• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

What's your GPU upgrade threshold?

What is the minimum boost of your choice?


  • Total voters
    76
Can't reach the POST screen with any 7900XT.
On an AM4 board? Something abnormal's going on, that's for sure.

Why don't you consider 4070 Ti Super?
 
I'll never again buy new GPU since my limit for a PC part is $300 and now that is like $99-150 peformance not so long ago.
Anyway my route was (not including ATI/AMD cards since i never hold them longer than weeks, too many issues for me)
Voodoo Banshee
Geforce GTS
Geforce 4200
6600 GT
8800 GT
GTX 550 Ti
GTX 760
GTX 1060
RTX 3070 now
 
I voted at least 2x, but it's never been that specific. When I was younger and poorer, upgrades didn't happen until my current card couldn't handle what I was trying to play. In more recent history, I'd grab something new when an appreciable lift could be had for around USD200, new or used. That threshold is up to $250 these days, but the only thing I've picked up near that point so far is an A750 strictly out of curiosity.

I'll never again buy new GPU since my limit for a PC part is $300 and now that is like $99-150 peformance not so long ago.
Anyway my route was (not including ATI/AMD cards since i never hold them longer than weeks, too many issues for me)
Voodoo Banshee
Geforce GTS
Geforce 4200
6600 GT
8800 GT
GTX 550 Ti
GTX 760
GTX 1060
RTX 3070 now
Hey, I also went Banshee > G92 > 550 Ti. Bounced to AMD after that for two trouble-free cards (GCN, Polaris). Wheels came off after that cuz folding.
 
Can't do like that anymore as I have budget threshold, I can't justify paying 2/3 of my salary on GPU even if it gives double performance
Nvidia puts the most common upgrade cycle period at 3 years, that's $27 to $54 per month for the 4070 Ti / 4090. And you can still get some of that back, maybe 35%, and down to $20.
 
I mean, how much more performance your not yet purchased GPU should provide compared to your older one for that to justify the effort.
At least 50% more
E.G every 2 generations like 5700 XT to 7700 XT
or 2070 to 4070
 
  • Like
Reactions: N/A
Nvidia puts the most common upgrade cycle period at 3 years, that's $27 to $54 per month for the 4070 Ti / 4090. And you can still get some of that back, maybe 35%, and down to $20.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: N/A
None of the "thresholds" (is that even a thing?) apply to me.

I'll keep using my 1080 until it malfunctions and only then will I buy a new gpu.
 
Nvidia puts the most common upgrade cycle period at 3 years, that's $27 to $54 per month for the 4070 Ti / 4090. And you can still get some of that back, maybe 35%, and down to $20.
At least while this AI boom continues I think the xx90 cards are going to continue to maintain a surprisingly high resale value just due to the memory. Look at how stable 3090 resale values have been. Everything else tends to pretty roughly track to some percentage under what the cost of a current gen card of equivalent performance is.

Fingers crossed I can snag a 5090 FE at launch and sell my 3090 FE while values are still high.
 
On an AM4 board? Something abnormal's going on, that's for sure.

Why don't you consider 4070 Ti Super?
Because my setup requires AMD main, nVidia secondary/none.

So yeah, excellent idea. If I wanted to get into an endless RMA nightmare, I would have picked the 4070 Ti Super right from the start where I would need a new PSU, monitor and very specific batch of dual HDMI+DP SKUs that don't even exist until you get into the 4080 price bracket or drop all the way back to some insane vanilla 4070 ~$966. At that point the 16-pin connector tax is gone but then performance, projected memory size and speed are an issue.

My current power supply is fine for what I use and I'm NOT prepared to dump $200+ into a PSU with the 12VHPWR fad only to deal with another headache that costs the system and my image. It likely blows after a week or month then getting into more revolving door $$$ drama trying to get a stable PSU while I sit here helpless. No. My creator apps don't make use of nVidia technologies outside NVENC and RT, which I don't care about. If I JUST wanted NVENC, I'd grab a $100 Tesla P4 or drop $200 on a 5700XT and done, which also isn't happening for obvious reasons. I'm looking to spend more because I need the raster, FP64 and dual encode in my primary workstation. I'm not looking to drop a 4070 into a side box that delivers half the performance at an insane price and that's IF it gets here, probably on camel. You know damn well it's getting lost after day 1.

1728809041600.png
 
When i get bored... sometimes its even a sidegrade like my previous (4080 to 7900XTX)
Same here.

But if I wanted to be sensible, I'd say at least 50%. That's what you need to notice the difference without an FPS counter on screen.
 
None of the "thresholds" (is that even a thing?) apply to me.

I'll keep using my 1080 until it malfunctions and only then will I buy a new gpu.
Honestly, probably the most based take in the entire thread. Both minimizes the production of e-waste and gives time and opportunity to play anything on the backlog, if games are a concern. Not like anyone same should be in any hurry to play modern graphics intensive slop on release.
 
