I'm considering upgrading my graphics card from a GTX 970 to an RTX 3060. My current PC specs include an i7 6700k CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a HX 750 PSU. Since I haven't built a PC in nearly a decade, I'd love your opinions on whether this upgrade makes sense. I plan to play Marathon and some indie games at 1080p 60fps. While I can run these games now, I'm feeling the limitations in graphics. Also, I know the 3060 may be close to the performance limit of my CPU; would it still be a worthwhile upgrade?
4 Answers
Your i7 6700k might hold back the 3060 a bit, but overall, you should see a notable performance boost. If you're using DDR4 RAM, you could also look into picking up a budget motherboard and a CPU like a Ryzen 5 5600. Just something to think about since you only want to start with the GPU upgrade for now.
Go for the upgrade! The 3060 will definitely enhance your gaming experience. You can consider upgrading your CPU later on for even better performance.
You can expect about 2x to 2.5x the FPS with the 3060 compared to the 970.
The RTX 3060 should give you more than double the performance and includes AI and ray tracing cores. Whether that’s important to you is the question!
That's true—back in the day, people paired the GTX 1080Ti with the i7-6700k. Just keep in mind the RTX 3060 has less overall rasterized performance than the 1080Ti.