Time to upgrade gaming rig,spend more to future-proof or just get best bang4buck now?

[malice19]

I managed to get a good GPU deal on a 6700XT, but my current gaming PC is showing its age and bottlenecking the GPU with my i5 6600k.

Have spent the past 3 days looking at the current tech on offer as been out of the loop for like 7 years and a lot has changed.
I'm after best bang for buck for a gaming system setup not work, but would like the option to future-proof if possible.

Looking at intel, i like the looks of the 13400f, but know this 1700 socket is its last.
so should i get a weaker 13400f for now and then years later upgrade to a higher performing 13th gen chip when it's cheaper and been replaced by next gen, or pay more now (high cost of DDR5 and AM5 motherboards) to upgrade to an AMD AM5 board that will allow me to keep my motherboard and have a longer CPU upgrade path?

Or spend less now on AM4 or 1700 socket (as the motherboards and ddr4 ram are a lot cheaper) and just stick with a i5 12600k or 5800x3d and just keep it for 5 years and then do a full upgrade of parts/system again?

Thanks for your time and help

[DanceswithUnix]

What sort of budget are you looking at?

The 5800X3D isn't a cheap option, and AM4 motherboards aren't as cheap as they used to be either.

I just bought an ITX A320 motherboard, and was irritated at the over £100 pricetag but I already had the CPU (a 2200G) to go on there and the case for it to go in so my hand was rather forced. So AM4 can be irritating too

Take a look at the 7600X benchmarks. The 5800X3D benchmarked really well, but it looks like part of that was because reviewers when that came out were all using a 3090 GPU and I wonder if the 3090 is what loves all that cache. It's a stonking chip, don't get me wrong, but a few reviews using other GPUs like the 4090 seem to like the 7000 series cpus.

Anandtech here are using a 6950XT, and in the benchmarks that matter like F1 2022 (because they have the lowest frame rates), the 7600X seems to be doing really nicely:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/18693...4-efficiency/9

A 7600X saves you some cash over the 5800X3D, which should help make up for the higher motherboard and DDR5 costs, and gives you the best platform for future upgrades.

[Saracen999]

.... but it looks like part of that was because reviewers when that came out were all using a 3090 GPU and I wonder if the 3090 is what loves all that cache. It's a stonking chip, don't get me wrong, but a few reviews using other GPUs like the 4090 seem to like the 7000 series cpus.

....

Not disagreeing with you, but the logic for using a top-end GPU when doing gaming benchmarks that I've seen is that some games are heavily dependent on sheer CPU, and others aren't being more GPU bound. By using something like a 3090, i removes the GPU element as the restricting factor showing a bit more clearly the impact of the CPU on tht game.

It does seem to me that it's very easy to take benchmarks at a superficial face value, when they should be interpreted in a more nuanced way. Benchmarking is something of a grey area .... or a black art!

I do know it gives me a headache trying to work out just what benchmarks are telling me.

[MrJim]

The idea of 'future proofing' is a bit of a misnomer really. There's always something faster coming out before very long, after all. Your 6600K is now about seven & a half years old, so trying to put together a system now that will still be very capable in that sort of time-frame in the future is almost impossible, not to mention expensive! Your budget really is key, I think - if you're looking at the 5800X3D as a possibility, I guess your budget is fairly high?

On the subject of budget, I personally wouldn't go down the AM5 route just yet. Even the fairly basic motherboards are around £300, I believe. And there's the extra cost of ddr5 too, although admittedly the gap in price between ddr4 has narrowed quite a bit.

My preference would be to buy whichever cpu & motherboard best suits your budget now, with a view to upgrading again in 2 or 3 years, if necessary (depending on the games you play, the resolution you play at and the visual quality of games you're happy with).

This video might help in your choice?

[DanceswithUnix]

Not disagreeing with you, but the logic for using a top-end GPU when doing gaming benchmarks that I've seen is that some games are heavily dependent on sheer CPU, and others aren't being more GPU bound.