I choose 50 - 100 % performance uplift. Before i will Change gpu, unless i run out of vram first that is.

With current pricing of gpu's, its not a cheap upgrade any more. Specially for us going for cards like rtx 4080/4090. So there needs to be a significant upgrade performance to spend that much money.

I still fondly remember when i could get 3 gtx 285 for 1 gtx 1080 ti price. Those days are long gone. Back then it was relatively cheap to upgrade gpu often. But not today, that was a time before Nvidia turned to Ngreedia. Off cause inflation also raises gpu prices, but not to this high prices alone. Just look from rtx 3080 to rtx 4080 price mark up. That was like an increase of 500 usd increase for just 1 gen of gpu. Totally nuts.
 
For me it has to be meaningful unless other factors in play. Solely for the gaming it has to have substantial difference. I would say 50% more is the minimum but I would go for double the performance. Lets say 80%-100%
 
I aim for around double the performance for GPU upgrades, if possible. Although there would be enough options available for upgrading from my 2070, non of them feel like its really worth it (at least to me) in therms of cost per frame as there seems to be something missing (4070 has too little vram, 7800XT lacks in RT performance and partially in software).

-8800GTS 640
-HD 4850
-GTX 570
-GTX 970
-RTX 2070
 
Honestly, probably the most based take in the entire thread. Both minimizes the production of e-waste and gives time and opportunity to play anything on the backlog, if games are a concern. Not like anyone same should be in any hurry to play modern graphics intensive slop on release.
There's no e-waste here. I tend to reuse whatever I can in other systems. What I can't will find a new home second-hand. Everything is good for something. I encourage everyone else to adopt a similar approach.
 
I would have picked the 4070 Ti Super right from the start where I would need a new PSU, monitor and very specific batch of dual HDMI+DP SKUs that don't even exist until you get into the 4080 price bracket or drop all the way back to some insane vanilla 4070 ~$966. At that point the 16-pin connector tax is gone but then performance, projected memory size and speed are an issue.

I mean as long as you put a modicum of care into making sure everything is connected properly, the included 8-Pin to 12VHPWR works just fine.

The ASUS TUF 4070 Ti Super has the 2x HDMI 2.1a you need at $849 and is properly available in stock.

Not getting any POST at all with (it sounds like) multiple 7900 XT cards sounds rough though regardless of anything else. Have you tried manually setting the PCIe gen to 3.0 on the motherboard to see if that helps?
 
i put 50% but thats not what drives me its more of wating for 50% drop in price for a second hand card i all most never buy new for egg my 3080 was new about £900 but i payed £270 14 months old job done.
 
It was less before, but now it's 80-120%.

HD3650
HD4850
HD7770
RX460
RX580
2070 Super

Rx580 and 2070 Super was such a good buy, that now I 'need' a 4070 Ti Super but that almost costs a grand here.
 
Last edited:
Sorry, my tiny foreigner brain can't comprehend this. Read it a dozen times and can't make sense of it. May I ask for English to Simple English translation?

Something along the lines of 2070S to 4070?

XFX 390X
 
That was before I assume. What happened after?

Yes before i waited about 12 years haha, in fact i might not get another v card but if a 1440p panel pops up at 40" i be wanting that hehe.

edit With a higher refresh rate than 60 :p. OOps i got a RX6950
 
Last edited:
I used to upgrade my GPU based on TW releases. I got shafted by Nvidia when I first started this so it has been all AMD. I went from budget 6800 1GB to mid grade 7950 3GB to mid Polaris Rx580 to high with Vega 64 back to mid grade 5600XT then to high again 6800XT and now 7900XT and it is the first time since I started this where I feel I do not need an upgrade. Each of those has given me noticeable improvements in performance with some caveats. My favourite time other than now was probably Vega 64 Crossfire. TW Games supported Crossfire and that made for ultimate size Armies. The 7900XT is actually that good. I can use RT or whatever else but all Games are so smooth that I am going to build a huge Subway network in City Skylines as soon as I finish typing this. I bought a 4K 144hz monitor when I had my 6800Xt so the 7900XT was that much more of an improvement to me. Before people get excited I play at high as Ultra just makes more noise to notice when I am playing AMS2?
 
When will be a 4070ti 150-200% better GPU out, which gen should it be ? Between 7070 or 9070 ?
 
50% was generally good enough for me. This might change depending on who ships cards with how much memory next gen. I might get Battlemage even if it's slower than 4080 if it gets 24-32GB in some sort of a "Limited Edition" like A770 16Gig was at launch (only Intel and ASRock) because for genAI VRAM is everything. I'm certainly not upgrading to 5080 even if it's significantly faster, which I doubt anyway, and with all the rumours regarding Blackwell I might well get priced out of 5090, cause $2500 for a videocard I do not have. Used 4090s might be another option though.
 
Back
Top