Have you just bought a brand new graphics card, chucked it into your PC and started
it up only to find that your performance isn’t what you thought it was going to be?
Well, you’re not alone as that’s the problem that I faced a few months back.
Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel...It’s all about having a balanced PC!
There is no point spending all your money on the best graphics card you can afford
if the rest of your PC can’t keep up.
So, I went out and bought the Ryzen 5600X. A CPU
that’s generally regarded as the best bang-for-buck CPU that you can buy.
So, how will it pair up with a nVidia 3060 Ti graphics card?
And what happens when you pair that card with an underpowered CPU?
Welcome to my Tech Gear - Let’s Find Out!
Now I bought the 3060 Ti card as it was the best bang-for-buck card in nVidia’s 3000 series
of graphics cards. I’ll get to how it compares to the other cards in the series later in the video.
The MSI Ventus 2X OC variant that I got was a dual fan, slightly over-clocked version,
as it easily fitted into the NZXT H500 case that I have here.
Likewise on the CPU front, the Ryzen 5600X is also classified as the best bang-for-buck CPU that
you can buy. A mid-range CPU that in benchmark tests, at 1080P gaming, outclassed Intel's halo
Core i9-10900K, whilst also being $190 cheaper at only $300 / £280 ! That’s amazing value for money.
Call of Duty: Cold War is an awesome game that makes great use of ray-tracing and DLSS
so it’s going to be able to really push this combo
and show what modern graphics cards are capable of, or not.
Just comparing the native resolutions against each other in Cold War,
it’s plain to see the difference between 1080, 1440 and 4K. There is a clarity at 4K,
and even 1440, that is missing at 1080. In comparison, 1080 just looks bad.
How much you notice this will depend on the screen that you play on though. I recorded the
gameplay hooked up to a 4K TV, and edited it on a 27” monitor. At those sizes, and resolutions,
you definitely notice the difference. If you’re playing on a 1080P smaller monitor though
then it is going to be far less noticeable.
Frame rates at 4K typically sat around 70 fps, which whilst acceptable, were significantly
lower than those at 1440 and 1080, which showed frame rates of 112 and 140 fps respectively. So,
4K is playable, but not for competitive gameplay where higher refresh rates are more important.
It’s 1440 that is the sweet spot for me here between resolution and frame rate.
Enable RTX on these cards and frame rates drop significantly.
Approximately 40% across all resolutions. RTX absolutely changes the game in graphical detail
here though. There’s more realism to shading and sun rays that really add to the cinematic feel
of a lot of games. If your card can handle it then I’d thoroughly recommend playing with it on,
as long as your frame rate doesn’t take too much of a hit.
Unfortunately, the 3060Ti, at 4K, drops down to 45 fps, and for me that’s too low.
1440P drops to 65, which is borderline, and even 1080 is dropping down to 78 fps,
and I don’t think the drop down to 1080 is worth it to get RTX.
Fortunately, DLSS is here to save the day. Well, sort of. DLSS allows the graphics card
to render at a lower resolution and then upscale using some fancy neural processing
that makes it look at though it’s being rendered at the native resolution.
At 1080 it really doesn’t make much of a difference, but at 1440 or 4K, it definitely does,
with an additional 5-6 frames per second being squeezed out of the graphics card as a result.
Different games will see a bigger, or smaller, impact with this enabled,
and it does depend on what setting you have DLSS set to (I had it set
to ‘Performance’ for these tests). I would definitely enable it if you can.
One thing that you definitely don’t want is an overheating graphics card,
or CPU, otherwise it will start throttling performance. Fortunately both performed well here.
The 3060Ti was definitely being pushed to its limit with the high graphics setting at
both 4K and 1440 resolutions, seeing 99% utilisation of the card. The frame rate
was consistent though and I didn’t notice any significant drop-outs in performance.
Temperatures for the 3060Ti never went above 70 degrees,
and the Ryzen 5600X happily sat around 55-60 degrees. Both were easily within thermal
limits and happily sat within those ranges for extended periods of time. So, no issues there.
I should point out that I’m not using the stock CPU cooler though as I have a Deep Cool
Gammaxx GT Air cooler. However, if you’re not overclocking it (and I haven’t here),
then the stock cooler it comes with should be fine.
eSports titles, like Apex Legends, are a completely different kettle of fish.