I get that. My point was that the old top of the range GPU is no longer top of the range, and the new top of the range GPU seems to behave a bit differently.

It's still early days so can't say for sure. The problem is that reviewers tend to stick to the same setup to avoid having to re-do all their benchmarks every few weeks (which is fair). So CPU benchmarks tend to all happen against a 3090 still. Similarly GPU benchmarks seem to often happen against a 5800X3D, because it used to be the bees knees CPU. It will take a while before we start seeing enough reviews of eg 7600 with a 4090. But it looks like a 7600 can drive a 4090, so any mortal GPU should be fine for gaming.

On the subject of budget, I personally wouldn't go down the AM5 route just yet. Even the fairly basic motherboards are around £300, I believe.

I was thinking that until I looked last week. Motherboards start at more like £180

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GB...dp/B0BKL4JJD8/
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...sb-32-gen2-atx

though add another £100 if you want PCIe5. That compares to about £140 for a B550 motherboard, so call it a £40 more for AM5. You can get cheaper on AM4, but then you are probably down to PCIe 3 and slower USB ports which is the opposite of future proof

Quick look at basic Crucial ram, and 32GB of DDR5 is £125 vs £80 for DDR4, so £45 more for DDR5. If you only want 16GB, then that's less painful again.

So overall you can save maybe £100 by going AM4, but then it isn't really a fair comparison as the AM5 board will have things like 2.5GbE networking that if you add on to an AM4 board takes you up to about the same price.

Hence if it was my money and I was looking at the 5800X3D, then I would get the better newer motherboard and the higher bandwidth ram on AM5, and spend £100 less on the CPU by dropping to 6 cores. It trades blows in benchmarks now for the same money, and will still be current in a few years time. I only went for the 5900X cpu here recently because I already had a motherboard that would take it, so that gives this system a last hurrah.

[[GSV]Trig]

I'd, at this point, and unless anything you need is specifically Intel based, would look at an AM5 rig to give you the option to support other CPU's that support that socket down the line.

However, that brings with it DDR5 as well as other things that aren't cheap so might be out of the realm of what you are willing to spend.


You 'could' just get a better, used CPU for your existing board, whatever it is, and then hold off for a while until AM5/DDR5 prices come down and then get something?

[MrJim]

I was thinking that until I looked last week. Motherboards start at more like £180

Ah right, I was looking at X670 board prices. Was forgetting that the B650 chipset was a thing

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Intel B660/B760 motherboards start at £150ish if you want a PCI-E 5.0 graphics card slot,whereas you need to spend over £200 on a B650E if you want the same with AMD. The B650 only needs to support PCI-E 4.0 for the graphics card slot and M2 slot.

A lot of B650 motherboards only have PCI-E 4.0 on the M2 SSD slot,and many lack any sort of PCI-E 5.0 so you are limited to PCI-E 4.0 entirely. Some have PCI-E 5.0 on the M2 slot,so you really need to check you are not being shortchanged. The B650 is a pure cashgrab for people not bothering to do some research. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole personally,because I would expect PCI-E 5.0 on the card slot for close to £200. For a platform touting longevity,its quite clear it is already limited.

If Intel could do it last generation for B660/Z690 motherboards,I can't see why AMD all of a sudden want to gate it off under £200.

Personally I would make sure you have PCI-E 5.0 on the graphics slot because future mainstream dGPUs are more likely to go to PCI-E 5.0 8X speeds,as Nvidia/AMD push up their ranges,and you will lose performance. The M2 slot is less important IMHO.

It's even worse for mini-ITX motherboards. I have seen Z790/B760 motherboards with PCI-E 5.0 starting at £200ish. The cheapest B650 mini-ITX I have seen available starts at £265 and is entirely PCI-E 4.0!

Also the Ryzen 7 5800X3D does very well in games unfriendly to AMD,such as Fallout 4 where it is faster than a Zen4 CPU!

