My son does a lot of gaming on his Windows 10 PC, mostly in Steam. He has asked me for a new video card for Christmas. I don't know a whole lot about cards these days, so I started a spreadsheet. I got all of my tech specs from:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gtx-1660-super.c3458

The top row is the card that he currently has, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER. The card he says he wants is a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. I see that the bus width (which I assume is the number of bits of data passed per cycle) would be decreasing from 192 bit to 128 bit. Would this introduce any sort of new bottleneck?

I'm leery about spending this kind of money on something I don't really understand well and would appreciate any advice I can get. I would hate for him to start using his new card and have it not perform any better (or noticeably better) than his old card. Thanks

Spreadsheet:

You're going to get much better performance overall than a 1660 super, but the 4060 underperforms compared to the current market. However, if he's playing at 1080p, that won't matter as much, AND he will also be able to utilize DLSS if FPS becomes an issue as newer more graphically advanced games come out. To answer your question, he won't see a performance dip.

Check out the relative performance charts in the link below:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-4060-gaming-x/31.html

Check the physical dimensions to make sure the new card will fit in his case. I got a ASUS Tuff 4080 Super yesterday and it's physically much larger than the 1080 Ti it's replacing. So much so that I need to get a new case.

This is a side by side comparison.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/4850vs4159/GeForce-RTX-4060-vs-GeForce-GTX-1660-SUPER

A used 3060 or 3070 imo is best cost to performance right now until 5th gen hits depending on games he plays. Jawa guarantees the cards as long as you check it within a few days of getting it. LTT recommended them a while back and they do have great deals. Stay away from 4th gen, its not worth buying.

$230 for 3060 w/ 12gb vram
$310 for 3070 w/ 8gb vram
https://www.jawa.gg/shop/pc-parts-and-components/geforce-rtx-3060-geforce-rtx-3060-ti-geforce-rtx-3070-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-gpus-lowest-price-nvidia~24986f-269327-40fe54-4d0f3f-5e3f8-5e481-7088f

Sell the 3060/70 when 5th gen hits and upgrade to a 5060.

The 4060 is not a good card, but there really isn't anything that good in the sub 300 range.

The new intel B580 looks to be a good value but unless you are a tinkerer with a second system are the driver up to snuff yet? probably not.

I'd say that the best bet would be the 7600XT.

If he can be patient and wait till march/april it may be worth saving up christmas money and a getting a 5 series card or an 8 series AMD. it will be a gamble but i think they will be better off. That being said that is a much harder thing for kids to do. I know i wouldn't have been able to.

AgDev01 said:

---

The new intel B580 looks to be a good value but unless you are a tinkerer with a second system are the driver up to snuff yet? probably not.

---

I'm in the market for something in the sub-$300 range, and i'm not making any moves until i see some real-world testing of the new Intel ARC Battlemage gpus. On paper, they look great for the price, allegedly outperforming the 4060 for $249.

As long as you don't play any games where it just won't work. I expect it to be a pretty good value. I know the drives have greatly improved but apparently there are some games that still have significant issues and day 1 performance seems to be worse from what i recall. Either way the more players in the market the better.

I am also interested to see at what prince point AMD lands at on this next generation. Their stated goal is market share on the low-mid points which means they better go hard on the price.

aggieforester05 said:

---

Check the physical dimensions to make sure the new card will fit in his case. I got a ASUS Tuff 4080 Super yesterday and it's physically much larger than the 1080 Ti it's replacing. So much so that I need to get a new case.

---

Did you find any deals or just paid list for it? I have been looking for months now and 4080 supers just do not go on sale.

They probably won't at this point. Nvidia stopped making them pretty early and I'm guessing supplies are pretty low at this point. May be better off just waiting till the 50 series.

Yea, you wont really see retailers discount the limited 4000 cards until 5000 series hits. They have no reason too at the moment.

Great card for the price.

spieg12 said:

---

aggieforester05 said:

---

Check the physical dimensions to make sure the new card will fit in his case. I got a ASUS Tuff 4080 Super yesterday and it's physically much larger than the 1080 Ti it's replacing. So much so that I need to get a new case.

---

Did you find any deals or just paid list for it? I have been looking for months now and 4080 supers just do not go on sale.

---

I bought mine for list price from Best Buy and felt lucky to get it. I'd been looking for days and the only place I found them was Amazon and Ebay. Ebay prices were higher than Giraffe Booty and Amazon had long shipping delays. Best Buy was out of stock but then one popped up and I went for it. They delivered it to my house the following day. 4070 Ti Supers are plentiful, but 4080 Supers and 4090s are few and far between. No reason for anyone to offer any deals when the demand is greater than supply.

Also these big cards take three PCI-E power cables. They say you can get away with a pigtail for one, but it's better to have three separate cables. Likewise my I9-14900K needs two cpu power cables. I'm waiting on those extra cables to come in before I finish my build.

AgDev01 said:

---

As long as you don't play any games where it just won't work. I expect it to be a pretty good value. I know the drives have greatly improved but apparently there are some games that still have significant issues and day 1 performance seems to be worse from what i recall. Either way the more players in the market the better.

---

Seems promising

Aint worth saving less than $100 vs a competing AMD/NVIDIA card to put up with intel driver and compatibility issues for years.

Just depends on the games you play. Kids who play fortnight and minecraft, guys who play CoD or FIFA exclusively? You should be just fine.

Play a lot of DX9 games and old RPGs, probably not. Personally I would consider buying one but unfortunately one of the games i play the most - Kenshi - doesn't get along with it.

Reviews that i have seen have been great.

This is good news all around. The worst case is now they are a price anchor to keep AMD prices in check rather than being compared to Nvidia., which bodes well for the 8000 series prices.

With EVGA gone if the 8800XT looks good i'll be buying my first non-nividia card in probably 25 years.

The Radeon RX 7600 XT finally came, and it works great. My kid is floored by how good/smooth Sons of the Forest looks. Everything worked out great for us.