I haven't bought a new graphics card in years. And I don't have a feeling of missing out, either.

Could some of my new games (looking at you, CP2077) maybe run on a little higher settings? Sure.
But that doesn't bother me, as long as they look good and run great.

Could a more modern graphics card handle the newest bells and whistles (aka: modern raytracing, etc)? Sure.
But I don't need those.

The "buy a new graphics card every two years, to not fall behind" phase?
As far as I am concerned, it's long over.

And honestly: it probably won't return. Not for me, anyway.

So basically rebranding one series into another is something new?
I mean, when I got the GTS 250 (2009-2015), I knew it was a rebranded 9800+, but I was coming from a little 8400 that I had for that computer's first year (2008-2009) because I couldn't afford more at the time. Before that it was Geforce 2 Ti (2002-2008), before that S3 Virge (1998-2002), and before that a Trident (1992-1998). Since 2015, no dedicated video card, just the integrated graphics of a Pentium G3440, so anything would be a huge upgrade :))
If I had to get a card now, I'd likely look at a plain 1650, requiring no power connector. But most likely stick to integrated.

Replacing every couple of years, not to mention every year, is just irresponsible, financially, environmentally or in any other way.

I wouldn't be surprised if I kept using my 2060 Super until at least the 60-line of cards or whenever it'll die on me. ;) Plenty good for all the games I want to play at 1080P, old or new.

Overall tech-improvement in the PC hardware space tends to be more of a frivolous pursuit these days than actually bringing real impactful change as far as I'm concerned. My semi-high-mid tier gaming rig of 3 years is still going strong, and I don't see that changing much even for the next 3.

It'll be interesting to see how long I can keep it going until I feel like I need to upgrade. By that time I may have to buy a whole new machine anyway due to needing all-new parts for hardware compatibiliy-sake. *shrug*

Before spending hundreds of dollar on new hardware you should have researched a bit, instead of buying just based on the name of the product.

I mean you only had to check some review to see that the 3060 this generation was quite weak compared to the 2060 or 2060 Super: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-3060-gaming-x-trio/30.html

The only nVidia x60 card with decent price/ performance in the past ten years was the 1060*- and they even managed to stuff that up by having the 1060 (3GB) which shared its name but was a different chip, and was rubbish. 2060/S was at least the only 2000 series to be a decent value upgrade option, but that's damning with faint praise considering how bad value the rest of the series was.

*Funny thing is, about 6 months ago the 1060 (6GB)/ 580 you bought 6ish years ago had the same price and price performance as a card in 2022. Quite possibly the best value buy ever.

^^^This. Please don't use userbenchmark people, you'll only encourage them.

that's preaty bad if results are being manupluated with userbenchmark
makes it much harder to compare.

Very rarely should anyone buy a GPU card from one-gen...and then buy the next gen. GPU, especially in the same class number with the back few numbers - i.e. 2060 to 3060.

If you're doing this - you want to jump from say 2060 (Regular) to either 3070, 3080 or 3090.

Even worse - you're going from a 2060 SUPER to a 3060, which is more or less that the 2060 Super's were really 2070's that they did a few things with & re-branded.

The most you'll get out of that is the VRAM increase from 8GB VRAM (on the 2060 Super) to 12GB VRAM (3060). Sure, the VRAM will help in some games that want to eat VRAM for breakfast, such as RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, WD: Legion (these games, I can't max-out with my RTX 3070 b/c it wants more than the 8GB VRAM on the GPU) - but you ain't gonna get much difference from performance numbers.

I remember when my neighbor had a GeForce 2 and went and bought the GeForce 3. Not much performance difference, so he returned the GF3. Didn't like it. Not much has changed, to this day - if you're staying in the same class, you buy normally a few gen's later and/or when the gen change is systemic.

All my desktop cards and PC's:
- GeForce 2 MX 400 (Compaq PC)
- 1 GB VRAM on the GeForce GTX 560
- 4gb VRAM on the GeForce GTX 960...then to GTX 970 (b/c 970 was so cheap, friend sold it to be dirt-cheap for $100)
- 8gb VRAM on the RTX 3070