If you can wait,perhaps see how the Zen4 X3D CPUs look in the next few weeks. If not I would get a Core i5 13600KF. It can be had on offer for under £300,and the advantage it has are the 8 E-cores,which massively help in multi-tasking. If any game were to hammer six cores,the Core i5 will have 8 Skylake level E-cores to handle the background tasks. The 8 cores seem to perform more like a downclocked Core i7 9700.

Remember,the Intel CPUs can be used in much cheaper DDR4 motherboards too,and if you get a B660/Z690 motherboard with a suitable BIOS you can save even more money.

If I was buying now I would get this:

ASRock B760M Steel Legend WiFi mATX ~ £168

https://www.cclonline.com/90-mxbl70-...rboard-404129/

Has PCI-E 5.0 for the main graphics slot.

Core i5 13600KF~£290

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte..._across_google

So around £458.

If you look at the AMD setup:

Ryzen 5 7600~£230

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-...cie-50-65w-cpu

ASRock B650E PG Riptide WiFi ATX Motherboard ~£250

https://www.cclonline.com/90-mxbl00-...5-cpus-397875/

That is how much it costs to get a motherboard with PCI-E 5.0,for the card slot with AM5! So around £480 for the AMD setup.

Considering AMD is now admitting the gimped A620 is most likely going to start at £120~£130,the whole platform does not look that great value at the so called "entry level" price.

Also it's get worse when you consider the Core i5 13500:
https://www.cclonline.com/bx80715135...cessor-400099/

That can be had for around £240ish and is basically the Core i5 12600K for less money with 8 last generation E-cores instead of the 4 on the Core i5 12600K. The Ryzen 5 7600 does appear to be between 5% to 10% faster overall in gaming,but it is thrashed in non-gaming applications. But it gets even worse,if you intend to multi-task,game stream,etc where the Ryzen 5 will start to hit problems quicker.

[[GSV]Trig]

Was there a load of videos a few years back about how a GPU wouldn't saturate PCI-E 3 let alone anything faster?
Not sure how relevant that is with the 4000 series or above.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD have done an Intel by just gating features unlike in the past and being greedy with the original CPU pricing(Zen4 has terrible sales):
1.)A620 starts at $120/£120 - no overclocking and all PCI-E 4.0 if we are lucky! PCI-E 4.0 has been available on sub £100 motherboards for a while now.
2.)B650 starts at £170 - all PCI-E 4.0! Features of an £80 motherboard for over 2X the price. Is literally like taking the B450/X470 and calling it a B550 last generation.
3.)B650E starts at £250. Finally a truely "next generation" chipset with a next generation feature set. Costs more than the X570 started at,and more than the B550. Should start at £75~£100 less,because Intel can offer you a PCI-E 5.0 slot for well under £200. Would be the current generation equivalent of the B550.
4.)X670 - starts at £250. Notice how the "cheaper" B550E costs the same?
5.)X670 - starts at over £300.

It was the same with the CPU pricing,they made the lower tiers rubbish pricing to push higher sales. Exactly what Nvidia is doing with the RTX4000 series. Zen4 sales are poor,hence why AMD emergency rushed out the non-X series CPUs,but the platform is a ripoff. They also did the same with the RX7900XT which at best should be an RX7800XT and much cheaper. The RX7600XT literally looks like it will be an RX6600XT but with a design change to RDNA3.0,a slight die shrink and slightly faster GDDR6. I expect it will be over £300 too.

Also so what if the platform supposedly lasts longer? Last time AMD lied through their teeth and attempted to lock out B450 motherboards out of upgrading to Zen3,when it was the only mainstream chipset for Zen2 for nearly a year,and it took a huge backlash to force their hand. There is no promise AMD will even support Zen5 on the B650 motherboards,as technically the X3D are another generation. It should in theory happen,but you can never know(unless they have said so and I missed it).

