- Always get the most GPU you can afford. Processor bottlenecks are real, but they're also a bit overblown. At the range you're in, more GPU power will mean more GPU power and you can always turn up image quality settings and not lose any framerate if you have a hard CPU cap.
Upgrade the rest of the system later and get more performance.
I'll be that guy. 😈
This has been the rule of thumb for a long time now. But there are so many qualifiers and exceptions to the rule, that I more oft than not, disagree with it.
We are at the end of the generation; Hell, RDNA2 cards cost more now than they did 6 months ago.
ARC needs ReBar. The under $200 Nvidia cards are all drastically underpowered. Under $200 AMD cards need PCIe 4.0 and are still drastically underpowered. Which leads us right back to the 6600 being the best place to spend the least while getting the most for his old platform. As
@Icepick concluded. The 6600 will be fully utilized when a platform upgrade occurs. Also, by the time it is at the kind of experience the 290 was providing at the end, replacing it will be with something better than an already 2yr old 6700XT.
I don't think CPU bottlenecks are overblown at all; it as always, depends on the games you play or plan to. And just what kind of a CPU limitation is happening. In the case of a Devil's Canyon i5, it will suffer every CPU limitation. You also can't simply turn up all the visuals anymore to leverage some types of CPU bottlenecks either, some have to be lowered. E.G. Ray tracing and crowd density and variety. Nor can turning up visuals speed up agonizingly long turn times in a sim. Or load times for the game. The GPU won't help with frame pacing issues like stutter, freezing, hitching, in CPU intense multiplayer matches. It won't help when the park you built is a slide show because of the CPU. Then there is assets failing to load and/or having jarring pop in because the CPU isn't just on the struggle bus. The struggle bus also has 2 flat tires and the check engine light is on.☠️ Better visuals won't keep you from having to turn off everything but the game. And possibly still have voice chat and audio issues.