the card you are looking at, there may be other compatibility issues with your system, such as PSU, case size, etc. What are your current specs and which card are you looking to get?

Also, keep in mind that since we are talking about a platform which is a bit older, you will likely be bottle-necked by the CPU if you get a higher end RTX 4000 such as the 4090 or 4080. Also keep in mind that the GPU itself will likely have reduced performance as your motherboard doesn't support PCIe gen 4.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Hi Everyone! I am new here!
May I ask all experts here in PC Building if my "ROG STRIX B360-H GAMING Motherboard" is still compatible for an RTX 40 Series GPU?
Or do I need to upgrade as well my motherboard including every components like RAM?

I hope for your feedbacks and advance Thanks!

What Exact CPU/memory are you using? If you have decided to spend that kind money on a 4080/4090 I assume you have the money for further upgrades. Get the card put it into your system and see how it runs knowing you might have to upgrade the rest of the system. How much wattage does your PS have? The 4090 needs at least 850w.

 

[MJJ6129]

Hi @Shmee and @jamesdsimone, thank you very much for the feedback.
Yes, I am planning on upgrading everything as well, I just want to let's just say, save money as much as possible and re-use all components I can if still can as long as there is no performance bottlenecking issue, but it seems there is.

My current build...
Processor: Intel Core i5 8400, 2.80GHz
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B360-H Gaming
RAM: 4x Kingston DDR4-2400 (1200MHz)
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Power Supply: forgot the brand but it's around 650W only.

As you can see, I have roughly an 8-year-old build as of now haha.

 

[manly]

What are your objectives? Are there particular games that you're trying to get better performance from?

8 years is kinda stretching it in terms of getting value out of a drop-in GPU upgrade. I'm not saying don't do it, but as mentioned above, your CPU is going to bottleneck better graphics cards. So a good argument can be made that depending on your objectives and needs, you could consider a full new build at some point in time. Whether that time is now, next year or in 2026.

Realistically speaking, there are some GPU upgrades that could squeeze out very good 1080p performance. IMO something like a used GeForce 2070 would make sense; I have no idea what the street price is, just spitballing here. The maximum 40 series card you should consider is a 4070, but you'll certainly be CPU-bottlenecked. The pros with Nvidia 40 series are power efficiency and feature set/popularity. The obvious con is you pay a premium for the brand. Nobody recommends the 4060 because it just has poor value.

But if you somehow stumble upon a used 4060, 3060 Ti, or Radeon RX 6700 XT on Facebook marketplace for well under street value, those would be reasonable choices for your CPU. Any of these (barely) mid-range cards should work within your power budget.

 

[Tech Junky]

Since the GPU tends to be the most expensive single piece of gear these days I would go with whatever you can stomach in terms of price/performance. Obviously it won't run at 100% of its potential in your current system but, it's one huge cost you won't need to deal with again for a few years when you transplant it into a new setup.

FOMO will kick in on every new release anyway since it's always just a few months away in any given scenario. I usually just aim not to pay retail prices on the biggest ticket items if possible. I redo my systems on a typical every other year cycle before I jumped to AMD last fall. Even though AMD is releasing a new CPU end of next month and a new chipset for MOBO end of Sept there's no real anxiety about it since there's no huge tech change associated with either. CPU will drop into the current MOBO's and provide some more speed but, nothing too dramatic and the new mobo chipset only adds 40gbps usb as a mandatory feature to new boards. The port might draw some people into an upgrade or just grab a TB4 card for ~$60 on Amazon in stead like I did a couple of years ago.

Anyway, the AMD rebuild ran me $800 from the ground up for a 7900X / 32GB DDR5 / 850W PSU / etc. and I added an A380 for $100 to handle some media functions that speed up processing and cut the duration of the process to 1/8th the time needed by the CPU only which saves $$$ on the electricity bill. It all adds up since the system is on 24/7 since it acts as the router as well.

Mid tier GPU's shouldn't be too bad though if you just need something that handles the occasional game. There are a tons of options from $100-$250 that would work just fine for most applications. If you want a one and done for the next 10 years then you're looking at the ~$350+ range options with 12-16+ GB of VRAM on them.

 

[Thunder 57]

I don't think I would bother with a 40 series. I'd save some money and get a 3060 Ti *or RX 6700 XT. Even an RX 6600 would be a significant upgrade and probably more appropriate considering the rest of your platform. Pocket the rest and use it towards a new Mobo/memory/CPU later down the line.

Oh, another question that is relevant, what resoultion to do you play at?

* The 6700 XT has 12GB and will age much better than a card with only 8GB. The 6600 is only 8GB but at its price it is justifiable.

 

[Thunder 57]

You might want to think about going the other way around. That i5 8400 is going to bottleneck you in many games. Even a 4060 would be bottlenecked badly IMHO. You could redo the platform now, then see what the next gen of video cards look like or at least get a better price for one than you would now.

Also, 650W for a PSU should be fine as long as you don't plan on going very high end. In reality the quality (brand) of the PSU typically matters more than watts.

 

[Thunder 57]

I just found this nifty little bottlneck caclulator. I'm not sure how accurate it as because I have never used it, but putting some configurations together to test it, it seems reasonably accurate.