If I can spend less on an Intel motherboard,I can either get a faster CPU for a similar overall price,or get a cheaper CPU and pocket the money to upgrade a bit earlier with a fully new platform.

Was there a load of videos a few years back about how a GPU wouldn't saturate PCI-E 3 let alone anything faster?
Not sure how relevant that is with the 4000 series or above.

Not any more because AMD and Nvidia are cutting down the bandwidth on the PCI-E connectors on entry level and mainstream dGPUs and pushing up the pricing and saving on power consumption and die area which means more profits for them. An RX6600/RX7600 series dGPU only has a PCI-E 4.0 8X slot,and so does the RTX3050(and most likely the RTX4050 and potentially the RTX4060). The RX6500XT only had a PCI-E 4.0 4X slot.

On top of it these dGPUs have a narrower and narrower memory bus,and VRAM increases per generation have stagnated. Hence it's more likely we will see system RAM being used in certain scenarios.

You can see Nvidia literally pushing up dGPUs even more tiers. What is also ironic is that by cutting the PCI-E bus on cheaper dGPUs,it makes them more vulnerable to PCI-E bus speed than higher end dGPUs which have a full speed interface and more VRAM.

The RX6500XT lost nearly 15% of its performance on average. But what this does hide is some extreme examples affecting both the RX6500XT and RX6600XT.





The RTX3050 also has a PCI-E 4.0 8X bus,but seems to be affected far less than the AMD cards AFAIK.



Now think the next generation,or the generation after that? The mainstream cards will be on PCI-E 5.0 4X and 8X,so you could have situations where performance could tank enough to be similar to a previous generation card. Maybe a £300 RTX5050 or RX8500XT with a PCI-E 5.0 4X bus with a 96 bit bus and 6GB of VRAM(if the GPU pricing madness keeps happening).

But the issue is it's impossible to test all games,so you will never know when this will hit and reviews won't be testing games in both configurations.

These sort of reductions in performance are going to be generally more than the difference in a Core i5 13600KF/Core i5 13500 and a Ryzen 5 7600 in most games.

I mean if the B650 motherboards were closer to £100 it might be an acceptable compromise,but they are closer to £200. This is what the X570 started at and introduced PCI-E 4.0! If Intel since the last generation can offer PCI-E 5.0 main slots on all B660 and B760 DDR5 motherboards,there is no excuse for AMD to only offer it on B650E motherboards which are very overpriced.

It's even worse with the cheaper AM5 mini-ITX motherboard being a B650 one costing £265 and it is PCI-E 4.0,whilst I have seen Z790 and B760 mini-ITX motherboards starting at £200 having PCI-E 5.0,and also being cheaper. AM5 has some of the worst motherboard pricing I have seen for any platform in years.

Even the A620 looks like it will start at "only" $120,ie,£120. AMD have become Intel in terms of motherboard pricing,and just lopping off features.

I won't be touching AM5 with a bargepole until they introduce PCI-E 5.0 card slots as a standard feature on ALL sub £200 B series AM5 motherboards,and when they actually have B series mini-ITX motherboards start at under £200.

The Pandemic has made all these tech companies incredibly greedy,and it's showing how sales are tanking now. People are not seeing value,especially as many have pushed forward purchases. Instead they are trying "we will sell less,but at higher margin" argument. Nvidia already has had to write off over a billion USD. Shame it seems only companies like Dell must be getting a good deal on dGPUs,not us DIY PC builders.

[Percy1983]

The 6500xt is a mobile chip hence the 4x connection which suffers then on PCIE 3.0.

But 4x @ 4.0 = 8x @ 3.0, so it would run fine on 16x @ 3.0 if ti was properly designed.

Likewise, 8x 4.0 = 16x @ 3.0, so in theory the 6600 could have been fine.

So it isn't GPUs running out of bandwidth on PCIE 3.0 but not all lanes being used, so GPUs aren't over saturating PCIE 3.0 as such.

