Hello everyone,

A few months ago I had created another thread asking your advice on getting a better graphics card for my PC and most people suggested I get a Radeon RX570.

The thing is, this card is now nowhere to be found in my country :) at least not in a logical price.

So now I would like your advice on another card, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti - 4GB.

I can get it now at a price of 165 euros. Is it worth it?

To clarify, my main specs are:
-Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3
-CPU: AMD FX 8350
-PSU: 600W Thermaltake (Bronze)

As you see it's not a shiny new PC, but it still serves me pretty well for the games I play. Also, I know that as time passes by, it will be even more difficult to find a card for this PC, which I want to keep for a few years to come.

So what do you think?

P.S. My current graphics card is a GeForce GT 730 - Silent - 2GB, so you can imagine that all these years I've been gaming with a media player :)

Its definitely an upgrade to your current one. The current GPU crisis pumps the price higher than it should be IMO though.

I agree, prices are not very good. Is this "crisis" going to end in the foreseeable future or something?

My main concern is not that I absolutely need the card right now, but that later I may not find a suitable one for my PC.
I could spend more and get a GTX 1650 which is easier to find, but that one will be held back by my CPU for sure so there's no point investing.

Another option is to get a Sapphire Radeon RX 550 4 GB, at about 90 euros. Is that an option I should consider? I mean, are the extra 75 euros for the GTX 1050 Ti worth it instead of getting the RX 550?

I see, thanks for sharing. So your opinion is that I should better not bother investing right now, but when I build a new PC after a few years. I'm OK with that, but still I could use a tiny bit extra performance in the graphics department :)
Should I get a RX 550 for 90 euros and be done with this PC for the next 5 years or so?

edit: By the way, what do you do with old CPUs and motherboards when you don't need them anymore? Out of curiosity. I just put them in a big box and let them gather dust for decades.

I know this is a double post, so apologies.

It's so hard to find good data on the level of bottleneck a FX-8350 has on a GTX 1650 - according to pc-builds, it's only 3%, but other sites suggest it's 20%+.

The RX550 isn't great, so personally, I'd spend the extra cash:

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-AMD-RX-550/3649vs3925

bitcoin mining made prices way too high , imho just wait it out

btw it is entirely up to what games do you want to play at what vid res and frequency

if you want fhd + 60fps for new shooter games then you will need a better card than rx 570

You probably picked the worst time possible to consider a GPU upgrade :). But I guess I'm in the same boat since I want to switch to AMD for better performance on Linux and can't find any reasonably priced mid-tier card at the moment.

I'm assuming you're planning to game on Windows, so it doesn't really matter much what you go for as long as you can buy it :).

An RX570 would have been great.

That being said, the 1050 Ti is not a bad card either, though quite a bit worse when compared to the RX570. I did finish my first run of the Witcher 3 on a 1050 Ti @1080p with Medium/High settings and got a very fluid and enjoyable experience from it - this is just to give you an idea what it can do for you, ergo something you could have never dreamed of on a 730.

A 1650/1660 would be even better if you can find either of them, depending on your budget. Bootlenecking is so much dependent on the workload/game as well, that any estimation you find on various sites can only give you a rough ballpark. I would not go for anything that performs worse than a 1050 Ti. It's just not worth it. The newest Intel Xe integrated graphics line is already reaching those levels of performance (1030/RX550).

Is not that bad (the gddr5 version) and the prove is that you are using it :)
The 1050Ti is still a very good card but kinda overpriced at 165€.
The Rx550 is on level with the gt1030. Not great but usabe, 90€ is a bit steep though.

I'm currently building a pc, while looking for a GPU, some people said they will receive small batches in 2-4weeks, while others mention that the market will normalize no sooner than April/May. Since older cards are not produced anymore there will be very few options.

I would wait for the new 3050 cards wich are a big step up in performance and the price shouldn't be too far from the 165€ the 1050Ti (wich is 4 or 5 years old).

Honestly, it depends on how much money you have to spare. If you've got the spare cash and don't need it for anything else, then go for the upgrade.

Old CPUs and motherboards - I've actually got my FX-8350 sat in a cupboard. I probably need to look into how to dispose of it safely!

"bottleneck level", as you call it, is a non-issue with the gtx1650. Some games will be limited by the CPU indeed while others do not. Cities Skilines can be hard to get past 60fps even on a Ryzen 2600, while Rime can only be played at lower settings at 60fps on the 1650 (to my big surprise). Keep in mind not every one only plays AAA titles, those websites mention "bottleneck level %" serve no real information.

The site you recomend to compare cards is quite dubious.
https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus?amount=0&sortBy=SCORE&reverseOrder=true&types=DESKTOP&minRating=0
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
While not perfect, those 2 provide way better information.

Damn mining :)

Well, FPS gaming is certainly not what I'm into. I'm slowly reaching to that conclusion as well. When I build a new PC (at least 4-5 years from now) I would be curious to check an AMD Ryzen with integrated graphics, they seem to improve drastically with every generation (both AMD and Intel). Thanks for the update, I'm not keeping up with GPU news for years now. I took a peek in the 3050 specs and they mention PCI-ex 4.0. Will that be compatible with the PCI-ex 3.0 on my motherboard? Will it even be supported by my motherboard? :) If the pricing is what you mention, I am interested for sure (but is there any official pricing announced?).

What do you need it for?

If playing fancy new games, you'll save a bundle getting something like Stadia or GeForce Now if available in your area.

If you need it, you'll have to get whatever you can afford. But it'll be a bad time to buy one for another year or so, I'd imagine.

I need it mainly for adventure games and metroidvanias (I usually don't play other games). So, in general, my requirements are not sky high. Besides games, I could use the extra performance for the occasional OpenGL coding, but still with no super requirements.

As for game streaming, I'm completely against it. It will kill gaming as we know it, but this is a discussion for another thread :)

It should be compatible with your current board with very little to no performance penalty.

Nothing official yet but scaling the current lineup, it should sit below 200€ with performance (3x the numer of cores the 1050ti has) probably similar to a 2060.