These types of games are pretty much purely reliant on the graphics card.
The Ryzen 5600X, playing Apex, saw utilisation never get higher than 17%.
Compare that to Cold War, where CPU usage was up to 50%.
Even the graphics card is under less stress too as the focus of
the game is on high frame rates rather than graphical realism.
As a result, there are high frame rates generally all round, with 4K on high graphic
settings down to 1080P on low graphic settings ranging from 100 to 289 frames per second!
You can pretty much play at whatever resolution you want here with this combination..
I actually wouldn’t bother playing at 4K though. I honestly don’t see
any significant benefit that it adds to your gameplay compared to 1440,
so I’d recommend sticking with that, if you can. 1080 is fine, it’s just clearer at 1440.
Now I did exactly the same set of tests when I originally reviewed
the MSI card earlier this year when it was paired up with a Ryzen 2400G CPU,
and comparing the results isn’t as clear-cut as you might think.
Cold War, as mentioned earlier, demands far more from both the graphics card and the CPU.
The CPU therefore plays a crucial part in being able to achieve good performance. So,
pairing the 3060Ti with the Ryzen 5600X yields far better results than when paired with the 2400G.
In most cases there is a doubling of the frame rate coming from the 5600X
than with the 2400G. That is a massive difference!
Switch over to Apex Legends though and it’s a completely different story. As the game itself
doesn’t really tax the CPU, so the difference between the two combos is negligible. Yes,
the 5600X definitely yields a higher frame rate, but it’s nowhere near as significant a difference.
So, what should you take away from all this?
Well, a 4K card this is not. Yes, it can render at 4K, but it’s generally not happy doing it.
There’s only 8GB of VRAM here too and for Cold War I had to up the VRAM usage to 90%
to help prevent artifacting in some test cases.
Ray tracing also significantly impacts performance here, even with the help of DLSS,
because of how much it’s forcing the graphics card to do,
games are still playable with it enabled though, albeit at reduced frame rates.
Where this card is happiest is 1440P gaming. It’s the ideal compromise between picture
quality and performance. It really isn’t that far behind 4K, and SIGNIFICANTLY better than 1080P.
To get this level of performance, even just last
year, would have cost you significantly more before these cards were released.
The 3060Ti is a great value card. A card that is
only 15% less powerful than the 3070 above it and yet 20% cheaper at $399.
Yes, the 3090 is the best graphics card you can get, but the price difference compared
to the 3060Ti versus the performance increase you actually get is just insane. If best-of-the-best
is your goal and money is no object, then go nuts! For everyone else, there’s the 3060Ti.
If I was going to push the boat out beyond the 3060Ti, I would look at the 3080 as
the next logical step up. The 3070 just isn’t a big enough jump to justify it.
I know that graphics card prices at the moment are a little nuts,
and I certainly wouldn’t recommend paying over the odds for one either.
Just wait til it all dies down a little bit before pulling the trigger.
Your CPU definitely has a bearing on getting the most from your graphics card.
You do have to be playing games that demand a lot from your PC to notice
though. Play Fortnite and you’ll probably be fine just getting the graphics card.
The Ryzen 5600X is the perfect partner for the 3060Ti. It is
never taxed to it’s limit and is easily able to cope within the cards limits.
Temperatures of both the CPU and GPU remained good throughout the testing as well.
All of this shows the signs of a well balanced PC. One that doesn’t need a
significant amount of power to run. - I run my entire rig off a 650W Power supply.
If you want good 1440P performance, or great 1080P
performance, then the MSI Ventus 2x 3060Ti and the Ryzen 5600X is a great combination to get.
It is easily the best bang-for-buck combo you can get and I thoroughly recommend you consider it
if you are in the market for either a new graphics card, a CPU, or both.
I’ll place some purchase links in the description down below if
you’re interested in purchasing either of these, or any of the other gear that I use.
Thanks for watching. I hope it’s helped you decide whether either of these are the right choice for
you. Do let me know in the comments down below if you enjoyed the video and found it helpful.
Too technical, not technical enough? Anything I’ve missed that you would
have liked to have known about? Again, let me know in the comments down below.
As always, please don’t forget to like and share it, consider subscribing if you’re not and….
see you in the next one!