By all means I am not disagreeing on get the highest standard, but I would be worried about being 'stuck' on PCIE 4.0 for a while as we are a long way off over saturating that.

With that I do agree AMD current boards/processor prices is a mess and if I was looking to upgrade right now I would probably end up on a intel board with DDR4.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 6500xt is a mobile chip hence the 4x connection which suffers then on PCIE 3.0.

But 4x @ 4.0 = 8x @ 3.0, so it would run fine on 16x @ 3.0 if ti was properly designed.

Likewise, 8x 4.0 = 16x @ 3.0, so in theory the 6600 could have been fine.

So it isn't GPUs running out of bandwidth on PCIE 3.0 but not all lanes being used, so GPUs aren't over saturating PCIE 3.0 as such.

By all means I am not disagreeing on get the highest standard, but I would be worried about being 'stuck' on PCIE 4.0 for a while as we are a long way off over saturating that.

With that I do agree AMD current boards/processor prices is a mess and if I was looking to upgrade right now I would probably end up on a intel board with DDR4.

I am talking about the internal PCI-E bandwidth of the dGPU,and the reality is BOTH AMD and Nvidia are upselling chips which are in laptops as "premium" chips. The RX6500XT should have been an RX550/RX560 replacement! The RX6600 series is already not fine,when it can be worse than an RX5600XT which has less VRAM,because of the slow PCI-E link speeds. Review sites only have tested a relatively limited number of games,so there are probably others too.

I would extremely concerned being stuck on PCI-E 4.0,after spending nearly £200 on a "low end" AM5 motherboard,£200+ on a CPU and £150+ on some decent speed DDR5.

A bit different if you spent under £100 on some DDR4,under £150 on a motherboard,etc. That premium for the AM5 platform should include PCI-E 5.0,because Intel offers it from £150ish with its DDR5 motherboards.

But the issue is the RX6600XT is already showing some huge performance reductions using the 8X link. The similar performing RX5700XT lacks this problem.

Also look what is happening to the RTX4000 series. Nvidia rejigged the line-up:
1.)608MM2 384 bit bus AD102(RTX4090)=628MM2 384 bit bus GA102(RTX3090TI/RTX3090/RTX3080TI/RTX3080)
2.)379MM2 256 bit bus AD103(RTX4080)=392MM2 256 bit bus GA104(GA103 never found it to desktop so RTX3070TI/RTX3070/RTX3060TI)
3.)295MM2 192 bit bus AD104(RTX4070/RTX4070TI)=276MM2 192 bit bus GA106(RTX3060/RTX3050)
4.)190MM2 128 bit bus AD106(RTX4060TI/RTX3060)=128 bit bus GA107(RTX3050)

If you look at the relative performance of each tier against the top end,the relative amount of shaders or even the die size,its quite clear this is another Turing moment but on steroids. The RTX3060TI has gone from using the second tier dGPU in the line-up to the fourth tier. Relative to the top end the RTX3060TI will be closer.

It also means,we will have lower end laptop dGPUs,which usually don't have much VRAM,limited memory bandwidth and usually cut down PCI-E line size,now pushed up to over £400!

AMD so far:
1.)Navi21(RX6950XTRX6900XT/RX6800XT/RX6800)=Navi 31(RX7900XTX/RX7900XT).
2.)Navi23(RX6650XT/RX6600XT/RX6600)=Navi 33(RX7600XT/RX7600?).

But the problem AMD has also done an Nvidia to a lesser degree. The RX7900XT in pure specs,relative performance,etc is in-between an RX6800 and RX6800XT relative to the RX6900XT. It should be an RX7800/RX7800XT and be priced a few £100 below the RX7900XTX.

Navi33,is basically a smaller version of Navi 23 with the same amount of shaders,slightly higher clockspeeds and slight higher clocked GDDR6. It wouldn't surprise me if it is barely 20% to 30% faster than an RX6650XT and costs more. So maybe RX6700XT rasterised performance for a slightly lower price but with less VRAM and better RT performance.

