I'm using a Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 and considering an upgrade, but I'm trying to keep the additional cost below €100. I found a used ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 for around €80 and expect to recover roughly €60–70 by selling my Vega 56. Would that be a meaningful upgrade? I also can't flash a Vega 64 BIOS onto this card.
3 Answers
You probably need to increase the budget quite a bit before the upgrade becomes clearly noticeable. A GTX 1070 Ti or GTX 1080 may be inexpensive, but neither is a major step up from the Vega 56. A used RTX 2070 Super around €130–150 could be a more sensible target, especially after selling your current card.
A GTX 1080 isn’t really a worthwhile upgrade from a Vega 56. It’s from the same general generation and the performance difference is usually too small to justify the hassle. With your budget, you’re mostly moving sideways from one older card to another. It would make more sense to save for something like an RTX 2070 Super, an RTX 3000-series card, or a used RX 6000-series GPU. Used RX 6600 and RX 6650 XT cards are worth watching too.
Would putting the €100 toward a CPU upgrade make more sense? I’m currently using a Ryzen 5 3600—would a Ryzen 5 5600 or 5600X make a noticeable difference?
The best move may be to keep the Vega 56 for now and wait. Newer budget cards such as the Intel B580, or used RX 6600, RX 6650 XT, and similar cards, can provide a more worthwhile jump at 1080p. Under €100 after selling your current card, there probably isn’t an impactful option yet.
Even a regular GTX 1080 is too close in performance to count as a meaningful upgrade here.