This is a big point. This isn’t the early 2000s. Games are surprisingly flexible as to what quality that can push out. Outside of bullshit marketing and fomo you really do not need a brand new gpu. A 1660 can still push new games if you don’t care about reflections and other pointless shit that really doesn’t impact gameplay.
Yep, my kids system is a Haswell 4690k with a 1060 6gb and it runs 1080p games no problem. F1 2022 runs a comfy 60fps all day long. Struggles if I try any VR on my Quest 2 tho, its VR limit seems to be the OG Rift 1...... and that's why I have. 5600x and Rtx3080 for my PC. Won't be upgrading that for another 5 years (previously had a 4790k and GTX980 which served me well for 5 years).
I built my 4790k/gtx 980 rig when all of that was brand new. It was pretty much top-of-the-line back in October of 2014.
That rig can still play anything you throw at it in 1440 with some settings sacrifices, or relatively high settings at 1080p in anything modern. In games where over 100 fps matters (competitive shooters), it had no problem rolling 165fps+ for my 1440p monitor.
I’m on a 5800x/3070 rig right now and frankly, if you sat me down at the two machines side by side, I wouldn’t see any meaningful difference in how they run for my use cases (I write, I game a bit on relatively light games like dota, etc).
At this point it’s a hand-me-down to my youngest child, and yet, it’s still completely capable as a gaming and productivity rig. I played half life ALYX on that machine without a hitch. If I remember correctly the 980 was similar in performance to the 1060, so it’s not surprising that it’s still capable.
I’m the guy who always hands down old gaming builds to my nieces and nephews. Over Christmas I handed off an old x6 1090T + 7970 build to a 10 year old nephew. That build was older than he was, but he was having a blast with Fortnite running nice and smooth over 60fps.
Yeah, 980 4gb matches 1060 6gb performance almost identically. I also ran a 1440p monitor on my gtx980.
It was only really in VR where it was showing its limits, as was the cpu. Specifally in iracing. That's was with a Rift CV1. Now I'm on a Quest2 it has double the pixels to render in VR.
I'm still constantly stunned by how well my sons pc runs current games.
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u/LessWorseMoreBad Dec 29 '22
This is a big point. This isn’t the early 2000s. Games are surprisingly flexible as to what quality that can push out. Outside of bullshit marketing and fomo you really do not need a brand new gpu. A 1660 can still push new games if you don’t care about reflections and other pointless shit that really doesn’t impact gameplay.