What's happened is basically the top end is where the biggest generational improvements are,and even though technically each tier has similar improvements,they pushed them up a tier. In the case of Nvidia now the low end linearly scales to the top end in price/performance which is not what usually happens.

So for the average gamer,you totally will be getting gimped dGPUs upto £400,with limitations to VRAM and PCI-E link speed. The issue is what happens with the RTX5000/RX8000 series and RTX6000/RX9000 series,if this upselling keeps happening.

This is why I am not joking when the RTX6050 and RX9500XT end up being £300 dGPUs,with 6GB of VRAM,a PCI-E 4.0X link and 96 bit memory bus. If gamers allow the nonsense with the RTX4000/RX7000 series to stick,it will happen.

Nvidia is already selling the RTX4050 in £1000+ laptops with a 96 bit memory bus. The RTX3060 in those very same laptops was using a 192 bit memory bus. This is why Nvidia is desperately copying TVs,to include insertion of fake frames,ie,a good way to pump up POS dGPUs sold for premium prices.

This is why ironically now,the gamers who most need PCI-E 5.0 card slots will be mainstream gamers.

But the reality is Intel can offer PCI-E 5.0 on its DDR5 motherboards,but AMD expects you to spend another £100 extra. Cynical upselling from AMD.

All of these companies have probably lied about the impact of the Pandemic and Mining on their sales and AFAIK indicated it was due to other reasons. Now both are waning,now they have to make up on their promises to shareholders. Gamers are paying the price in even more cynical market segmentation.

[Percy1983]

Hopefully with the slow selling of current gpus they might get the message we aren't miners.

The problem is now with Nvidia it seems the same money gets you the same performance each generation with the top end just getting faster and more expensive.

For more than a decade you could buy at the same price point (+inflation) and get a better GPU each generation.

So I agree if people keep buying then yes the future looks very bleak.

[DanceswithUnix]

Was there a load of videos a few years back about how a GPU wouldn't saturate PCI-E 3 let alone anything faster?
Not sure how relevant that is with the 4000 series or above.

Right now it's OK, but in the lifetime of the AM5 platform it will likely show up in benchmarks. There are two possible problems here:

1/ The x16 slot on a high end motherboard often shares lanes with another PCIe slot (specially if you have an ATX board). So, if you plug a card into that x8 slot, then those 8 PCIe lanes are stolen from the main GPU. This is because you only get 24 lanes on an AMD cpu. 16 of those go to the GPU, 4 go to each of a pair of M.2 SSDs, 4 go to the chipset and oh look... we're already up to 28

2/ Budget GPUs use very narrow PCIe busses. This wouldn't matter if they had a lot of vram, but they are budget GPUs so they don't.

So if the only card you ever plug into your PC is a GPU, and it is one with lots of vram because you read the reviews and noted the 1% etc benchmarks, you are probably fine with PCIe4 for years to come.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hopefully with the slow selling of current gpus they might get the message we aren't miners.

The problem is now with Nvidia it seems the same money gets you the same performance each generation with the top end just getting faster and more expensive.

For more than a decade you could buy at the same price point (+inflation) and get a better GPU each generation.

So I agree if people keep buying then yes the future looks very bleak.

The tiers are having good improvements,but as I surmised they are just using the node improvements and rebranding the tiers upwards. Plus you just have to look at JHH spinning to investors that,he basically does not want to price reduction cards,that Moores Law is dead,etc. Basically saying to them he will be jacking pricing up. But at the same time late last year,Nvidia had to write off over a billion USD. Since we as gamers are not getting these discounts,it seems to me PC companies such as Dell,etc are getting them.

It just shows you how these companies perceive gamers. But sadly,just like in the actual PC gaming industry,with too many gamers validating predatory monetisation practices,there are too many PCMR Whales,who will pay the money due to FOMO.

