Question EVGA GTX 1660 ti SC Ultra, enough for RDR2 @ 1440P?

[VirtualLarry]

I'm getting this for a friend, and a Westinghouse 32" 1440P 144Hz FreeSync monitor (monitor was $60 off, card was $50 off).

I'm going to give him the monitor, and ask him to pay for the video card. Which, coincidentally, his other PC has a failing GTX 1050 2GB, and his current machine that I recently gave him has a GTX 1650 4GB D5 card. So I figured with the upgrade of monitor from 1080P to 1440P, and upgrade the card on his new main PC (I assume?) with an i5 6500 in it to the GTX 1660 ti, then move the GTX 1650 4GB D5 card into the PC with the GTX 1050 2GB (failing), and then give me the failing card to refurbish on my own time, and try to fix it, and if so, give it back to him for another PC. (He has a few more in the wings.)

I just got the card from Newegg, factory refurb, for like $250 + $10 ship + $15 tax (MA, thanks guys), so it was like almost $280. Could have maybe bought a RX 5700 for not much more, I suppose.

Anyways, is the GTX 1660 ti a "1440P card", or could it be, with low or med settings? In RDR2 specifically. (I don't know if he has that game yet, but that's the performance target I'm aiming at.)

OTOH, am I being selfish here? I was thinking I would help him with a free monitor upgrade, and then he could upgrade his video card, and that would pay for swapping out the card in his older PC, rather than pay me to refurbish it, and have two PCs with GTX 1650 cards.

As I understand it, RTX 3060 / 3050 aren't releasing until later this year, after the 3090 / 3080 / 3070 release, so if he were to wait and buy one of those, he would still be waiting a while.

Also, would those be cheaper or much better than a GTX 1660 ti? (At least, they would probably have RTX? Fortnite is getting the RTX treatment, so I'm sure that "RTX esports" is going to be a "thing" soon.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Also, while I have your attention, how does the GTX 1060 6GB (previous gen) stack up to a GTX 1660 ti 6GB GDDR6 card? Can it also game @ 1440P, or is that just a no go for the GTX 1060 6GB?

 

[fralexandr]

1660 ti is ok at 1440, but 1060 is a 1080p card.

GPU 2019 Benchmarks - Compare Products on AnandTech

GPU 2019 benchmarks: Compare two products side-by-side or see a cascading list of product ratings along with our annotations.

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Red dead redemption 1440p high ~45fps

Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Graphics Benchmark

Launched on PC a year after it debuted on consoles, Red Dead Redemption 2 is still a big release that deserves a detailed benchmark analysis, much like...

www.techspot.com

The 3000 series should be ~1.5-2× the performance of the current gen based on nvidias announcement and if the 3070 releases at $500 the lower end cards shouldn't be too far off current gen release prices.

NVIDIA Announces the GeForce RTX 30 Series: Ampere For Gaming, Starting With RTX 3080 & RTX 3090

www.anandtech.com

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks for that link, @fralexandr . I was too lazy to look up benchmarks myself.

According to that, 1440P High, GTX 1660 ti gets 40/46, while GTX 1060 6GB is down at like 28. So that settles it. My friend is getting the GTX 1660 ti, to go with his 32" 1440P 144Hz monitor. (And he won't be enjoying RDR2 @ 1440P @ 144Hz until / unless he gets some higher-end Ampere card down the road.)

See, I originally bought the GTX 1060 6GB off of some user here on the FS forum for $100, after someone commented "nice price", and I thought that would be an upgrade for my friend with the failing GTX 1050 2GB card. (*Might have to swap in an after-market PSU too.)

But I had also given him my "total conversion" i5-6500 rig, which had a GTX 1650 4GB D5 card as kind of a starter GPU / place-holder. From GPU -scaling tests on YouTube, it seemed like that CPU topped out at GTX 1660 Super / GTX 1660 ti territory, at least in RDR2 and some others, as far as bottle-necks go.

So I saw a 32" Westinghouse yesterday, I think it was, a 1440P 144Hz monitor, sufficiently large screen, for around $250. Not so bad for new. Yeah, it's a budget brand, but all of the other "name brands" were like $350-$750 for something similar or smaller. (Also, "curved", which I'm not sure that my friend would be interested in.)

So I kind of shifted mid-move, to getting him the 1440P 144Hz display, which I told him about last night, so then this morning, I checked, and that EVGA factory-refurb GTX 1660 ti was still $250 + $10 ship (+ tax), so I bought that too to go with.

That's a lot just to give to my friend, so I thought that I would approach him, give him the monitor, and basically explain the need to upgrade the GPU to go with it to fully enjoy the performance of the new monitor, and then tell him that I got a deal on the GTX 1660 ti, and that I could sell it to him for what I paid, and do a card swap with his PC with the busted GTX 1050 2GB card, and do that rather than pay me to refurb it and toss in another GTX 1650 4GB card.

Edit: Good news, I was able to talk to said friend, they were definitely interested in the monitor, and they seemed to understand the need for a more powerful GPU than a GTX 1650 4GB D5 card to drive that thing, so they've agreed to make payments on the GTX 1660 ti, basically.

My friend is going to be psyched! I just hope that the monitor survives the trip across the USA to get to me. I thought about upgrading the shipping, I really should have, it was only $5 more.