Advice on buying first high-end video card to play @ 4K

[Gravestone Doji]

Basically new to gaming and looking for a little help with buying my first video card.

Listed below are the parts bought so far (from Microcenter) for a new system build.

After doing some research it's become evident gaming at 4K is too much of a GPU load for most video cards to handle.

I originally set a budget of $750 and the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XT can be had for that price at NewEgg. Just not sold on buying this brand or buying from NewEgg.

Any help on which online retailers are best to purchase from or any other suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks.


ASUS AMD Based Value BareBones PC Building Kit (+ a few fans and CPU air cooler)

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X

G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6000 PC5-48000

 

[KickAssCop]

Wait for RTX 4080 Super releasing next week. Budget is 1000$.

 

[Gravestone Doji]

Wait for RTX 4080 Super releasing next week. Budget is 1000$.

Thank you, it looks, well... Super!

Which retailers would you suggest buying an RTX 4080 Super from, after it's released?

 

[LukeTbk]

After doing some research it's become evident gaming at 4K is too much of a GPU load for most video cards to handle.

Now I am not so sure what you are trying to do exactly, what the monitor-tv you plan to game with ?

It depend which game-setting and if you are ready to upscale or not (if you seat at a good distance of a tv, upscaling from a good native resolution to 4k will most likely be perfectly fine most of the time and that the very high end gpu a la 7900xt can do).

Many game will be an issue at the highest setting at 4k for gpus (some game/setting will be an issue at 1440p even for the 4090), but it depend what you play and the hardest to run game will always now come with nice upscaling option (FSR, dlss, Unreal and other engine in house solution), it is near certain, engine always been made for it in mind for the console world and now for the pc world as well, so if it was to play on your nice Television I would necessarily assume it will not work.

I would consider ther 7800x3d instead of the 7700x for the $50 difference at microcenter, specially if you go for 1440 higher fps gaming instead of 4k, the cache can help in a surprising way in some game that we could have thought otherwise were fully gpu limited:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d/27.html

Specially if it is mostly for game that there a need for the cpu to be the best around, it will still better than about anything that existed not so long ago at everything else but there a bit of a lower frequency for application for the price to pay.

Which retailers would you suggest buying an RTX 4080 Super from, after it's released?

It is not necessarily about buying a 4080 super once it launch (maybe availability at MSRP and review will show it is a good option), it can be also a price cut on the 7900xtx which could push down the 7900xt at the same time (but maybe not for the last part, the price already having been push down already by the 4070 super and ti super refresh)

 

[Gravestone Doji]

Now I am not so sure what you are trying to do exactly, what the monitor-tv you plan to game with ?

I'll be using my Dell G3223Q 32 Inch 4K Gaming Monitor bought two years ago on Black Friday deal.

Also have a TLC 6 series 65" 4K TV but not sure I would use that for PC gaming.

Thank you for the excellent info and suggestions. I found it very helpful and will wait to see what happens with the 4080 super once it launches along with the 7900XTX and XT series.

I don't really have a preference between AMD and Nvidia. Probably because I've never bought a gaming video card before. So I don't have a bias towards one brand and I'm sure asking which is better would open up a $h1t show.

 

[GoodBoy]

Thank you, it looks, well... Super!

Which retailers would you suggest buying an RTX 4080 Super from, after it's released?

Best Buy, Microcenter. If you can find it at newegg and a fair price, they should be ok. I steer clear of newegg for anything else though. Walmart sometimes gets stuff in stock in the online store.

An FE (Founders Edition) from BestBuy would be my go-to if I was in the market for a GPU.

 

[NattyKathy]

I don't really have a preference between AMD and Nvidia. Probably because I've never bought a gaming video card before. So I don't have a bias towards one brand and I'm sure asking which is better would open up a $h1t show.

The easy answer is "if you want to use a lot of Raytracing, get NVidia- if not, get AMD"

 

[KickAssCop]

Thank you, it looks, well... Super!

