I've been using this PC heavily for the past five or six years: Ryzen 5 3600, ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming II, GeForce GTX 1660 Super, 32 GB DDR4-2666, a 1 TB SATA SSD, an old 120 GB SSD, a 1 TB Seagate hard drive, and a Corsair TX750M power supply. I'm considering buying a used RX 6800 XT and moving to a 1440p monitor. Are there better used graphics card options I should consider? Also, is an OLED monitor worth the extra cost over IPS, and which 1440p OLED models would you recommend? I mostly play less demanding games, but my current system often struggles to reach 30–40 FPS at 1080p medium settings, and frequently stays below 60–70 FPS.
2 Answers
OLED is a major visual upgrade over IPS, especially in dark scenes and HDR content, because each pixel can turn off independently. Even SDR games usually look noticeably better. For 1440p OLED monitors, brightness is one of the main differences between models: cheaper panels may peak around 450 nits, while stronger options such as the Gigabyte MO27Q28GR can exceed 600 nits in some conditions. Mini-LED is worth considering if you want to avoid burn-in, since it can get bright and has no OLED burn-in risk, though its contrast and pixel response are generally not quite as good.
The RX 6800 XT is still a strong choice around $350 and should provide well over twice the performance of your GTX 1660 Super. Your Ryzen 5 3600 may become a limitation in some CPU-heavy or high-refresh games, but if your GPU is already sitting near 95–100% usage in the games you play, the graphics card is clearly the priority. You can always upgrade the CPU later to something like a Ryzen 7 5700X3D if needed.
That makes sense. In most of the games I play, the CPU is only around 40–60% usage while the GPU is maxed out, so I’ll probably prioritize the graphics card first.