Right now it's OK, but in the lifetime of the AM5 platform it will likely show up in benchmarks. There are two possible problems here:

1/ The x16 slot on a high end motherboard often shares lanes with another PCIe slot (specially if you have an ATX board). So, if you plug a card into that x8 slot, then those 8 PCIe lanes are stolen from the main GPU. This is because you only get 24 lanes on an AMD cpu. 16 of those go to the GPU, 4 go to each of a pair of M.2 SSDs, 4 go to the chipset and oh look... we're already up to 28

2/ Budget GPUs use very narrow PCIe busses. This wouldn't matter if they had a lot of vram, but they are budget GPUs so they don't.

So if the only card you ever plug into your PC is a GPU, and it is one with lots of vram because you read the reviews and noted the 1% etc benchmarks, you are probably fine with PCIe4 for years to come.

The issue if the tiers had been maintained there would be less of a problem,but when we have what is the RTX3050 replacement being promoted to an RTX3060TI replacement with a price increase there is your problem!

Just look at the relative specs:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-4060-ti.c3890
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...rtx-4090.c3889

The RTX4060TI has 26.5% of the shaders,28.6% of the memory bandwidth and 31.25% of the die size of the RTX4090. It also only has 1/3 of the VRAM.

Compare this to the RTX3060TI :
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-3060-ti.c3681
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-3090-ti.c3829

46.3% of the shaders,47.85% of the memory bandwidth and 64.2% of the die size of the RTX3090. 1/3 the VRAM of the RTX3090.68% of the performance of the RTX3090 at qHD:
https://tpucdn.com/review/nvidia-gef..._2560-1440.png

RTX2060 Super compared to RTX2080TI:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...60-super.c3441
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-2080-ti.c3305

50% of the shaders,72.7% of the memory bandwidth and 59% of the die size of the RTX2080TI. 72.7% of the VRAM of the RTX2080TI.64.5% of the performance at qHD:
https://tpucdn.com/review/nvidia-gef..._2560-1440.png

The RTX4070TI is basically 71% of the performance of an RTX4090 at qHD:
https://tpucdn.com/review/asus-gefor..._2560-1440.png

An RTX3070 was 77% of the performance of an RTX3090 at qHD. So the RTX4070TI is really an RTX3060TI or RTX3070 tier graphics card.

Now look at the RTX3050:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...050-8-gb.c3858

24.4% of the shaders,23.9% of the memory bandwidth and and 31.85% of the die szie of the RTX3090(if using the GA107).1/3 the VRAM of the RTX3090.

The RTX3060TI has far more memory bandwidth too than an RTX4060TI.

So you have stagnation in VRAM increases under £500. The memory buses are getting narrower. The PCI-E link speed is getting smaller. Yet,AMD is doing an Nvidia and making sure the entry level for PCI-E 5.0 on AM5 is £250!

[DanceswithUnix]

Also so what if the platform supposedly lasts longer? Last time AMD lied through their teeth and attempted to lock out B450 motherboards out of upgrading to Zen3,when it was the only mainstream chipset for Zen2 for nearly a year,and it took a huge backlash to force their hand. There is no promise AMD will even support Zen5 on the B650 motherboards,as technically the X3D are another generation. It should in theory happen,but you can never know(unless they have said so and I missed it).

I've just been on the other side of that.

I wanted to put my old 2200G that was sat around idle into an ITX case that was doing nothing and make use of some spare DDR4. Easy? No, most lowish end boards out there are B550, and they don't support 2000 series. I was hoping to get one of the around £100 B450 boards you used to be able to get, but they no longer exist or have to be shipped from abroad at huge cost and delay (I wanted it fairly soon).

I ended up with an A320 board of all things. It was £105 and I resented paying that much for A320, but that seems to be the market we are in right now.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D82X4B9

Interestingly, because of the backlash you mentioned, I could put my 5900X in that old A320 board and it would work (which is actually quite impressive). But a 2200G in a B550 board? Nope.

Edit: Won't go in an A520 board either.