Which retailers would you suggest buying an RTX 4080 Super from, after it's released?

You can possibly pick up the 4080 super direct from nvidia website and/or bestbuy who will have FE cards. Otherwise, newegg typically has stock at MSRP first few days. I am assuming demand for this particular card will be highest so be ready at 9 AM PST on the day of release. If I were you, I would check in at 6 AM PST as well just in case.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

4090 or 4080 super.

 

[Gravestone Doji]

The easy answer is "if you want to use a lot of Raytracing, get NVidia- if not, get AMD"

Thank you. I looked into this and read a little about Raytracing. It sounds very cool and interesting. But being new to gaming I don't know how much it matters, or whether I would notice that much in certain types of games like flight sims and RPGs.

 

[DooKey]

Thank you. I looked into this and read a little about Raytracing. It sounds very cool and interesting. But being new to gaming I don't know how much it matters, or whether I would notice that much in certain types of games like flight sims and RPGs.

If you keep are going to keep your new GPU for the next several years, it's probably a good idea to buy the card with the best RT performance at your budget level. RT will become more and more prevalent in games as time goes on. If you plan on frequent upgrades RT capability will take care of itself every upgrade.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

If you keep are going to keep your new GPU for the next several years, it's probably a good idea to buy the card with the best RT performance at your budget level. RT will become more and more prevalent in games as time goes on. If you plan on frequent upgrades RT capability will take care of itself every upgrade.

This is what i was going to type, but DooKey already did.

 

[LukeTbk]

Thank you. I looked into this and read a little about Raytracing. It sounds very cool and interesting. But being new to gaming I don't know how much it matters, or whether I would notice that much in certain types of games like flight sims and RPGs.

Would not stress that much over it, by the time it ever matter a lot and not in the Unreal game has it always on sense, you will be due for an upgrade regardless, would be my guess.

Going from no gaming to play 4k-144hz monitor on pc, will be quite the jump regardless.

 

[GoldenTiger]

If you keep are going to keep your new GPU for the next several years, it's probably a good idea to buy the card with the best RT performance at your budget level. RT will become more and more prevalent in games as time goes on. If you plan on frequent upgrades RT capability will take care of itself every upgrade.

Well said. Other than cost there's no reason not to go for the 4080 over the 7900XTX. It's a wash in raster and way faster in raytracing plus has better frame generation support (crucial for flight sims like ms flight simulator which he expressed interest to in).

It also has better upscaling through dlss, Cuda support if he wants to dally in more than just gaming later, etc. Raytracing is only going to become more important, not less, with time. Nvidia drivers on the whole just plain work, too, compared relatively to AMD ones.

Yes, amd has stepped up a bit in the past couple of years, but it's still behind in bugs and features. There's a reason amd is considered the off brand and value brand, not "the best you can buy".

 

[vjhawk]

Thank you, it looks, well... Super!

Which retailers would you suggest buying an RTX 4080 Super from, after it's released?

For the 4080 Super, if that's what you're set on you can find those on sale at sites like Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, and from Nvidia.com itself for the "Reference version" card which is sold directly by Nvidia.

For many people the reference version usually feels premium.

It's kind of sketchy that Nvidia competes against its own AIBs but there's no denying they usually sell a very solid video card.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

For the 4080 Super, if that's what you're set on you can find those on sale at sites like Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, and from Nvidia.com itself for the "Reference version" card which is sold directly by Nvidia.

For many people the reference version usually feels premium.

View attachment 631011

It's kind of sketchy that Nvidia competes against its own AIBs but there's no denying they usually sell a very solid video card.

While the Nvidia founders cards are very solid all around I just dislike the aesthetics (subjective opinion) of it. To me it's more of a stealth build card where you dislike any lighting at all. I like the subtle glow of the Dragon the MSI Gaming X for example where the founders looks boring to look at for me which again is my subjective taste. I would however, grab a founders to slap a water block on it even though I still ended up blocking the Gaming X lol